43
Trumbull commissioners seeking people to serve on budget review committee
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Trumbull County commissioners, facing budgetary challenges, will form a citizens budget review committee and are asking for expressions of interest from people wanting to join.
Commissioner Dan Polivka announced Monday that his fellow commissioners have agreed to his proposal to create the committee.
The commissioners’ office also emailed a news release asking for anyone interested in serving on the committee to submit a letter of interest and/or resume to: Trumbull County Commissioners, 160 High St. NW, Warren, OH 44481.
Deadline for the applications is 4:30 p.m. Monday.
Polivka said “several good, nonbiased names were discussed, and several have agreed” to serve on the committee, but the commissioners would like to hear from others.
Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa said he has spoken to a few business people about serving on the committee and found that some are not interested.
Asking publicly for expressions of interest will allow the commissioners to find people willing to serve, Cantalamessa said.
Then it will be a matter of finding people with a skill set that enables them to understand the county’s budget, he said.
The county expects to make it through 2017 without additional revenue but perhaps only a surplus of about $900,000, Cantalamessa said.
County officials need to get through 2017 but also look at the county’s future regarding buildings that will need to be upgraded or replaced, Cantalamessa said. “A lot of the renovations were done in the 1980s,” he noted.
The budget review committee will be asked to weigh in on a possible sales-tax increase and on ways the county can save money, he said.
County Auditor Adrian Biviano advised the commissioners late last year that they should ask department heads to cut their budgets by 5 percent for 2017 compared with 2016 because of a potential $700,000 Medicaid-related sales-tax loss in 2017 and other issues.
Biviano said recently that on Feb. 6, the county budget commission is expected to certify a smaller amount of available funding for 2017 than 2016, but the specific amount was not yet determined.
Commissioner Frank Fuda recommended a sales-tax increase of a quarter percent during public hearings in spring 2015 that would have annually raised an additional $6 million.
But the commissioners were advised later that year that the county had an excessive amount of money in its self-insurance fund. They spent down that fund by about $7 million starting in fall 2015, at about $1 million per month.