Finance & Business World

YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County Sheriff Randall Wellington didn’t get all the money he wanted from the county’s general fund for 2008, but he said he’ll be able to compensate for the shortfall.

“I think it was fair,” he said of the $18 million the county commissioners on Thursday granted him from that fund for next year. The sheriff had requested $19,694,520 for 2008, but said he expects he can cover the difference with some of the $4 million to $5 million he expects to receive for housing federal prisoners in the county jail he operates. The county gets about $69 a day per federal prisoner housed in its jail.

At $18 million, the sheriff’s budget will consume nearly 30 percent of the county’s $60,110,000 general fund budget for 2008 — by far the largest chunk of the county’s general fund.

The county commissioners received $67,986,332 worth of requests from county department heads, but trimmed that amount by almost $8 million to come up with next year’s budget for the general fund, which is the county’s main operating fund. General fund spending this year is expected to total about $58.8 million.

The only department besides the sheriff’s department to consume a double-digit percentage of the general fund is the juvenile court, whose budget covers that court’s probation and clerk’s offices and the round-the-clock operating costs for the juvenile detention center.

The juvenile court sought $6,691,252, but got $6.2 million, which was slightly more than its 2007 budget. That court consumes about 10.3 percent of the general fund.

“We went through that with a fine-toothed comb, and I’m pretty much satisfied at this point faxless payday loans. There could be adjustments made down the road,” Commissioner David Ludt said of next year’s budget.

In other action, the commissioners approved a $22,442 final payment on Chase Bank’s lien on Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center. The county bought Oakhill last year in U.S. Bankruptcy Court and now houses its Department of Job and Family Services there.

The bank’s lien on the property stemmed from the principal and interest on the $100,000 loan it made to keep Oakhill operating during last year’s bankruptcy proceedings. The rest of that lien was paid off by the county’s $75,000 purchase payment for the former hospital and monies from a bank account and rental income left over from Oakhill’s former owner, the Southside Community Development Corp.

Commissioners also approved a wage reopener, which will give 3 percent pay increases to 303 civilian employees and deputies in the sheriff’s department belonging to Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 141, effective Jan. 1. Annual full-time pay ranges between about $24,000 a year for cadets and $41,120 for top-level deputies.

Also passed by the commissioners was a resolution to cooperate with the Ohio Department of Transportation on turn-lane additions to improve traffic flow at the intersection of Tippecanoe Road, U.S. Route 224 and Lockwood Boulevard. The road construction job is scheduled to be advertised to potential bidders next spring. ODOT will pay the entire cost. Traffic will be maintained with lane restrictions during construction.
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The Central Bank has reported a further slowdown in mortgage lending over the past month, continuing a trend that has been continuing since the start of the year.

The bank says the annual rate of increase in residential mortgage lending was just over 15% in the 12 months to October of this year no fax payday loans.

This is a full percentage point lower than the rate in the 12 months to September.

The rate of increase has fallen by around one percentage point in each month since January of this year.

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Campaign committees that rack up big credit card bills must report the details of those expenses on their public finance reports, the Missouri Ethics Commission has determined.

The interpretation, which had been requested on behalf of Republican Gov. Matt Blunt, means that Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon will have to start releasing more credit card details of his gubernatorial campaign.

Blunt and Nixon are expected to face each other in the November 2008 governor’s race.

Blunt’s campaign has attached the details of its credit card bills to his campaign finance reports. But Nixon’s campaign has listed only the amounts paid to credit card companies, not what each of those bills include.

In an advisory opinion dated Nov. 9, the Ethics Commission essentially said campaigns must treat credit card bills as they would cash expenditures.

State law requires expenses of more than $100 to be itemized on finance reports. So if a hypothetical credit card bill for $200 included a $150 hotel charge and several other smaller amounts, the hotel charge would have to be reported in detail, while the other items could be categorized in general groups like food or parking.

“Now that the Ethics Commission has clarified its requirement, we’ll begin reporting it that way,” Nixon spokesmen Oren Shur said Monday.

Shur said Nixon’s campaign would change its previously filed reports to add a more detailed description of credit card bills.

Blunt spokesman John Hancock contended that’s exactly what Nixon’s campaign should do.

Blunt’s itemized credit card bills have included everything from a $21,148 payment to Aspen Executive Air of Colorado to coffee shop and fast food purchases of less than $5.

Hancock said Blunt will continue to itemize those small expenses, even though the Ethics Commission opinion indicates that’s not necessary.

Blunt’s campaign asked for the Ethics Commission interpretation because “we thought that perhaps we were disclosing more than the law required,” Hancock said cheap payday loans. “We really were just looking for clarifacation.”

Blunt’s campaign has shown a far greater reliance on credit cards.

From October 2006 until October 2007, campaign finance reports show about $109,000 in credit card charges for Blunt compared with slightly more than $25,000 in charges for Nixon’s campaign.

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