Specter of layoffs prompts anxiety

By Peter H. Milliken

Mahoning officials scrutinize finances

YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County commissioners say they’ll carefully study the county’s financial condition before they decide on layoffs of employees.

“I hope that our layoffs can be kept to a minimum, where they are right now, but it’s not something that we take lightly,” Commissioner John A. McNally IV said Tuesday.

His colleague, Commissioner David N. Ludt, said it remains to be seen how much of the federal economic stimulus package “trickles down to us.”

Ludt added: “We are being very cautious on who we’re laying off.”

The county engineer’s office laid off nine workers at the end of last year due to doubling asphalt and road salt prices and falling gasoline tax and vehicle license plate revenues.

The commissioners made their comments as management at the county’s Department of Job and Family Services continues to discuss with JFS’ four labor bargaining units a restructuring, concessions and potential layoffs in the wake of a $5 million reduction in state and federal funding.

McNally, who had earlier said some layoffs are almost inevitable at JFS this year, declined to comment on time frames for any cutbacks and layoffs there until the commissioners have more meetings with JFS management.

No layoffs have yet occurred at the Mahoning County JFS, but McNally observed that the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) and Hamilton County (Cincinnati) departments of JFS are laying off 300 workers each.

McNally had earlier projected 10 to 14 of about 300 employees at the Mahoning County JFS will be laid off this year.

“We’ll be looking at the budget here this month and in early March to figure out if any other cuts are needed in any other departments as well,” McNally said.

The commissioners made their remarks after John Paulette of Austintown asked them “to review every avenue in our county to try to avoid the layoff” and suggested workers would be willing to make concessions “to save somebody a job.”

“One of the more important decisions we had to make was cutting social service contracts that we have through our Job and Family Services program,” McNally said.

He was referring to $850,000 in savings the county’s JFS will achieve by terminating at the end of this month its contracts with agencies such as Goodwill and the Burdman Group, which serve disabled people, and Hope House, which provides supervised child visitation in domestic relations cases.

On Thursday, the commissioners endorsed an application to the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Violence Against Women, for a $400,000, three-year Safe Havens grant for supervised visitation programs.

If the grant application is successful, Hope House would use the money in partnership with the Sojourner House domestic violence shelter, the courts and others in Mahoning County, said Carol Bopp, Hope House director.

“We were cut from our JFS funds, and we’re scrambling to keep afloat,” Bopp said.

Although the county’s application for the DOJ grant has previously been denied twice, Bopp said she and others are “working fast and furious” toward a successful application “at this crucial time.”

The commissioners also approved spending an estimated $3,000 this year to send Judee L. Genetin, acting county JFS director, to Ohio meetings, seminars and conferences, where JFS funding cuts are being discussed.

milliken@vindy.com