WARREN — Trumbull County commissioners refused Tuesday to place on today’s meeting agenda a resolution that would have the Common Pleas Court appoint attorney Jared A. Wagner to help Auditor Martha Yoder in a lawsuit that could be filed against them over her budget.

The commissioners unanimously agreed that if the auditor wants the county to support appointing her attorney, she needs to seek a court order herself.

A similar resolution was to be placed on last week’s workshop agenda, but it was removed before the March 12 regular meeting.

Trumbull County Assistant Prosecutor Bill Danso told commissioners if they do not approve the hiring of an outside counsel, Yoder’s attorney can go to the court to get a mandamus order to force the commissioners to do so.

“Traditionally, those have been successful,” Danso said.

“So, she sues us and then we will have to hire our own attorney to defend ourselves?” Commissioner Tony Bernard questioned.

“Yes, that’s the way it works,” Danso responded.

“If she loses, would she have to pay all of the court costs?” Bernard asked.

“It is general fund revenue,” Danso said. “It is something that her counsel and the commissioner’s counsel will ultimately have to fight about.”

“All it does is take additional money out of the county,” Commissioner Rick Hernandez said.

Hernandez questioned why Yoder has not attended the last two commissioners’ meetings when they were discussing the county’s 2025 budget.

“We need to know where we are at with the budget,” Hernandez said.

Malloy said he does not want to see anyone laid off.

He, once again, accused Yoder of using her employees as human shields to get what she wants.

Human Resources Director Alexandra DeVengencie Bush warned the commissioners that any layoffs that might occur could lead to the unions filing complaints.

“It could cost us money in the long term,” she said. “They (the AFSCME union) will come back, they’re going to want explanations and they’re going to want to cost money.”

Bernard questioned what the commissioners are supposed to do when they only have a specific amount to provide for the county’s budget.

“Everybody is saying we need to streamline government,” he said. “We need to cut costs wherever we can.”

YODER’S RESPONSE

Yoder, in a separate interview, said she told Malloy in January that she would be attending fewer commissioner meetings in 2025. Unless there is an item on the weekly agenda that requires an explanation from the auditor’s office, Yoder noted neither Chisty Sostaric or she will attend the commissioners meetings.

“It is their meetings,” she said. “Attending these meetings takes time away from my office duties.”

Yoder reiterated the auditor’s office requires $3,794,292 to continue operating without laying off any employees.

The commissioners initially stated they would provide the auditor’s office $3 million for 2025. Yoder argued she could not do her assigned job with that amount, so she threatened to sue the commissioners to achieve a budget that would allow her to do, at a minimum, her statutory duties.

On Friday, the commissioners, after learning the county has more than $15 million in reserves in the county’s budget, decided to use $2 million from its undivided sales tax to add to its $64.8 million general fund budget, creating a total general fund budget of $66.8 million to divide between its departments.

This amount does not include the $2 million provided to the county’s general by the former clerk of courts at the beginning of this year.

Yoder states that she, at this time, will not push to obtain a court order to compel the commissioners to provide her office legal representation. The county prosecutor’s office cannot represent either the commissioners or the auditor’s office because it typically represents both offices and it would be a conflict of interest.

The auditor’s office was one of several departments that received an increase in the projected 2025 budget. The county added $400,000 to the auditor’s proposed $3 million budget.

Yoder said while she appreciates the additional funds, it still will place her in the position of laying off eight to nine employees. If the department did not receive the increase, Yoder said the layoffs would have been approximately 18 employees.

“While the increase does buy us some time to work with the union on layoffs and potential alternatives, it falls short of the number that would allow our office to continue operations without layoffs,” she said.

Yoder emphasized her office has been proactive in preparing for possible budgetary cuts.

“We discontinued overtime pay at the end of January,” she said. “We also froze my deputy director Tim Hanifer’s salary. Tim also is the county’s Information Technology director and he has not been given a salary increase for this additional work.”

She added that Hanifer generally works five or more hours past his 40 hours per week without seeking additional overtime.

“There are other things we have been doing to reduce our costs and save jobs,” she said.

Yoder said the county’s GIS and tax map programs had been paid out of the county real estate tax funds, but she discovered last year the practice was illegal, so she stopped paying for them using those funds.

“That adds extra money from my budget,” she said.

The auditor, like every other county department head, is paying more this year in union employee salaries that were negotiated prior to her arrival.

“I have no choice, but to provide the union employees with their negotiated 3% wage increases,” she said.

The auditor’s office has five nonunion employees in the office that will be required to receive the increases.