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Dellick

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D’Apolito

By Peter H. Milliken

milliken@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Pummeled by soaring employee health care costs, the Mahoning County Juvenile Court is asking the county commissioners for 12.5 percent more money from the county’s general fund in 2015 than the court received this year.

Judge Theresa Dellick and Magistrate Anthony D’Apolito, court administrator, appeared Tuesday before the commissioners in a budget hearing, seeking $6.4 million from the general fund for 2015, which is $715,409 more than the $5.7 million the court received from the general fund this year.

The largest part of the requested increase is being generated by a rise of about $500,000 in health care costs for the court’s 120 employees in 2015 over 2014, D’Apolito said. Those costs are going from $1.2 million in 2014 to $1.7 million next year, he said.

“I don’t know if it’s the Affordable Care Act, I don’t know if it’s just the natural rise in cost of health care, but it’s certainly been impactful, and I don’t know that we’re done yet” with increases, D’Apolito said.

He also said part of the increase stems from inclusion of part-time workers in the court’s general-fund budget, who had not been included before.

D’Apolito said the court always seeks to reduce its dependency on the general fund by using other funding sources, including grants.

Judge Dellick said Linda McNally, a grant-application writer hired by the court in February, already has obtained about $800,000 in grants for court programs.

Judge Dellick said her court also is working with labor union apprenticeship programs to promote training and employment of youths in skilled trades.

The juvenile court and its programs that assist troubled youths can play a valuable role in preventing people from having a troubled adulthood, Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti said.

The general fund, for which the county budget commission has certified total revenues of $51.8 million for 2015, is the county’s main operating fund.

The juvenile court is second only to the sheriff’s department in use of general-fund dollars.

Unlike the sheriff’s department, however, the juvenile court is not a designated beneficiary of the additional 0.25 percent sales tax voters approved Nov. 4 for collection by retailers beginning April 1.

The extra justice system tax is dedicated to the sheriff’s, coroner’s and prosecutor’s offices and 911 emergency dispatching center.

In the Nov. 4 measure, voters also renewed a 0.50 percent sales tax. The combined renewal and additional tax will generate about $24 million a year.

The general fund also gets revenue from a separate 0.50 percent sales tax voters made permanent in May 2007, state money and investment income.