Sheriff asks for less money in 2015 than he sought in 2014

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning County Sheriff Jerry Greene has asked the Mahoning County commissioners for $1.4 million less from the county’s general fund for 2015 than the $21.7 million he requested for 2014.

The sheriff’s $20.3 million request for 2015, which he presented to the commissioners this morning, includes no pay raises, no increase in staff and no re-opening of the 96-bed minimum security jail for overnight use in 2015.

The minimum security lockup, 360 W. Commerce St., has been closed to overnight use since May 2010, and is now used as a staging area for the day-reporting inmate work detail.

The sheriff noted that the county won’t see any revenue from the 0.25-percent additional sales tax the voters enacted last week until mid-2015.

Retailers will begin collecting the new tax April 1, said Audrey Tillis, county budget director.

The voters renewed a 0.50-percent sales tax and added 0.25 percent to it last week for a combined total of about $24 million in revenue, which will be devoted exclusively to the sheriff’s, prosecutor’s and coroner’s offices and the 911 emergency dispatching center.

Before the Nov. 4 election, the county budget commission certified total general fund revenue for 2015 as $52,748,000, and it has not revised that number since the election.

Going into the 2014 budgeting process a year ago, the certification was $50.2 million.