By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

Because Trumbull County is being threatened with a roughly $700,000 Medicaid-related sales-tax loss in 2017 and other issues, the county auditor is recommending that commissioners cut 2017 budgets by about $1.5 million.

“You should ask each general-fund department to cut their budgets by 5 percent,” Auditor Adrian Biviano told the commissioners in a recent memo.

The general fund is the one that pays for most county services, such as those provided by deputies, the jail and courthouse.

Biviano said in an interview last week that cutting the 2017 budget from $45.4 million to $44 million is one option. The other is to generate more revenue.

Commissioner Frank Fuda already is beginning to discuss the possibility of raising the county’s sales tax by a quarter of a percent, which would raise an additional $6 million per year.

The commissioners discussed that same proposal in the spring of 2015, conducting hearings to show that Trumbull County’s 6.75 percent sales-tax rate ranked it among the lowest in the state.

The commissioners and Biviano also said layoffs were a possibility in 2015 without additional revenue.

But in mid-2015, the county began diverting about $1 million per month from the health-insurance fund to the general fund until the fund had dropped from $10.25 million to $4 million.

That was done after using the excess money in the insurance fund was recommended in June 2015 by the Ohio Auditor’s Office, which said the county’s $10.25 million health-insurance balance was “excessive.” That $6 million avoided layoffs in 2015 or this year.

But now that the insurance fund is at the proper level and the county’s rainy-day fund is about $3 million, the county is running low on options, Biviano said.

Biviano and the county commissioners had budget hearings all day last Monday and Tuesday to talk to department heads, such as Sheriff Thomas Altiere, sheriff-elect Paul Monroe, Prosecutor Dennis Watkins and others about their 2017 budgets, but the commissioners failed to notify the news media or public about the hearings.

Altiere’s budget proposals for 2017 include a requested increase of $3.5 million over 2016’s budget of $10.4 million. Asked what the impact would be on cutting the sheriff’s 2016 budget of $10.4 million by 5 percent, Altiere said Monday there would be “drastic layoffs,” but he will be talking with Monroe in the coming weeks about that.

The sheriff’s department is projected to spend about $500,000 more than the 2016 budget, Biviano said.

Among the reasons Altiere is asking for $3.5 million more in 2017 than 2016 are that the jail has been “packed” with prisoners, the hiring of additional deputies to provide security at the Veterans Service Commission office and at the county’s former Talmer Bank building, both on East Market Street; and the possibility of increased labor costs because of the current labor contracts ending this year.

As for the loss in sales-tax revenue, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ruled this year that, beginning in July 2017, sales tax can no longer be targeted toward insurance companies under contract with the state to cover Medicaid.

That will cost Trumbull County about $700,000 in 2017 and $2.7 million in 2018 unless the state does something to compensate the county, Biviano said.

Biviano is projecting that the county’s overall sales taxes will rise by about 2 percent in 2016 over 2015 after a much larger 6 percent spike in 2015 over 2014.