By Peter H. Milliken

milliken@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

In its first revenue estimate for 2017, the Mahoning County Budget Commission has certified general fund revenue of $34.3 million and criminal justice fund revenue of $28.1 million.

On Wednesday, the commission, composed of Prosecutor Paul J. Gains, Treasurer Daniel R. Yemma and Auditor Ralph T. Meacham, also left intact a 2016 revenue projection of $35 million for the general fund and $28.1 million for the criminal-justice fund.

The 2017 revenue estimate assumes the loss and nonreplacement of $1.85 million in sales-tax revenue from Medicaid managed-care organizations in the second half of 2017.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has ruled that, beginning with the state budget cycle that starts July 1, 2017, sales tax cannot be imposed on insurance companies under contract with the state to cover Medicaid, unless it is imposed on all managed-care organizations.

Medicaid is a jointly funded federal and state health insurance program for low-income people.

An annual loss of $3.7 million in Medicaid managed-care sales tax looms for the county. That amounts to 9.5 percent of its sales-tax revenue based on 2015 collections.

In Mahoning County, sales-tax revenues comprise 46 percent of general fund revenue and 93 percent of criminal justice fund revenue.

The general fund consists of central county operations, such as the county commissioners’, auditor’s and treasurer’s offices, the courts and their clerk’s office and the board of elections.

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

The commissioners Monday unanimously approved a resolution urging state legislators to stop the potential loss of local government revenue associated with the Medicaid managed-care organization sales tax.

“They’ve got to do something. They cannot just let these counties bear the burden,” Audrey Tillis, executive director for the county commissioners, said of state legislators.

In some of Ohio’s smaller counties, the loss will amount to 24 percent of their budgets, Meacham said. “It will be catastrophic for some of these counties,” he added.

“Hopefully, whatever the state does, they do something that is a long-term fix for the counties, not something that is temporary,” Tillis added.