Commissioners' conundrum

The Lorain County commissioners would be taking a big gamble if they put a 0.25 percent sales-tax increase on the November ballot. Passing the tax might prove challenging, yes, but, as we'll get into in a moment, it would complicate efforts to pass another sales-tax increase to pay for a new jail that the commissioners are considering putting on the ballot next year. Were voters to approve the tax this year, it would generate nearly $14 million annually that would be devoted to funding the county Sheriff's Office. That would accomplish two things. First, it would provide a second stream of dedicated money to county Sheriff Jack Hall's office, which this year has a budget of just under $30.4 million, as Chief Deputy Tanya Czack explained at a commissioners' meeting on Friday. Of that, about $13.7 million comes from a 0.25-percent sales tax that voters approved in 1994 to help pay for an expansion of the jail, which was first built in the 1970s. The money is now used to help pay for jail operations. The existing jail tax isn't enough to fully fund the Sheriff's Office, which means that every year the commissioners make up the difference from the county's general fund. Next year, the sheriff's budget is expected to grow to about $32.5 million, Czack said. The second thing that a second tax dedicated to the Sheriff's Office would do is limit how much money the commissioners spend out of the county's general fund each year to shore up the sheriff's budget. That would free up general-fund dollars for use elsewhere, including helping the commissioners deal with a projected deficit of between $5 million and $7 million that Commissioner Dave Moore on Monday told us the county might run next year. (The county's general-fund budget was around about $86.7 million this year.) What the proposed tax increase doesn't do is directly deal with one of county government's most pressing issues: how to pay for replacing the dilapidated Lorain County Jail. In fairness, Moore told us Monday that the county could take out a bond to finance construction of the jail — pegged at between $95 million and $110 million — and use around $8 million annually to pay the bond off over 30 years. But that wasn't part of Friday's discussions. Besides, as Moore pointed out to us, a 30-year bond would be more expensive than what the county would pay if voters next year approved an additional 0.25 percent sales-tax increase to pay for a new jail. He said that tax would likely be in place for 10 years. On Friday, Moore said plans for a new jail wouldn't be ready in time for a jail-construction tax to go before voters this year. Unfortunately, that's been the case for years. In 2023, the commissioners considered and wisely abandoned a stop-gap plan to ask voters to approve a property tax levy that would have generated about $4.5 million annually over the two years it would have been in effect. The commissioners wanted the money to make needed repairs at the jail. As we argued at the time, had voters approved that levy, it would have complicated later efforts to pass an additional tax for replacing the jail. Last year, the commissioners mulled asking voters to approve either a temporary sales tax increase or a temporary property tax levy to pay for a new jail. Those ideas were shelved because the plans presented for the jail were deemed too expensive and the architects were asked to scale them back. There's one other tax that bears consideration in all this: A 0.25 percent sales-tax increase that two of the three Democrats then serving as commissioners voted to impose in 2016 to deal with projected budget shortfalls. In their winning campaign in 2020, Republicans used the imposition of the sales-tax increase as a campaign issue against two sitting Democratic commissioners, handing the GOP control of the board for the first time in decades. Unfortunately, a few weeks before Republicans assumed control, the Democratic commissioners voted to rescind the sales tax that had been imposed four years earlier. Whether it was for spite, as Moore suggested Friday, or because they truly believed the money was no longer needed, the Democrats' decision has had long-lasting repercussions. Yes, as Moore pointed out, the county ended up not needing that money right away because of the $60 million in federal pandemic money it received. However, had the county continued to collect that money, it would have been well on its way to having the funds necessary to pay for a new jail and likely wouldn't be contemplating budget shortfalls next year. It's also worth noting that Lorain County has a sales tax rate of 6.5 percent, which is the lowest rate in the state and is shared by only three other counties. A 0.25 percent increase seems like a reasonable request, but the real question is whether the commissioners can sell such an increase to tax-weary voters this year and, as seems likely, again next year.