Latest Niles fiscal recovery plan approved despite concerns

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

NILES

The Niles Fiscal Oversight Commission approved the city’s seventh fiscal recovery plan despite concerns raised by two of the commission’s members, including John Davis, who voted against it.

The plan, written by Mayor Thomas Scarnecchia and approved 6-1 Thursday, provides a road map for cost cutting and capital improvements over the next five years.

It includes two $5 increases in license-plate fees and moving income-tax collection to the Regional Income Taxing Agency and eliminating the city’s income-tax department.

Davis said he doesn’t think switching to RITA will save the city $42,000 the first year. Scarnecchia, author of the recovery plan, has said the switch will save the city $42,000 per year without causing any layoffs.

Council President Robert Marino said he expects a union grievance to be filed over the elimination of the income-tax department, so that could stand in the way of department savings.

Both comments were aimed at pointing out ways in which the recovery plan might miss the mark. But Quentin Potter, fiscal commission chairman, said every fiscal plan has to be adjusted again and again, as evidenced by the fact Niles has now made seven attempts to create a plan.

The other part of the plan that was questioned was the $1.2 million reimbursement to Niles the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District board approved in June. The money, if it comes, will go into the water-department fund.

But recently the MVSD’s two-judge court of jurisdiction has questioned the appropriateness of giving refunds of surplus funds to Youngstown, Niles and McDonald and ignoring the water customers outside of those cities.

If Niles doesn’t get the refund, the water fund will be in a deficit, Davis said.

But Tim Lintner, one of the two state-appointed financial supervisors, said the loss of the $1.2 million could be offset by delaying some of the water department’s capital-improvement projects in the plan.

During a discussion of the city’s current finances, Lintner and Potter said the city is making great progress in bringing various funds into balance.

“These are very good numbers,” Potter said. Scarnecchia said he hopes this plan will finally be enough to bring the city out of fiscal emergency, the designation given by the Ohio Auditor’s Office to the city in October 2014.