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Healthcare and salaries to rise in 2015 Trumbull County budget
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
An average increase in income-tax revenue and soon-to-be completed contract negotiations leave the Trumbull County commissioners expecting another status-quo year, budgetwise, except for salaries and health care.
Commissioners and Auditor Adrian Biviano began budget meetings with their department heads Wednesday.
Biviano said he’s not able to estimate how large the 2015 county budget will be because of pending contract negotiations with most of the county’s workers, but he’s guessing total salaries and benefits will rise by about $750,000. Most county workers have not had a pay increase for several years.
County officials expect negotiations to be complete in the next couple of weeks, including an agreement with deputies and certain other workers in the sheriff’s office. An arbitration hearing took place last week for that group, and a decision from the arbiter is expected within a couple of weeks.
The 2014 budget was $43.8 million. County department heads have requested budgets of $43.8 million for 2015, Biviano said.
Health-care costs also are expected to rise by about $750,000 in 2015, or about 7.25 percent, said Jim Keating, the county’s human resources director. The county is partially self-insured so health care costs can fluctuate a great deal, he noted.
Biviano provided sales-tax revenue figures for recent years, projecting them to be around $24.3 million in 2014, or about 3 percent more than the 2013 amount of $23.7 million.
Frank Fuda, county commissioner, said employment levels have increased in the county in recent years, but he believes people have become more conservative with their spending because of having overspent before the Great Recession that began around 2008.
That lack of spending is keeping sales-tax revenues lower than might be expected, he said.
Sales-tax revenue was $20.4 million in 2010, meaning it has risen an average of about 4.5 percent each of the past four years.
Judge Andrew Logan of county common pleas court and his bailiff, Jodi Camuso, told the commissioners about the improvements that will be made to the courthouse this winter with funds that don’t come from the county commissioners.
Special projects fees charged to anyone filing cases with the common pleas court will be used to pay for a new security station inside the entrance to the courthouse, new carpeting throughout the building and new work stations in about six offices.
The carpeting and work stations were installed when the courthouse was renovated 17 years ago.
Budget hearings will wrap up today.