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E-justice to arrive in Mahoning Co.
YOUNGSTOWN
This will be the year that Mahoning County’s justice system moves into the 21st century, the county auditor said.
“E-justice will make certain that our criminal justice system is taken out of the Stone Age and brought into the technological collaborative days,” Auditor Michael V. Sciortino told the county commissioners on Monday.
The county hopes to award the contract around Feb. 1 for a new jail inmate-management system that is being funded by a $360,000 U.S. Department of Justice grant, and the county hopes the system will be operating by June 1, Sciortino said.
The new jail-management computer system is being brought about by the commissioners, the auditor’s information-technology staff, the sheriff’s office and other parts of the criminal-justice system.
It will give law enforcement and court personnel up-to-the-minute information about inmates held in the county jail, Sciortino said.
“The judges on the bench can see real-time booking information. The cops on the street can get real-time booking information,” from the new system, Sciortino told the commissioners.
When E-justice is completed, the newly available jail information can be shared with local community police through the Mahoning-Youngstown Regional Information System that was developed by the auditor’s office four years ago, he added.
The MYRIS network, which now connects the county’s data center with Canfield, Austintown, Boardman and Youngstown government offices, also can become the platform for consolidation of 911 emergency dispatching functions, he added.
As for the budget for the county’s general fund, which is its main operating fund, Sciortino said: “We are stable.”
The county budget commission has certified available general-fund money for 2012 at about $54 million, including a carry-over of about $4.4 million from 2011. Actual general-fund spending in 2011 was about $56.1 million.
“Sales-tax receipts are coming in strong,” and strong financial management is in place in county government, he said. December 2011 sales-tax revenues were 11.4 percent higher than those of December 2010.
However, he said the general fund is losing state revenue. In 2011, the general fund got about $4.8 million in local government funding from the state. For this year, that figure is expected to be only about $3.3 million, he said. “For every two steps we take ahead, unfortunately, something like this gives us a step back,” he said.
The general fund pays for operations of the county jail, courts, prosecutor’s office, 911 emergency dispatching center and a host of other central-government functions.
“I do believe Mahoning County is on the rebound,” Commissioner Anthony T. Traficanti said, referring to the recent growth in sales-tax revenue and to oil and gas drilling and the success of the General Motors Lordstown Complex.
The commissioners re-elected John A. McNally IV as their president and Traficanti as vice president for 2012 and voted to continue having their regular meetings at 10 a.m. Thursdays in the county courthouse basement.