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Youngstown wage issue falls 114 names short for ballot
YOUNGSTOWN
A proposed charter amendment, backed by a group of Youngstown Democrats, to increase the hourly minimum wage in the city to $10.10 came up 114 valid signatures short of getting on the ballot.
The group submitted 59 petitions with 1,751 signatures. It needed 1,259 of the signatures to be valid to be put in front of city voters. However, the Mahoning County Board of Elections, which checked the petitions a third time Wednesday, found only 1,145 valid signatures, said Thomas McCabe, its deputy director.
Of the 606 signatures disqualified by the board, McCabe said:
192 aren’t registered to vote.
141 don’t live in Youngstown.
101 either printed their names or the signature on the petitions didn’t match the signature on voter registration cards.
90 weren’t registered at the address on file at the board.
49 were “illegible” with board workers unable to read either the signed name, address or both.
30 signed petitions twice, which, when there are many petitions being circulated, isn’t unusual.
Three names were crossed out by the group.
The proposal wanted to raise the city’s hourly minimum wage – it’s $8.10 as in the rest of Ohio while the national amount is $7.25 – to $10.10 effective Jan. 1.
Additional minimum-wage increases would have been determined every Sept. 30, starting in 2017, by the rate of inflation for the prior 12 months based on the Consumer Price Index. Those increases would take effect Jan. 1 of the following year.
Jamael Tito Brown, a member of the minimum-wage committee and director of programs and operations at the county treasurer’s office, said the group will look at its options for trying to get the measure on the ballot.
Speaking for himself, Brown said he wants it in front of voters in either the 2017 primary or general election.
Among members of the committee is state Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan, D-58th, who said she agreed to have her name as a member, but didn’t have “an active role. I would have campaigned for it if it got on the ballot. I’m confident if Hillary [Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee] gets elected, she’ll raise it higher than $10.10. People are suffering in America, and we need an increase.”
As for whether the proposal would hurt Youngstown businesses if it passes, Lepore-Hagan said,” That’s something to debate if it gets on the ballot.”
Brown, a former Youngstown council president, said that in cities that raise the minimum wage, there is “higher [job] retention [and] better quality workers.”
But Mayor John A. McNally, a fellow Democrat, said in his official capacity “it’s a difficult thing to whole-heartedly support. It would be Youngstown-exclusive. It puts the city at a potential disadvantage to recruit new companies or keep companies here. Some companies would absorb the costs, and others would have to lay off people.”
The city hires 80 seasonal park and recreation workers at minimum wage. The increase would cost the city about $80,000 annually, he said.
“I’d like to see people get more money, but when you talk of a minimum wage of $8.10 or $10.10, it’s not a livable wage,” McNally said.
The mayor added that the state already has its own hourly minimum wage enacted by the General Assembly, and this proposal “is pretty identical to it.”
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine issued a June 30 legal opinion that municipalities don’t have the authority to seek increases in the minimum wage.