43
Youngstown, Mahoning County test merging of services
YOUNGSTOWN
The city and Mahoning County approved a contract to have the latter inspect buildings in Youngstown in the first of what Mayor Charles Sammarone says could be a number of efforts to consolidate services.
On Thursday, the city’s board of control and the county commissioners separately approved the short-term contract that will start next week and expire June 1.
“Hopefully, it works and three months from now, if everyone is happy, we’ll start with building inspectors long-term and then go with consolidating the whole building department,” Sammarone said.
“Over the next couple of months, we’re going to assist the city with their building inspections, and then, depending on how that goes, we’re looking towards, I hope, a consolidation of some of those services the city provides under the umbrella of the county building- inspection department,” said John A. McNally IV, chairman of the county commissioners.
“Where they may or may not go is sort of up in the air still. I would prefer, actually, to see them at the county administration building, but that’s a process we’ve got to work through some more,” he said.
“As long as the city is happy with the services that our building inspection provides, I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t happen,” he said of a full merger of the city and county building-inspection departments.
Sam Boak, president of the Home Builders Association of the Mahoning Valley, told the commissioners his members find the county building-inspection department’s current Austintown location is more convenient for association members than a downtown Youngstown location.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Officials with the city and county health districts will talk about a merger.
Matthew Stefanak, county health commissioner, wrote in a Sunday email to Erin Bishop, the city’s acting health commissioner, that the county advisory council met late last week and “agreed to continue our discussion” on a potential merger. He added: “Please let the mayor and the [city health] board know that we are ready to engage.”
Sammarone had asked the county health district to provide in writing an interest in merging the districts. “It’s moving in the right direction,” Sammarone said. “We have to look at ways to save money by possibly going with the county or other options. We don’t have a money tree.”
Merging departments would save money, Sammarone said.
For example, Anthony DeNicholas, the city’s assistant chief enforcement officer, who is responsible for building inspections, retired. That left no one to do inspections on behalf of the city.
The contract with the county calls for the city to pay the county $60 per inspection.
There are about 1,200 inspections a year, city officials say. That would cost $72,000.
It cost the city about $85,000 in salary and benefits a year to employ DeNicholas.
Also, the county does same-day inspections, something the city couldn’t consistently do with just one inspector, Sammarone said.
“We want to save money and provide service,” he said. “We’ll have better service from the county. We had one person and a backlog.”
The two entities also plan to discuss a merger of their emergency 911 services.