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Legality of bed-tax use called into question
By Ed Runyan
YOUNGSTOWN
Western Reserve Port Authority member Andres Visnapuu says he questions whether the Mahoning County commissioners are legally allowed to increase the bed tax by 2 percent, despite legal opinions that say they can.
Visnapuu acknowledges he is not an attorney, but he believes the county should seek additional clarification of whether bed-tax money can be used for economic development.
The question should be answered before commissioners decide whether to increase the bed tax so that the Ohio Auditor’s Office doesn’t later order that the port authority pay the money back, Visnapuu said.
Commissioners are planning to have public hearings “sometime after Easter” to gather more information on raising the bed tax, Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti said Friday. No dates have been set.
Commissioners from Trumbull and Mahoning counties also plan to meet with each other on the topic at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Trumbull County commissioners meeting room at 160 High Street NW.
Visnapuu, of Boardman, has been critical of the port authority’s economic-development office and its director, Rose Ann DeLeon, since just after DeLeon was hired, saying in March 2010 that DeLeon failed to provide the authority with “performance-based targets” to help it determine whether she was accomplishing anything. DeLeon began work in December 2009.
Port-authority member John Masternick responded to Visnapuu’s remarks by saying it was too soon to evaluate DeLeon.
Visnapuu said he’s had a “front-row seat” to watch DeLeon’s work during her two years and four months, and she has failed to impress him.
As for the legal question, Visnapuu cites the Ohio attorney general’s opinion from April 12, 2011, in which Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains asked whether the commissioners could increase its bed tax from 3 percent to 5 percent.
Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office said they could.
But the question Visnapuu has is whether any of the money from the bed tax can be used to fund economic development.
Sarah Lown, DeLeon’s assistant at the port authority, says state law gives the port authority the flexibility to use at least some of the bed-tax money for economic-development activities, even though the statute indicates the money is specifically for “the benefit of a port authority military-use facility.”
In the case of Trumbull and Mahoning counties, the military-use facility is the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, which shares its runways with the Youngstown Air Reserve Station, which employs about 2,000 people.
The 2,000 includes 1,389 Air Force reservists, 414 civilians, about 200 Navy and Marine reservists and more than 30 contractors.
Visnapuu says the statute seems to suggest the bed-tax money is meant to fund a port authority that jointly operates a military facility, not a port authority’s economic-development work.
Dan Keating, the attorney who represents the port authority, and Mahoning County Commissioner John McNally IV, an attorney, both say they are comfortable that the bed tax can be used to fund DeLeon’s economic-development work.
Keating cites a line from the attorney general’s opinion that says bed-tax money can be used for “contributing revenue to pay operating expenses of a port authority that operates a port authority military-use facility.”
Keating said he thinks that indicates the port’s activities “outside the fence” at the airport also can be funded with bed-tax money.
Since its inception, DeLeon’s work has been funded with money from the general-fund budgets of the Mahoning and Trumbull commissioners, cities of Youngstown, Warren and Niles and Howland Township. The Western Reserve Building Trades Council also has contributed.
Rimedio-Righetti said she considers Visnapuu’s legal questions to be politically motivated and said she has tried to focus on one thing: job creation.
“The political agendas need to stop,” Rimedio-Righetti said. “We need to look at how we can best help the children of the Mahoning Valley. Is it [the port’s economic-development office] the best we can do? I’m not sure yet.”