Townships, which will benefit from the additional 0.25 percent Mahoning County sales tax primarily to pave more roads, largely rejected the ballot issue while cities and villages, which will see little from the $9 million it will generate annually, backed the proposal.

“I certainly expected it to be the other way,” county Engineer Pat Ginnetti said. “I expected the townships to support this.”

The tax issue was approved 20,978 to 19,039 in the county Tuesday, according to unofficial results. That’s a margin of victory of 4.8 percent.

The Mahoning County Board of Elections will meet later this month to certify the results, but the tax certainly will pass.

Of the $9 million the sales tax will provide annually for five years, $4 million will go to county roads, $4 million to township roads and $1 million to county-owned infrastructure, primarily bridges, in cities and villages.

The county isn’t permitted to pave roads in cities and villages, Ginnetti said.

Though the tax will provide a significant asset to townships compared with villages and cities, of the 14 townships in the county, only a majority of voters in four of them backed the tax.

In comparison, the county’s four cities voted in favor of the tax increase with Youngstown, Campbell and Struthers having the highest percentage of yes votes among all communities.

Three of the seven villages voted for the tax, although New Middletown rejected it by only two votes, 143 in favor and 145 in opposition.

“The townships will see the biggest benefits,” Ginnetti said. “But we had limited time to get the message out. I didn’t let enough people know the benefits of this sales tax. I was concerned I didn’t have enough time. I went to every township trustee meeting, but they’re not well attended.”

Also, Ginnetti said some county residents still don’t trust government and because of that, they didn’t support the tax.

“In the past, there were people who did wrong, and we’re guilty by association,” he said. “We have to prove to some people that those days are gone. We have to prove to people we’ll do the right thing, and we’ll show them the results.”

Ginnetti added: “I was surprised by the results. I’m not going to lie. I was worried it wasn’t going to pass. I was out there every night somewhere different to get the word out.”

With this approval, Mahoning will have one of the five highest sales tax rates among Ohio’s 88 counties at 7.5 percent.

The tax issue received 52.4 percent of the vote, according to unofficial totals.

It exceeded that percentage in all four of the cities.

Leading the way was Youngstown with 59.4 percent of the vote. Also, Youngstown, the county’s most populous city, provided 4,635 of the total 20,978 yes votes for the tax. That’s 22.1 percent of all yes votes from a city that will see a minimal impact from the tax.

In Campbell, the yes vote was 57.5 percent. It was 56.6 percent in Struthers and 53.4 percent in the city of Canfield.

Among the 14 townships, the sales tax received majority support from only Boardman, Poland, Green and Milton.

Of those four, the tax had more support from only Poland Township, with 53.5 percent, than the city of Canfield and by a mere 0.1 percent.

Milton backed the tax with 52.9 percent of the vote, Boardman with 52.7 percent and Green with 52.1 percent.

Austintown voters gave 48 percent support to the tax that will, under Ginnetti’s plan, pave several roads in the township. Austintown is the second most populous township in the county behind Boardman.

Among the townships, the tax did the worst in Smith with only 42 percent support and Jackson with 42.5 percent of the vote.

dskolnick@vindy.com