YOUNGSTOWN — Leaders from Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties met in Austintown last Friday to oppose state plans to divert marijuana tax dollars from their communities.

On Thursday, Austintown Trustee Robert Santos — who has been spearheading the fight — praised Mahoning County commissioners for lending their support to the cause.

Santos praised the board for a letter signed by all three commissioners to the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, which denounces plans by Gov. Mike DeWine and the legislature to eliminate much of the excise tax revenue townships like Austintown and Boardman would receive from recreational marijuana sales.

The brief letter, dated Feb. 19, states: “We the Commissioners, strongly oppose the funding reallocations within Senate Bill 56 and Governor DeWine’s Blue Book Executive budget, and any additional taxation that undermines the funding dedicated to our hosting communities. Voters made their voices clear when they approved Issue 2 in the November 7, 2023, election. Any attempt to impose new taxes or redirect these funds disregards the will of the people. We stand firm in protecting the financial resources that rightfully belong to the support of our local communities.”

When Issue 2 passed, it mandated that the state would collect a 10% excise tax and that, of the revenue from that tax, 36% would be reimbursed to the communities where recreational marijuana dispensaries operated. That money, which provides a valuable additional revenue stream for townships — whose budgets are 88% to 90% supported by property tax dollars, was supposed to be paid to local communities indefinitely.

However, as Kyle Petty, managing director of policy for the County Commissioners Association of Ohio, explains, DeWine’s budget proposed to reallocate much of it to support the building of county jails and some police training initiatives.

Santos praised Mahoning County for going against the CCAO, but Petty said that is not exactly the case.

“We supported what Gov. DeWine proposed in his exec budget that would allocate a certain percentage of marijuana tax funds to county jail construction,” he said. But that did not mean the CCAO took a particular position on removing funding from local host communities.

“We did not take a position on where the money would come from and we did not oppose money for the host communities,” he said. “That tax revenue doesn’t apply to counties. We just support the jail funding.”

Petty said that funding for jails was not explicitly outlined in the Issue 2 language, so allocating money for it means taking it from one of the pools generated by the 10% excise tax. Those pools also include the Cannabis Social Equity and Jobs Fund (36%), the Substance Abuse and Addiction Fund (25%), and a fund for the Division of Cannabis Control and Tax Commissioner (3%).

The law also includes a 5.75% sales tax which goes directly to state and local general funds.

DeWine’s budget also proposed increasing the excise tax to more than 25%, but the legislature has opposed any tax increases.

Petty said both the House and Senate budget bills also take away much of the local community dollars, but remove specific allocations that DeWine proposed and put the money right back into the state’s general revenue fund.

Senate Bill 56 reduces the amount communities receive to 25% of the sales tax and only for seven years, and House Bill 160 proposes to provide 20% for five years.

Santos said Austintown is the 12th largest township out of 1,300 statewide and Boardman is the 10th largest. The two combined contain approximately 75,000 people.

Santos and his fellow trustees have said that they and many other local communities — which have the right to decide if a dispensary opens in their jurisdiction — only approved one because of the potential for the tax revenue.

At Friday’s press conference, Girard Mayor Mark Zuppo said the dispensaries generate more tax revenue than a factory with 500 employees. Niles Mayor Steve Mientkiewicz said his city expected to see $500,000 per year in excise tax reimbursement.

County Commissioner Anthony Traficanti said the board remains united on the issue because it understands the needs of townships like Austintown and cities like Youngstown.

“Those local communities are in need of those funds,” he said. “The more the state dumps on people and the more they take, it gets hard. Why they would do that, I don’t know.”

He said the uncertainty around the marijuana funding is causing budgeting uncertainty for communities that can ill afford it.

While funding for the Mahoning County jail would be welcome, Traficanti said, he feels that the money should go where it was promised, and added that the state has developed a bad habit of taking money away, including severe cuts to the Local Government Fund.

“We have lost at least $10 million in recent years,” he said. “The state has taken a lot of our county resources, and we had to put a justice tax on the ballot to fund the jail because of the state taking money from the counties.”