Mahoning food-license fees go up, down
AUSTINTOWN
The Mahoning County District Board of Health has reduced its annual licensing fees for commercial and retail food operations, but it has raised them for vending machine, mobile and temporary-event operations.
The board recently approved fees ranging from $176 to $905 for 2012 for commercial and retail-food operations, depending on their size and risk classification. For 2011, the range was from $188 to $905.
High-volume food preparation operations, such as hospitals and nursing homes and caterers that prepare food for off-site consumption are in higher risk classifications with higher license fees to pay for more frequent inspections (up to three times a year), said Health Commissioner Matthew Stefanak.
A lower -risk classification applies to those selling only low volumes of packaged foods.
The commercial and retail-food operations fees dropped because of reduced inspection costs due to health-board personnel changes, including the recent hiring of a new, lower-paid inspector, Stefanak said.
Fees rose from $13.50 to $13.70 for vending machine operations, from $92.75 to $114 for mobile operations, and from $65.25 to $76 for temporary event operations.
“We increased the mobile operations fee to cover our cost of stepped up inspections of these vendors at locations like festivals and the Canfield Fair,” Stefanak said.
Stefanak said he did not have overall revenue calculations available Friday morning concerning the old and new fees, but he said the number of licensees does not change much from year to year.
The board has jurisdiction over all Mahoning County food sellers, including restaurants and grocery stores, outside the city of Youngstown, which has its own separate health department handling these food licensing functions in the city.
The county health board also issued 2012 licenses for three active landfills in Mahoning County: The Carbon-Limestone Landfill in Poland; the Mahoning Landfill in Springfield Township; and the Central Waste Landfill in Smith Township.
Each landfill’s $60,000 licensing fee, which is set by state law, will remain the same as in 2011.
Only $2,500 from each landfill’s licensing fee goes to the county health board, which performs regular landfill inspections. The rest goes to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Stefanak said.