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Public to hear 2 options for Mahoning sales tax at June 26 hearings
YOUNGSTOWN
When residents go to the two public hearings on the Mahoning County sales tax, they will find two options placed on the table by the county commissioners.
Both options for the Nov. 4 ballot would renew an existing half-percent sales tax for five years and add an additional quarter-percent sales tax of the same duration.
Either option would raise about $24 million annually.
One of the options, however, would restrict the money’s use to the sheriff’s, coroner’s and prosecutor’s offices and 911 emergency dispatching center.
The other option would allow unrestricted use of the money in the county’s general fund, which is its main operating fund.
The sales-tax hearings will be at 5:30 p.m. June 26 at the Covelli Centre in downtown Youngstown and at 6 p.m. June 30 at McMahon Hall at the Mill Creek MetroParks Farm in Canfield.
“We decided that we needed two options,” said Commissioner Carol Rimedio- Righetti. “We needed to go to the public and find out what their feeling is on the sales tax,” she added.
Righetti said she is leaning toward the option that designates the money for the four specified departments.
“That’s public safety. Without that, where are we?” Righetti asked.
One of her major goals is to provide sufficient funding to the sheriff’s department to keep the jail fully open and to maintain road patrols by deputies, she added.
The designation of money for specific departments allows “voters to focus and actually get a handle on what they’re supporting,” said Audrey Tillis, county budget director.
Tillis said the county needs the extra quarter-percent sales tax to maintain current county services because it needs to compensate for declines in recent years in revenue from the state, from the county’s investments and from reduced numbers of federal prisoners in the county jail.
“Without the [extra] quarter-percent, the county goes backward — and we’re trying to keep things moving forward,” Tillis said.
Righetti said she believes the public wants the duration limited to five years to ensure governmental accountability.
“The voters definitely do not want continuous,” Tillis added.
The voters narrowly defeated a continuous renewal of the half-percent sales tax May 6. Continuous means it would have had no stated expiration date. The tax lost by 519 votes, with most rural residents voting against it.
The half-percent that was on last month’s ballot is set to expire Sept. 30, 2015, meaning the commissioners could pass it as late as next May without losing any revenue from it.
The county has another half-percent sales tax the voters made continuous in May 2007.
Each of the existing half-percent taxes generates about $16 million annually, for a total of about $32 million.
The county’s general-fund budget for 2014 totals $54.1 million, including nearly $2.6 million carried over from 2013 to 2014.
Righetti said the commissioners will provide quarterly public updates concerning the sales tax and how the revenue from it is being spent.