Port Authority member: Budget seems ‘excessive’

By ED RUNYAN

runyan@vindy.com

VIENNA

Photo

Andres Visnapuu

The Western Reserve Port Authority’s newest member voted against the budget written by Rose Ann DeLeon, hired to run the port authority’s economic development arm, saying “performance-based targets” need to be established so that the port authority doesn’t “blindly” spend $287,550 this year.

The budget still passed by a 4-1 vote. Two board members were absent, and one board position is vacant.

Andres Visnapuu of Boardman, a Mahoning County representative who joined the board in January, said he finds every aspect of DeLeon’s budget “excessive,” especially the $194,350 for DeLeon’s payroll and benefits.

Visnapuu said part of his complaint is that he did not get to participate in a discussion of the budget before Wednesday morning’s meeting at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.

But as a former business owner, he also feels that a budget that calls for spending $287,550 in 2010 and only has revenue from the communities funding it is missing a “basic tenet of business: returns on investment.”

The budget doesn’t include any revenue other than the $325,000 per year being contributed by local government bodies.

“We need to get more for our money,” Visnapuu said. “We need to get results. We need to have performance-based targets. If the targets are met, then no problem. To spend and spend blindly, there is no real plan,” he said.

“I’m waiting to be impressed and hoping to be impressed. We’re spending $20,000 a month for a meet-and-greet operation — going out and saying, ‘Hi.’”

DeLeon said some of what Visnapuu wants will be spelled out when her business plan goes before the board for approval within the next month or two, and when Visnapuu participates in discussions about the business plan within the port authority’s economic development committee.

Port authority member John Masternick noted that Visnapuu missed an earlier committee meeting regarding the budget because of an e-mail mishap.

“We don’t expect to hit a home run on the first day,” Masternick said. “

It’s going to take at least a year to get an economic development deal. I don’t expect buildings to sprout up the first year.”

He added that for DeLeon to have already had some discussions on business expansion and creation after only two to three months on the job “exceeds our expectations.”

DeLeon, who earns a base salary of $155,000 plus incentives and health care, began work Dec. 10 and has given several reports since then in which she described her meetings with other area economic-development groups and getting established in her office in the Youngstown Business Incubator.

“We’re meeting with companies. People are calling us, bringing projects to us. The wheel is in motion,” DeLeon said in response to Visnapuu’s remarks.

DeLeon met with V&M Star, the Youngstown company preparing for a $650 million pipe mill expansion that will add 350 jobs. She discussed several types of assistance the port authority is offering to V&M Star — assistance the port authority is in a unique position to offer — to reduce V&M’s equipment purchase and finance costs.

Visnapuu said he is concerned that some of the port authority’s assistance involves ways companies like V&M Star can avoid paying sales taxes, and that takes away revenue from the local community and the state.