Mahoning County agencies explain spending overruns

April 3, 2010 at 12:08a.m.

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

YOUNGSTOWn

For a variety of reasons, many Mahoning County departments exceeded their budget allocations last year.

“By law, they [department heads, elected officials] should not be going over their allocation,” said Carol McFall, chief deputy county auditor.

A county commissioner said Friday that elected officials and department heads, however, need to plan now to stay within their budgets this year.

“Do what you’ve got to do and do it now” to stay within budget, Commissioner John A. McNally IV urged elected officials and department heads. “This shouldn’t be new to people. They’ve got to figure out how much money they have left to spend.”

Departments that significantly overran their budgets last year were the sheriff’s department, the juvenile court, the board of elections, the 911 center, the criminal division of the prosecutor’s office, the common pleas court and domestic relations court.

With employees in many departments taking 10-percent pay cuts in the form of one unpaid floating holiday every two weeks, overall general fund spending last year totaled $61.1 million, which was $1.7 million less than the $62.8 million the commissioners allocated in their permanent budget.

Faced with sharp revenue declines, the commissioners have allocated only $51.7 million this year.

The common pleas court received its additional money from unused Workers’ Compensation funds after the judges issued an order demanding a $2.4 million budget last year.

Having been allocated only $2,030,000 on Thursday for this year, the common pleas judges will discuss the budget in a closed-door meeting at 8:30 a.m. Monday, said Robert Regula, court administrator.

Department heads had various explanations for their overruns last year.

Sheriff Randall Wellington attributed his to the rare 27th payday in last year’s calendar, overtime to maintain staffing when deputies were ill or taking floating holidays and an increase in his liability-insurance premium.

With only $11.8 million allocated to him this year, the sheriff planned to close half the county jail and lay off one-third of his staff, but those plans are on hold pending approval of the federal court overseeing the consent decree that settled an inmate lawsuit on jail crowding.

Prosecutor Paul J. Gains wasn’t sure exactly why his criminal division exceeded its budget, but he said it could be due to unforeseen expenses for extraditions or witness travel.

Twelve hours worth of unpaid floating holidays for his staff every two weeks is his strategy for staying within his budget this year, which is $1.7 million for the criminal division and $800,000 for the civil division, Gains said.

At the juvenile court and its detention center, expenses rose last year due to rising employee health-care costs and the cost of overtime to cover for positions made vacant by layoffs, said Anthony D’Apolito, court administrator and magistrate.

With continuing cost cuts, including a 5-percent pay cut for employees and reduced travel to seminars, it’s “very plausible” the court will live within its $5.5 million budget this year, D’Apolito said.

Another contributor to the court’s ability to stay within its budget this year is that unemployment costs for the 11 people the court laid off last year have ceased, Judge Theresa Dellick observed.

McFall said she believes most of the cost overruns are in payroll, where employees can’t legally be denied pay for time they’ve already worked.

She said, however, the county will refuse to authorize new purchase orders for departments that have exceeded their budgets.

Much of the additional money commissioners have authorized for various departments in years past came from unused relief funds the Veterans Services Commission returned to the county’s general fund each fall, McNally said. He added, however, that a reduced allocation to that commission this year likely means less money will be returned this fall.

Ideally, McFall said she’d like to see any returned money accumulated into a rainy-day fund for the county similar to the one that has financially stabilized Trumbull County government.

At the end of last year, Trumbull’s rainy-day fund was about $10 million.

2009 OVERRUNS

What some major departments in the Mahoning County general fund were allocated in 2009 and what they actually spent:

Sheriff

Allocation: $16.3 million Actual spending: $17.3 million

Juvenile court

Allocation: $5.5 million Actual spending: $6.2 million

Elections board

Allocation: $1.3 million Actual spending: $1.4 million

911 center

Allocation: $800,000 Actual spending: $891,966

Prosecutor (Criminal)

Allocation: $2.1 million Actual spending: $2.2 million

Common pleas court

Allocation: $2.1 million Actual spending: $2.3 million

Domestic relations court

Allocation: $790,000 Actual spending: $846,170

Source: Mahoning County Auditor’s Office