By population, Vinton County is the smallest in the state, but the sheriff's department there has remained busy. In 2014, there were 458 crimes reported in the county. But Vinton County's auditor, Cindy Owings Waugh, said that with a recent loss in revenue, the county might be forced to eliminate staff at the sheriff's office.
"All of the sheriff's department would have to be let go except for the sheriff and one dispatcher," she said.
Vinton County government will be forced to lay off most of its staff because the county is in danger of losing about 11 percent of its annual total revenue. In June, Ohio will no longer be able to collect a tax on Medicaid that provides local governments with hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The tax is especially important for small, rural counties like Vinton and Athens that do not have many sources of income.
"Our tax base is not enough to cover our needs," Waugh said. "People are unemployed, so we have higher crime rates and higher bills in that regard. But we just can't stop putting people in jail."
For the past decade, Ohio has used a state sales tax on Medicaid to collect millions of dollars per year in revenue. In Vinton County, almost 25 percent of all sales tax revenue in 2015 came from the Medicaid tax. Close behind was Meigs County at almost 22 percent. Perry County was third in the state, with 17.8 of its sales tax revenue in 2015 coming from Medicaid.
"In 2015, we had a shade under $9 million in revenue," Drew Cannon, the auditor for Perry County, said. "The Medicaid tax brought in over $700,000, or about 8 to 9 percent of our total revenue. We have got to look at the budgets and see where we can tighten the belt."
911 services are also facing budget shortfalls in Hocking County
"For 911 services, (the tax provides) close to 10 percent (of the budget) because they have fewer revenue sources," Kenneth Wilson, Hocking County's auditor, said. "(The tax) is about 6.6 percent of our general revenue, and that's big for us."
The tax began in 2005 as a managed care tax, but it was changed to a sales tax in 2009 in order to avoid federal jurisdiction. But in 2014, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services said state governments could not single out Medicaid for a tax and that the practice would have to end after the "next regular legislative session," which was the 2015-2016 session. That session would determine the budget that goes into effect in July 2017.
"We've been upfront about the change since 2014," John Charlton, spokesman for the Ohio Budget Office, said. "We've been talking with county organizations; this hasn't been a secret. If CMS had had their way, it would have ended sooner. We got an extension."
Athens County has fared better than many of the counties in southeast Ohio. Athens received almost $850,000 from the tax in 2015, which was about 4 percent of the county's total revenue that year.
"It won't really affect us until next year," Athens County Commissioner Lenny Eliason said. "We don't know what will happen before then, what the governor will do."
Gov. John Kasich will release his budget Monday, which will allegedly help make up the funds lost by the tax's removal.
State Rep. Jay Edwards, who represents Meigs and parts of Athens, Vinton and Washington counties, was not sure what the governor's plan would be.
"I don't think anybody (knows) unless they're in (Kasich's) inner circle," Edwards said. "I think it will be focused on the short term, and once we get that figured out, we'll have the rest of the year to work on what the long-term solution will be."
California and Pennsylvania also faced a similar problem. California expanded the tax to more than just Medicaid, allowing them to keep the Medicaid tax.
"A lot of states have gone through this, and the California model is being talked about," Edwards said. "I'm not sure if I'm a fan. We'll have to see how it would work in Ohio."
