Haz-Mat team funding improves
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County hazardous materials response team is on the way to fulfilling its new population-based funding formula as it prepares to enter 2017, a county budget specialist said.
The county commissioners this year provided $23,882 to the team, known as the Haz-Mat team, said Annemarie DeAscentis, special projects administrator in the county commissioners’ office.
That amounts to 10 cents for every county resident based on the 2010 Census, which showed a county population of 238,820.
Under the formula the commissioners enacted by resolution this year, the commissioners will provide the team with 10 cents per county resident per year from the county’s general fund; and each community within the county will add 10 cents annually for each of its residents, bringing the total per capita funding stream to nearly $48,000 a year.
So far, DeAscentis said Goshen Township and the city of Campbell have paid their shares, which will be credited toward 2017.
The commissioners didn’t expect the local communities within the county to provide their shares until next year, she added.
“Previously available sources to sustain these services are increasingly scarce,” DeAscentis said of hazardous-material spill cleanups and the need to purchase the equipment necessary to accomplish those cleanups.
The more reliable population-based formula will supplement the Haz-Mat team’s traditional revenue from federal and state grants and cleanup reimbursements from those responsible for spills and their insurance companies, she said.
The per capita money will be supplemented by $12,000 a year in wastewater treatment funds and $4,000 a year from the county recycling division.
Boardman Fire Chief Mark Pitzer, chairman of the team’s advisory board, told the commissioners the team, which has been operating for nearly 30 years, needs to replace some of its equipment.
“The suits they use have a brief life, and it’s irresponsible to let them go forward without some permanent funding solution,” said county Auditor Ralph Meacham.
“We have a lot of industry still in the area, and we have some major interstates going through here, and we also have the rail traffic, and we absolutely have to have an efficient, trained, equipped [hazardous materials spill] response team, and Haz-Mat has filled that very capably,” Meacham added.
DeAscentis said the per capita funding will allow the team members “to maintain and upgrade their equipment.”
Most recently, the team accepted a $4,200 grant from Marathon Petroleum Corp. of Findlay to help the team buy equipment for cleanup of petroleum product spills. Last month, it conducted a joint spill cleanup training exercise with Marathon along Mill Creek.