Jail deal elusive for city, county

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

milliken@vindy.com

CLEVELAND

Youngstown and Mahoning County officials are still trying to reach an agreement concerning jail operations and funding.

Officials again met behind closed doors Monday for a 31‚Ñ2-hour mediation session, which was facilitated by U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster.

“People are still trying to work something out,” said George J. Tablack, the county administrator, who declined to comment further.

Commissioner John A. McNally IV declined to identify what obstacles remain in the way of an agreement, but he said the county budget will be a key element in any such agreement.

“The most important step is going to be the commissioners’ passing a budget,” McNally said, adding that the commissioners plan to meet Wednesday to adopt a permanent 2010 budget in the county courthouse basement, most likely at 10 a.m.

Wednesday is their deadline to pass that budget. To date, the county has been operating on temporary budgets.

“I would imagine just about every department and elected official’s budget seeing substantial cuts,” McNally said. He added, however, that he does not believe every department will be cut by an even across-the-board percentage.

County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains declined to comment on Monday’s session or on the negotiations between the city and the county.

Youngstown city officials who participated in Monday’s mediation session, including Mayor Jay Williams, could not be reached to comment late Monday.

Iris Torres Guglucello, city law director, however, said Friday evening that city and county officials were trying to agree on an arrangement whereby the jail would remain open and city misdemeanor inmates would be housed in it.

An agreement, under which the city paid the county $80 a day for each city misdemeanor inmate in the county jail after its 71st inmate, expired in February.

Due to the county’s recession-induced financial crisis, Sheriff Randall A. Wellington had planned to close half the main jail and the entire minimum- security jail as an overnight facility, effective this past Sunday, in conjunction with the layoff of 101 employees.

The layoff notices were rescinded, however, and the main jail is to remain fully open until further notice, said Deputy Glenn Kountz, president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 141, which represents deputy sheriffs.

The jail remains under federal-court supervision under a consent decree that settled an inmate lawsuit concerning jail crowding. That decree, which requires the jail to be fully open and staffed, expires May 17.