Trumbull Co. reduces bed tax from 5% to 4%

Staff report

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Trumbull County commissioners have lowered the bed tax that helps finance the Western Reserve Port Authority.

They did so in response to the authority’s unanimously approving a $7,500 bonus paid to Dan Dickten, director of aviation at Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.

The port authority oversees the airport’s operation in Vienna Township.

The authority is funded primarily by the bed tax charged in Mahoning and Trumbull counties for hotel stays.

Commissioners felt they had to act after county employees went three years without receiving any type of raise, said Trumbull Commissioner Paul Heltzel.

The commissioners reduced their allocation from 5 percent to 4 percent.

This bonus will make things more difficult for the county the next time it negotiates with the unions because someone receiving county funding got a 10 percent bonus, he said.

“It sticks out like a sore thumb,” Heltzel said.

The issue is not with Dickten’s work, Heltzel said. “By accounts, he’s doing a fine job.”

However, in the current economic environment, no person paid through government funds should receive a 10 percent bonus, he added. The authority had contacted the commissioners and stated they did not know the bonus would cause this kind of problem, Heltzel added.

“They [the port authority] got into a meeting and decided to do this,” he said. “They passed it unanimously. I’d feel a lot better about the whole situation if there had been some dissent.”

The second issue that caused the lowering of the bed tax was inaction from Mahoning County on raising its bed tax, Heltzel said. Currently, Trumbull charges a 4 percent bed tax that funds the port authority, while Mahoning County charges 3 percent.

“Mahoning County had agreed to raise its bed tax to equal Trumbull County,” Heltzel said. “If Mahoning County just raises its tax to 4 percent, like they agreed to do, the port authority comes out ahead.”

Mahoning County commissioners earlier this year discussed raising the county’s bed tax by 2 percent, which would have provided $500,000 a year more to the authority. The commissioners have taken no action on the potential increase, however.

In 2011, the two counties’ bed tax sent $868,987 to fund authority operations at the airport.

The 3 percent bed tax in 2011 in Mahoning County provided $518,110 to the authority.