Mahoning commissioners put combined, enlarged CS tax on ballot
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County commissioners have placed on the Nov. 4 ballot a 1.85-mill, five-year Children Services real-estate tax levy that would generate $7,303,723 annually, which is nearly $2.8 million more than the combined revenue from the two levies it would replace.
The November levy would combine and replace two existing levies: a 1-mill levy, first passed in 1995, which generates $2,993,453 annually, and a 0.85-mill levy, first passed in 1976, which delivers $1,531,639 a year, for a current combined total of $4,525,132 a year.
The combining of the two levies into a replacement based on today’s property values raises more money than the two current levies together because levy revenues are based on property values at their initiation; and today’s property values are higher than when the current levies began.
The child-welfare agency needs the extra $2,778,591 in local money from the combined replacement to compensate for declines in state and federal funding, said Randall Muth, CS director.
“Children Services always experienced strong support from the community. We appreciate the recognition that communities thrive when their children have safe, stable and permanent homes,” Muth told the commissioners Thursday.
The commissioners also passed a resolution in support of the county’s application to the Ohio Development Services Agency for $50,000 in local government innovative funds to study the feasibility of consolidating the county’s eight 911 emergency dispatching centers.
“If you want to move forward and do new initiatives within funding, you have to look at these types of ways to make it the most efficient,” said Audrey Tillis, county budget director. “I would think that you just can’t leave it status quo,” she added.
In other business, the commissioners honored the Boardman High School team, which outscored 19 other teams to win this year’s Ohio Envirothon, a two-day environmental-science competition at Salt Fork State Park in Guernsey County.
Recognized were the student participants, Muhammad Akbar, Luke Carrabia. Marcus Masello, Mackenzie Allen and Kaye Moyer ,along with their adviser, Heather Moran.