Costs for Mahoning to defend poor may increase by $800,000

YOUNGSTOWN — The cost of fighting violent crime in Youngstown continues to mount, but Mahoning County Administrator George Tablack says the county's tab is likely to rise even more.

Last week, Mahoning County commissioners added $100,000 to the county's court judicial account to cover the anticipated cost of providing attorneys through the end of the year for defendants who don't have enough money to pay for their own.

That brought the 2007 total to about $1.8 million, or around $500,000 more for the year than what was spent in 2006.

The cost of providing attorneys to poor defendants comes out of the county's budget.

Tablack says the increase is probably because of the increased number of homicides this year in Youngstown and the "zero tolerance" policy Mayor Jay Williams instituted in February after a quadruple homicide on the South Side in January.

The policy authorized police overtime, around $267,000 so far, so that officers could make more traffic stops in an effort to scare criminals away from carrying firearms in their vehicles.

But Tablack estimates the cost of providing such defense may rise to as much as $2.6 million in 2008 — or double the 2006 rate — as a result of efforts by the Mahoning County Bar Association to increase the hourly rate such attorneys are paid.

Tablack plans to meet with J. Gerald Ingram, president of the bar association, Monday to discuss a proposal the bar association has made to the county to increase the hourly rate paid to such attorneys from $30 to hour to $50 per hour for their work out of court and from $40 per hour to $60 per hour for their work in court.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com