WARREN — Trumbull County is expected to begin discussions that eventually could lead to seven area communities providing a portion of the money needed for indigent defense for those facing municipal based charges.

For about the past year-and-a-half, Warren, McDonald, Lordstown, Cortland, Hubbard, Girard and Niles have not paid the county for public defenders to represent indigent defendants that are charged in each of those communities.

Trumbull County commissioners in May approved a contract with the Ohio Public Defender Commission to provide public defenders for indigent persons. The OPDC office is providing its services to the county for $2.8 million a year.

However, because of a state program, the county only has to pay $315,644 of the $2.8 million, while the state pays 88% of the contract costs. Under the last contract, the state paid 83% of the contract costs.

The Ohio Public Defender Commission has been providing legal services to Trumbull County since 1984. Approximately two years ago, Lordstown officials challenged the annual amount the village was being charged to provide indigent services because they felt the amount was too high for the number of people charged with crimes in the village.

“They questioned why they were paying $2,150 a year when communities such as McDonald and Hubbard were paying $500,” Trumbull County Commissioner Denny Malloy said during Tuesday’s weekly commissioners workshop.

When the commissioners could not answer that question, Malloy, at the time, suggested none of the communities should have to pay until someone could quantify how each community is charged based on the services rendered.

No one has been able to answer the question.

Trumbull officials have reached out to the Ohio Public Defender Commission, searched previous contracts and public documents and still have not come up with a formula that would tell them how communities are being charged for these indigent legal services.

Under the proposed contract, Warren would pay $50,000 a year for Ohio Public Defenders to provide indigent legal representation for persons charged with city crimes; McDonald, Cortland and Hubbard each would be charged $500; Girard, $3,500 and Niles would be charged $7,375.

During Tuesday’s workshop, a proposed contract was presented to the commissioners by their finance clerk, Shara Taylor, that would charge the communities the same amounts they were paying when the county stopped asking them to pay for indigent services.

The communities will be required to sign the proposal agreements with the county to receive services from the Ohio Public Defender Commission.

“If a municipality chooses to not sign an agreement, they will be responsible to hire their own attorney for any of their local ordinance violations,” Taylor said. “Because the public defenders office will no longer be able to support them.”

Malloy again questioned how can the county ask communities to pay an amount for services when they are not able to tell how the amounts are calculated.

“If someone came to the county and asked us to pay for a service, but could not tell us how they came up with the amount, I would not pay for it,” Malloy said. “We could be shorting ourselves or we could be overpaying. The contract should be based on service. I don’t think it is responsible, fair or honest to be giving them a bill we cannot back up.”

Trumbull County Assistant Prosecutor Bill Danso said because the county has told these communities not to pay this bill, the county literally has been funding indigent defenses for local municipalities for two years without reimbursement.

“That’s not right,” he said. “That’s hurting the county’s budget at the expense of municipalities who are bringing in revenues and fines for those offenses. The county should not be funding it.”

Danso said the amounts being requested can be negotiated.

“What is not sustainable is not billing them,” he said. “The county’s duty is to fund state indigent defense and that is what we do through the court of common pleas.”

Commissioner Tony Bernard described the proposal as a service contract in which they pay based on the numbers on the contract.

Commissioner Rick Hernandez questioned if they could base the charge on population.

Danso said they lost more than a year-and-a-half of charges for all seven communities even though Lordstown was the only one to challenge their rate.