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'Justice' sales tax critical, county officials say.
Youngstown
Mahoning County officials are campaigning to convince voters that their security and quality of life depend on passage Nov. 4 of a 0.75-percent sales tax devoted entirely to public safety.
The five-year measure would renew an existing 0.5 percent sales tax and add an extra 0.25 percent.
The combined measure known as Issue 1 on the ballot would raise about $24 million annually.
The entire tax would be dedicated to the county sheriff’s department, which operates the county jail and patrols roads, the prosecutor’s and coroner’s offices and the 911 emergency dispatching center.
“We’ve named it a justice tax. It all goes to the justice system,” said David Ditzler, chairman of the county commissioners.
The voters made a separate 0.5 percent sales tax permanent in May 2007.
Besides the two 0.5-percent sales taxes that go to county government, yet another 0.25 percent goes to the Western Reserve Transit Authority for public bus transportation.
Those three taxes are superimposed on the state’s 5.75 percent, giving Mahoning County a current total sales tax of 7 percent.
The extra 0.25 percent sought by the county this fall is necessary to compensate for reductions in recent years in state funding, investment income and income from housing federal prisoners in the county jail, Ditzler said.
Except for $1.05 million that goes this year toward paying the county’s debt, all of the county’s sales-tax revenue goes to the county’s general fund.
The general fund, withexpenditures totaling $53.3 million in 2013, is the county’s main operating fund.
“There’s a lot of good things going on in Mahoning County. Now is when the community really needs to pull together and take that next step up,” said Dr. Joseph Ohr, forensic pathologist and deputy coroner.
“Now’s when we really need that extra money,” he said, citing recent boosts to the county’s economy from Covelli Centre events and from the opening of the Austintown racino.
When business leaders decide where to locate their operations, they evaluate the quality of local law enforcement, roads and schools, Dr. Ohr told the county commissioners during a recent meeting in Austintown.
“The businesses wanting to come into this county are going to be watching how we vote in November,” Dr. Ohr said.
Public safety and court functions consumed $39.1 million from the general fund in 2013, which was 73.4 percent of the year’s general fund spending.
Included in that total is the round-the-clock operation of the county jail, which costs about $20 million annually, Ditzler said.
Standard & Poors officials recently said the county could lose its A+ credit rating from S&P if the tax is defeated this fall, Ditzler recalled.
A drop in that rating means the county would face higher interest and fees for its borrowing, said County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino.
“The lesser the rating, the more you pay in interest or fees,” he said. “An A+ rating certainly saved us some tax dollars,” he added.
If the tax fails, the county would be forced to make drastic cuts and layoffs in the sheriff’s department as it did a decade ago during a period of on-again, off-again sales taxes, Ditzler said.
“Without a full 1 percent, at the very least, to Mahoning County government, there is no Mahoning County government,” Sciortino told The Vindicator’s editorial board.
The commissioners’ attempt this fall to pass the 0.75-percent tax follows the May 6 defeat of their attempt to permanently renew the 0.5-percent sales tax, which lost by 519 votes countywide.
The 0.5-percent tax expires Sept. 30. 2015; and, if the Nov. 4 measure is defeated, the commissioners will have an additional opportunity next May to renew it without losing revenue from it.
“Our livelihood is the sales tax. ... Without that, the county becomes anemic,” Sciortino concluded.