YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County commissioners on Thursday approved a 2022 budget that is about $5.3 million higher than this year’s.
The 2022 budget totals $72.5 million, compared with the 2021 budget of $67.2 million.
That figure includes both the general fund, which covers departments such as the county courts, commissioners’ and auditor’s offices; and the criminal justice fund, which covers the sheriff’s office, jail, county 911, prosecutor’s office and coroner’s office.
The budget includes an increase in the justice fund to $33.2 million, which is a substantial increase over 2021. The general fund is rising to $39.3 million, an increase of $2.3 million over 2021.
Audrey Tillis, county administrator, said after the meeting that sales tax revenues were higher this year than the commissioners expected, so the commissioners were able to authorize additional expenditures as the year progressed. They also allowed the county to increase wages.
“We made sure we covered all of the needs the departments had,” she said of this year and similar amounts of funding in 2022. “We put some things into contingency, and we will take care of those things with carryover” revenues, she said.
During a budget hearing last month, Sheriff Jerry Greene said the additional money the sheriff’s office would need to operate next year was partly because of the $6-per-hour increase in the starting wage for his employees that was approved. The increase was needed to stem the loss of deputies and jail...
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