Mahoning County adopts status quo spending plan

During the campaign in the fall of 2014 for the renewal of a half-percent sales tax and the addition of a quarter-percent tax dedicated to criminal justice, Mahoning County commissioners and others made this promise: Government won’t go on a spending spree if voters approve the joint tax issue.

The pledge had the desired effect. The result of the Nov. 4, 2014, vote was as follows: Yes, 34,232; No, 32,920. It certainly wasn’t a rousing vote of confidence in those who control the public purse. But, passage presented county officials with the opportunity to prove that they can be good stewards of the tax dollars.

A year and a month later, commissioners Anthony Traficanti, Carol Rimedio-Righetti and David Ditzler have appoved a budget for 2016 that maintains the status quo with regard to services.

Budget Director Audrey Tillis pointed out that the $36.04 million general- fund spending plan and $27.49 million justice fund contain no frills.

Taxpayers will be pleased to hear Tillis say there is no money for the creation of new staff positions, and, most importantly (to private-sector employees, at least) there generally won’t be pay raises for government workers. We say generally because there are union contracts that contain pay raises.

‘’Basically, these budgets represent us keeping our status quo services,” the budget director said. ‘’There are no additional services.”

While the spending blueprints do show that commissioners Traficanti, Rimedio-Righetti and Ditzler have been true to their word when they campaigned for the sales-tax renewal/ increase, they can’t be blind to the fact that almost 33,000 voters said no. The reason for their opposition is simple: a distrust of county government.

It was not so long ago that more than 700 county employees received raises when government decided to make them whole after they were required to pay their share of the public-pension contribution.

Employer and employee shares

Until then, the county (read that the taxpayers) was paying the employer and employee shares of the contribution.

That was an unjustified expenditure of public dollars because the county should not have been paying the employees’ share in the first place.

Veteran Vindicator Reporter Peter Milliken exposed this fiscal sleight-of-hand, and the public reaction was predictable. Private-sector workers who have not received pay raises in years and have also had to pay more for their health insurance (if they’re lucky enough to be covered by their employers) made their displeasure known.

In December 2014, when the commissioners adopted the budget for this year, we warned that any pay raises would be viewed by the public as just another example of the public sector’s being out of touch with the Mahoning Valley’s economic realities.

We urged Ditzler, Traficanti and Rimedio-Righetti to fight any attempt by elected officeholders to boost their employees’ salaries.

Today, we reiterate our insistence that the general fund and the justice fund be used to provide services to the residents of the county. The courts, board of elections, and the auditor’s, treasurer’s, recorder’s and commissioners’ offices are financed by the general fund.

The justice fund consists of the prosecutor’s, sheriff’s and coroner’s offices and 911 emergency dispatching center.

The taxpayers will be watching closely to see if the commissioners do anything to go back on the promises they made before the November 2014 election that resulted in the passage of the sales-tax renewal/increase.

In an editorial Nov. 8, 2014, after the issue was approved by the slim margin, we offered this observation:

“Mahoning County leaders can take solace in knowing that a majority of the voters [67,152] in Tuesday’s general election saw fit to approve the 0.75-percent sales tax for public safety, thereby averting a potential crisis in government operations.

“Those same leaders, however, cannot interpret their razor-thin victory as a good housekeeping seal of approval on the quality of government services or of the financial management prowess of government leaders.”

To our relief, the 2016 spending plan shows the necessary restraint.