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YOUNGSTOWN -- More than $130,000 in state and federal traffic safety grants will support Mahoning County Sheriff's Office deputies on additional enforcement details over the next year.
A news release from the Mahoning County Sheriff's Office states that the Ohio Department of Public Safety awarded the office $46,200 through the Safe Communities program and $86,459 in federal traffic safety grants, for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
The funding also will allow sheriff's deputies to supplement enforcement in communities where local police departments lack the staffing to devote officers to persistent traffic problems. Sheriff Jerry Greene said recent crash data identified speeding, impaired driving, distracted driving and seat belt use as priorities.
Greene said the funding is "critical to ensuring that we are doing everything possible to keep our community safe."
The federal money includes $40,310 through the Impaired Driving Enforcement Program and $46,149 from the Selective Traffic Enforcement Program.
Ohio Safe Communities is a data-driven program involving state, county and local agencies, with goals including increased seat belt use, impaired driving awareness, motorcycle safety and coalition building.
Greene said his department will conduct high-visibility enforcement and permit more overtime hours, concentrating on behaviors associated with serious crashes. The Safe Communities money also can support traffic safety education, enforcement and engineering.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol's crash data dashboard shows how those and other factors cited by the sheriff's office have contributed to Mahoning County crashes in recent years.
Since 2021, distracted driving crashes have fallen every year, from 287 to 187 in 2025, a 34.8% decline, with 155 recorded so far in 2026. Alcohol-related crashes also fell substantially, from 177 in 2021 to 131 in 2025, a 26% decline, with 82 so far this year.
Speed-related crashes, however, remained relatively steady, between 588 and 628 every year from 2021 through 2025. Youth-related crashes dropped from 1,813 in 2021 to 1,561 in 2023, but rose to 1,619 in 2024 and 1,634 in 2025. Unbelted crashes followed a similar pattern, falling from 1,019 in 2021 to 883 in 2023 before climbing to 940 in 2024 and 1,017 last year.
Austintown police Chief Valorie Delmont said her department told the sheriff's office that staffing shortages make it difficult to dedicate officers to traffic enforcement and provided deputies with a list of areas generating repeated complaints.
"We said we're really short on staffing, and we said if any of your grant cars need a place to work, we provided them with a list of trouble areas," Delmont said.
Delmont said construction, detours and road closures along Mahoning Avenue, Interstate 80 and Interstate 76 have generated complaints about motorists, including commercial traffic, cutting through residential neighborhoods and secondary roads. She identified Silica and Turner roads as particular problem areas.
Delmont said the Ohio State Highway Patrol also has helped Austintown monitor commercial motor vehicle traffic in those areas.
She said funding to the sheriff's office means local departments can better manage their limited resources.
"Them receiving grants helps everybody," Delmont said. "They can have their people do traffic enforcement on some of our streets and help us curb those problems."