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Mahoning County Children Services levy on Nov. ballot

YOUNGSTOWN – The Mahoning County Children Services levy, Issue 3 on the Nov. 7 ballot, is essential to protecting children from the effects of the opioid addiction crisis, said Randall Muth, executive director of the county child welfare agency.

“It is the children who are left as the invisible, vulnerable, voiceless victims of circumstances beyond their control,” Muth said, explaining how children witness their parents buying drugs, taking drugs, shooting up, overdosing, passed out, unresponsive, getting revived and even dying. “These are the children who find themselves living in, and lingering in, foster care when their parents are in recovery, relapse or die.”

Issue 3 is a half-mill, five-year real estate tax replacement levy, which would cost the owner of a home with a $100,000 market value $17.50 a yea if approved by voters.

Muth equated that to the price one fast food value meal per year.

For the owner of a $100,000 home, Issue 3 would add $7.35 a year to the cost of the levy it would replace.

The replacement levy will keep the levy’s voted millage the same, while adjusting the revenue to reflect today’s higher real estate values.

Under state law, a renewal would generate the same amount of money as this levy did when it was first passed in 1983, except for new construction.

The Mahoning County Children Services is the public agency that protects the county’s abused, neglected or dependent children, including those whose parents suffer from drug addiction.

Muth said the opioid addiction epidemic has contributed to an increase in demand and the complexity of the agency’s caseloads.

The number of child abuse and neglect investigations the Agency launched rose from 833 in the first half of 2016 to 1,114 in the first half of 2017. The number of children the Agency placed outside their homes rose from 27 in the first half of 2016 to 46 in the first half of 2017.

Muth said the ageny has always enjoyed strong community support for its mission and “is grateful for the community’s generosity and for its recognition that communities thrive when every child has a safe, permanent and nurturing home.”

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