Budget needs a watchful eye

Budget needs a watchful eye

The Mahoning County general fund budget that was approved last week totals $50 million, of which more than $30 million is directly attributable to law enforcement — that is operation of the sheriff’s department, the prosecutor’s office, indigent defense and common pleas and juvenile courts.

Keeping people safe is not a matter to be taken lightly, and it isn’t cheap. Indeed, the 2011 budget couldn’t have accommodated all the financial demands without concessions made by employees in Sheriff Randall Wellington’s department.

Wellington and other county elected officials worked with Mahoning County Commissioners Anthony T. Traficanti, David N. Ludt and John A. McNally IV and budget director and administrator George J. Tablack to arrive at a budget commissioners were able to approve for the entire year. In tight economic times, county commissioners sometimes resort to temporary budgets to get them through the early part of the new year. Every elected or appointed county official now knows exactly what they have to spend for the year, and they know that they’re going to have to stay within that budget.

No room for overspending

Tablack has not been shy in the past in warning other officials and departments not to overspend. His understanding of county finances is especially important in times such as these, when a stagnant economy has affected county income, the lion’s share of which comes from the sales tax.

The board of commissioners, which now includes Carol Rimedio-Righetti, who replaced Ludt, is going to have to keep an eye on possible changes in projected income or expenses due to the state’s budget crisis. One area in which Gov.-elect John Kasich wants to save money is in the operation of state prisons. And one tactic would be to shift responsibility for short-term prisoners back on Ohio counties.

With a budget as tight as this one — it already represents a cut of more than $1 million from the year before — it wouldn’t take much in the way of cost-shifting or lost revenue to throw it out of balance.