BOARDMAN — Mahoning County Engineer Patrick Ginnetti brought his sales tax renewal pitch to the township Monday.

Trustees at their regular meeting said they wholeheartedly support renewing the county’s 0.25% sales tax that supports road and bridge repairs, and Ginnetti said he knows all too well how valuable it is for the townships, as well as his office.

“We spent a lot of time working out the kinks before we even took it to the ballot, and we had a full plan in effect and we stuck to it, and I give a lot of kudos to all the township trustees for keeping up their end of the bargain too,” he said. “Because I know there were a lot of people who were skeptical — you see something new, is it going to work, is it going to be used for the right thing? And I think all of us in the room have proven that we’ve done the right thing and then some. It’s definitely working.”

The sales tax, passed in November 2021 is up for renewal in May. If county residents retain it, the tax will provide more than $50 million for another five years, or about $10 million per year.

Much like the township, Boardman Road Superintendent Kim Blasco said Boardman township’s road department is not funded by property taxes but by a mix of local funds, gas tax, permissive tax and some grant funds. The primary source of grants is the Ohio Public Works Commission, but Blasco explained that that program is a competitive bidding process, and while Boardman receives anywhere from $150,000 to $250,000 for its annual paving projects, that money is not guaranteed.

That makes the sales tax a critical part of Boardman’s road budget, just like it is for Ginnetti’s.

“We paved nine miles of road last year, and of those nine miles, six were paid for with the quarter-percent sales tax money,” Blasco said. “If that continues, within 15 years we will have everything in the township paved at least once, and then we can stay on a 15-year cycle with every road in the township.”

The 0.25% sales tax is split somewhat evenly, with Ginnetti’s office receiving $4 million for regular paving projects, another $4 million split among the townships based on need, and the other $2 million used for bridge repair projects, which Ginnetti’s office oversees.

Blasco said Boardman receives about $948,000 annually in sales tax revenue.

As Ginnetti has explained in his presentation, Trustee Larry Moliterno also noted the rising costs of paving.

“I’m trying to look at some numbers, and I don’t think these are 100% accurate, but I think when I first started we were (spending) about $30,000 to $35,000 per mile to pave, now it’s well over $160,000,” he said. “We have 144 miles of road. Typically, we would spend about $300,000 or so on paving, so you can imagine how long it would take us to be able to do every mile in the township.”

Ginnetti said the county faces the same outlook with regular funding and OPWC grants alone.

“With a seven- to ten-year life cycle, and only being able to do so much — we were doing 10 to 12 miles of road a year — and you do the math, that’s 50 to 60 years just to touch everything. You would never catch up without this different revenue stream,” he said.

Ginnetti said the county has been able to fund far more paving with the sales tax, even expanding its list of paved roads annually, even though funding from OPWC covers less and less each year.

He said the list does not include large-scale federally funded projects that also have been completed in the past few years, like paving South Avenue from Western Reserve Road to just past Indianola Road, or the three-year Western Reserve widening project that will be completed this year and includes repaving.

He said the sales tax program also has been highly successful for bridge repairs, which also benefits Mahoning County’s cities.

“We do have bridges within the municipalities. I do have 25 bridges in Youngstown, six in Struthers, three in Lowellville, two in Sebring,” he said. “We’ve gotten to the point where we’ve improved so much infrastructure, that we’re now taking that bridge money and improving bridges in the townships as well.”

Again, he noted that the sales tax revenue has made some larger projects possible that otherwise would not have been.

“Market Street bridge, which is the ninth largest bridge in the state, without sales tax we would not have been able to do that improvement project,” he said. “That was a $4.5 million project that was spurred by having money to go toward the local match.”