ELYRIA — The Lorain County commissioners on Wednesday approved a long-expected deal that will see dispatchers for county Sheriff Phil Stammitti relocated to the county’s 911 Dispatch Center, a move that also will bring three laid-off deputies back to work.

Stammitti said shedding the cost of paying eight dispatchers and a supervisor will save about $650,000 annually, although the savings to his budget will be closer to $400,000 because of the three deputies being rehired.

The current sheriff’s dispatchers will be laid off in the coming weeks, but will be able to apply for jobs at 911, although the exact number that will be hired still hasn’t been determined, 911 Director Robin Jones said.

The savings also will shrink a $6.2 million budget hole county officials anticipate for 2012 because while the sheriff’s office is funded through the county’s cash-strapped general fund, 911 is funded through a levy.

Stammitti said he was pleased with the deal, which he believes could be a precursor to consolidating other law enforcement services — particularly dispatch services for other police departments in the county — in the future.

He also said that bringing back three deputies will increase the deputies working the road from 17 to 20, which will likely mean an extra deputy working most shifts.

“If you’ve got three guys back, you can put one on each shift,” Stammitti said.

The sheriff laid off 12 full-time and eight part-time deputies when the commissioners slashed about $6 million in spending across county government for 2009. Stammitti said most of the laid-off deputies have been rehired through special funds or to replace deputies who retired or otherwise left his office. Others, he said, have found other jobs.

Two of the deputies who will return to the road are working as corrections officers in the county jail, while the third currently works for the Lorain County Drug Task Force.
Commissioner Lori Kokoski called the merger of 911 and sheriff’s dispatching “awesome and exciting.”

“It’s merging things together and saving money,” she said.

Not everyone was thrilled by the decision, however.

Lucy DiNardo, staff representative for the Fraternal Order of Police in Ohio, which represents the sheriff’s dispatchers, said the union is still in negotiations over the county’s plan to lay off the dispatchers and force them to apply for new jobs at 911.

The dispatchers would have to join the United Steelworkers of America, the union which represents 911 workers, which she said could be a problem. The FOP local will continue to exist, but it will contain only one member, the sheriff’s employee who handles vehicle maintenance for Stammitti.

“We’re going to do everything we can to address this issue and basically uphold the rights of the bargaining union members,” DiNardo said.

County Administrator Jim Cordes said under a new union contract with the 911 dispatchers, also approved Wednesday, sheriff’s dispatchers hired to work at 911 will keep their seniority.

Stammitti said he has not yet determined exactly when the layoffs will come, but county officials have said most of the technical changes have been made at the 911 Dispatch Center and the employees could be moved there within the next month.

It could take up to a year to get 911 workers and former sheriff’s dispatchers crosstrained in the both jobs, however.
Commissioner Ted Kalo said he understands the concerns over the merger, but it’s what’s best for the county.

“Nobody likes change, but we have to be doing these things to come up with better ways to spend taxpayers’ money and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.

Dave Noll, an adviser to the Lorain County Deputies Association, said the deputies have mixed feelings about the merger.

“We’re happy to be getting three deputies,” he said. “And we’re hoping for the best for dispatchers facing the layoff and we hope they get hired at 911.”

Commissioner Tom Williams said while he is pleased by the dispatching merger, he remains concerned about finding other places to cut. The county’s projected shortfall has prompted the commissioners to ask voters to approve a 0.25 percent sales tax increase for five years in November.

The commissioners and other elected officials have yet to determine where the cuts would come if they find themselves approximately $6 million short next year.

“I’m looking for us to do more consolidation in the county,” Williams said.
Stammitti also briefed the commissioners on his 2012 budget needs. He said this year he had a budget of about $5.2 million, but with the merger he’ll be asking for about
$4.8 million. He cautioned the commissioners that he has been delaying some expenses such as new patrol cars as he has tried to make cutbacks in recent years.

Although all the commissioners said they’d like to spare Stammitti budget cuts if the sales tax fails to pass, it was something they said the couldn’t guarantee.
Stammitti also said he anticipates a budget of about $12.1 million to run the county jail next year. Between $7 million and $7.5 million of that comes from a dedicated sales tax, but the rest of the jail budget is funded by the commissioners through the county’s general fund.

Stammitti said he can’t close the jail, just like he can’t ignore providing police protection in the townships, monitoring sex offenders, issuing concealed weapons permits and running security at the Lorain County Justice Center.

While the issue of jail overcrowding has fallen off in recent years, Stammitti warned that it could become a problem again in the future.

One idea to address the issue would be to move the county’s female inmates to the now-shuttered Elyria City Jail. He said that would free up beds for male inmates at the county jail.

Although a deal hasn’t been reached with Elyria yet, Stammitti said the negotiations would see his office stop charging Elyria for holding prisoners charged with breaking city ordinances — those charged with breaking state laws he is responsible for housing regardless of where they come from — and paying for collecting DNA samples on all felony arrests made by Elyria police, something now required under state law.

In exchange, Stammitti said, the city would allow him to use its jail as well handle maintenance and upkeep.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

WELLINGTON — Although county voters will be asked to pass a 0.25 percent sales tax hike in November, they aren’t hearing much about it at the Lorain County Fair.

Lorain County commissioners Ted Kalo and Tom Williams acknowledged that they and fellow Commissioner Lori Kokoski are still honing their sales pitch to voters and don’t have a dedicated presence at the fair to talk up the need for the increase.

Kalo said he and Kokoski spoke about it during the fair’s kickoff breakfast on Monday, but there aren’t any informative leaflets being handed out and no booth where voters can stop by to learn more.

Both Kalo and Williams defended the decision not to have an active pro-tax increase presence at the fair because they said they don’t yet have all of the answers voters are going to want.

“What are we going to stop doing? I think the public wants to know that,” Kalo said.

The commissioners have been holding budget hearings for county departments and their fellow elected officials for the past few weeks. A larger meeting is planned for Aug. 31 to discuss exactly what cuts will be made to county government if the sales tax — which is expected to generate between $7 million and $7.5 million annually for the five years it would be in effect — fails to pass.

“Everybody knows that there’s a shortfall, but we don’t know yet what we’re actually going to lose,” Kalo said.

The county is anticipating a budget deficit of roughly $6.2 million next year due to cuts in state funding and other declining revenues. The commissioners and other county officials have said county government can’t deal with the budget gap with cuts alone.

Williams said he wants to make sure voters know exactly what they will be giving up if they reject the sales tax in the fall. He said he doesn’t want to have different people giving out different information on what would be cut if the increase fails.

“What’s most important is to have a consistent message,” he said.

Williams also said that, traditionally, campaigning doesn’t begin until after Labor Day.

“It’s too early,” he said. “I don’t think a lot of people are considering political activity right now.”

Another issue, county Administrator Jim Cordes said, is that the county can’t spend government money on a campaign. In 2009, the last time the commissioners asked voters for a sales tax increase — which was resoundingly defeated at the polls — a massive fundraising and campaign effort was undertaken. That hasn’t happened this year.

“It takes money to be at the county fair and we don’t have it,” Cordes said.

Kalo said there will be a fundraising effort and he hopes there will be enough money brought in to pay for mailers and other standard campaign tactics in addition to having conversations with individual voters and various organizations.

Williams said personal interactions are going to be key to passing the sales tax.

“I think the most effective way is going door-to-door,” he said.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

CLEVELAND — An earthquake shook the upper levels at Progressive Field on Tuesday, but the Indians stood still.

Despite winning the first game of a doubleheader against the Mariners in dramatic fashion, 7-5, the Indians wound up breaking even on the day, dropping the nightcap, 12-7.

“It was a long day just to get a split,” said Cleveland manager Manny Acta, whose club has dropped five of its last six games. “It’s disappointing.”

Cleveland did move a bit in the Central Division standings — the wrong way — falling six games behind the first-place Tigers, who won at Tampa Bay. It is the largest deficit of the season for the Indians, who with a White Sox victory at Los Angeles on Tuesday night, would begin today in third place.

“I’m not counting myself,” Acta said of the deficit. “I’m just trying to win games. Wake me up when we’re mathematically eliminated, if we’re not in first place.”

The Indians were unable to ride the momentum from a fantastic finish in Game 1, which they won on a three-run walk-off home run from Shin-Soo Choo.

They needed the heroics from Choo thanks to another rough outing from closer Chris Perez, who blew the save a night after taking the loss in another shoddy ninth-inning effort.

Choo also saved Justin Masterson from another tough-luck loss. Masterson owned a one-run lead as he took the mound for the ninth inning and a complete-game bid.

He got an out but put two on for Perez, who had little time to warm in the bullpen before allowing the tying and go-ahead runs to cross the plate on a double from Trayvon Robinson — the first batter he faced.

“It’s not the easiest situation, but that’s my job,” Perez said. “I felt fine. If I wasn’t ready, I would have told them I wasn’t ready.”

Masterson wasn’t as good as he has been for much of the year, allowing five runs on on 10 hits, while striking out seven over 8 1/3 innings. But he gave the Indians a chance to win, as he has done nearly every time he has taken the mound this year.

“He hasn’t had a rough spot the whole year,” Acta said. “He’s been so dominant. We feel at the end of the game that he’s earned the right to finish it.”

Conversely, Perez has hit another rough patch as of late.

“He’s getting himself into hitter’s counts,” Acta said.

Ironically enough, Choo’s double in the third inning arrived at the same time as the quake that swayed the press box and could be felt in the upper deck. Little if any of the players on the field were aware that it hit.

For all practical purposes, the nightcap was over much faster.

The Indians took a 1-0 lead in the first on an RBI double from Kosuke Fukudome, then watched the Mariners steamroll starting pitcher Zach McAllister, who was called up from Triple-A Columbus to make his second spot start of the season on the big league level.

After working two scoreless innings, McAllister unraveled, allowing five runs apiece in the third and fourth, with Seattle building an insurmountable 10-2 lead after 3 1/2 innings.

“The kid couldn’t pitch ahead,” Acta said. “He couldn’t make quality pitches and his secondary stuff didn’t show up and they hit him around.”

Cleveland showed its mettle, fighting back with five runs before the final inning, but could not overcome the big deficit.

“The guys swung the bat well, but we were in too big of a hole,” Acta said.

Acta said after the game that the team would option McAllister back to Columbus and recall Cord Phelps for his second stint with the Indians.

Check back for more Tribe coverage.

Contact Chris Assenheimer at 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Fan him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter.

The Indians split a doubleheader against the Mariners at Progressive Field on Tuesday, winning the opening game 7-5 before dropping the nightcap, 12-7.

Shin-Soo Choo won Game 1 with a walk-off three-run home run after closer Chris Perez blew a save in the ninth.

The Mariners scored 10 times in 3 1/3 innings off Cleveland starter Zach McAllister to take control in the second game.