Friday, July 23, 2010
By ED RUNYAN
WARREN
Trumbull County commissioners have agreed to place a 2-mill replacement levy on the November ballot to raise about $2.7 million more per year for the Trumbull County Children Services Board.
If the five-year replacement passes, it will cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $28 more per year.
It would raise about $7.6 million in 2011 and about $6.8 the next four years. It decreases because of the state’s phase-out of the personal tangible property tax in 2011, said Marcia Tiger, CSB director.
The following increases in the agency’s costs are responsible for the need for additional money, she said:
The agency will lose about $1.1 million starting in 2012 from two separate levies as a result of the loss of tangible personal property taxes.
A $500,000 cut in funding from the state that occurred last summer and is likely to continue because of the state’s ongoing financial problems.
A $300,000-year-year increase in the cost to provide mental-health services to children who have to be treated outside the county.
A $200,000 increase in the cost to keep children in their own homes. These costs are increasing because of poor area economic conditions and the agency’s need to provide additional financial help to those families.
The levy was first approved in 1986 and has been renewed several times since then.
A fact sheet provided by Tiger says the agency has reduced the number of employees since 2005 from 185 to 166, has had a 2.03 percent average annual increase in operating expenses since 2005 and held health care cost increases to 4.25 percent per year since 2003.