By Peter H. Milliken

milliken@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains seeks nearly a 25 percent increase in his budget in 2015, compared with the budget he is receiving for 2014.

Gains seeks $3,991,491 for 2015, which is $796,763 more than the $3,194,728 he is getting this year from the county’s general fund.

The increase is largely due to Gains’ request to fill five vacant positions, a health insurance premium increase and $73,436 worth of step increases he wants to give his staff.

The step increase amounts vary according to increments in length of service.

The vacancies Gains seeks to fill at a combined total pay and benefits cost of $414,158 are: one prosecutor each in the criminal and civil divisions, one secretary in each division and a criminal investigator. The civil division represents county agencies and townships.

“We want this. We really need it. We can operate without it, but it is getting stressful for some of my people,” Gains told the county commissioners concerning his proposed budget increase and the understaffing he said now plagues his department.

“Because we are short-staffed with lawyers, the increasing use of visiting judges by our common pleas judges is killing us” because more prosecutors are needed to appear before these additional visiting judges, said Rebecca Doherty, chief criminal prosecutor.

Doherty will leave Gains’ staff to become a Portage County Common Pleas Court judge in January.

Gains appeared before the county commissioners Friday for a budget hearing, as did Dr. David Kennedy, county coroner.

Dr. Kennedy requested $774,188 from the general fund for 2015, which is 2.71 percent more than the $753,783 he’s approved for this year.

Dr. Kennedy said he seeks a 3 percent pay increase for his four investigators, who earn $12 an hour, for whom he said he has unsuccessfully sought a 3 percent pay increase for the past several years.

The coroner also said he faces increased costs for body transport, lab work and radiology.

The combined total of departmental budget requests for 2015 is $60,412,424, which exceeds by $8,564,424 the $51,848,000 in revenue certified by the county budget commission before the Nov. 4 election.

The commission has not revised its revenue certification since the election, in which the voters renewed a 0.50 percent sales tax and added a 0.25 percent sales tax, for a combined total of about $24 million in annual revenue, exclusively devoted to the sheriff’s, prosecutor’s and coroner’s offices and the 911 emergency dispatching center.

Retailers won’t start collecting the new 0.25 percent until April 1, and the county won’t see any of the new revenue until June.

County Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti said the commissioners clearly cannot meet all the requests of all departments for next year.

“We’re asking departments just to maintain their current staffing levels,” said Audrey Tillis, county budget director.

Righetti and Tillis said they’re asking departments not to fill vacancies unless it’s absolutely essential.

“We’re asking all departments to just stay status quo,” Righetti said.