Liberty Township Trustees tabled the vote on opposing a sale tax increase and a water rate increase at their meeting on Monday night. 

Trustees Devon Stanley and Arnold Clebone both said they want to talk to the Trumbull County Commissioners more before they make a decision on if they are for or against it. 

“We need more information on what they're going to do. We just got two new commissioners. We gotta let them explain what they're doing,” Trustee Clebone said. "We want to look at that tax, people that come to shop here theirs a lot of people that come from out of town that mans increase revenue from out of town people, that means dollars from us."

"I definitely agree that any sales tax is harmful in the sense that it increases prices and sometime it dries up business,” Trustee Stanley said. “Until someone is paying the water rates that the 1,500 of us are paying in Girard I don't think I'm 100 percent sure about getting on board with that."

Trustee Greg Cizmar did not want to table the vote and was prepared to oppose both increases - telling 21 News he doesn't want water rates going up.

The idea of raising the sales tax in the county has been brought up in recent commissioner meetings when discussing this year's budget. After all departments' financial requests came in higher than what the county has, the board's trying to find more money or where to cut. 

Currently, Trumbull County has the lowest sales tax in the Mahoning Valley at 6.75%. Columbiana County's sales tax sits at 7.25% and Mahoning County’s at 7.5%.

The Trumbull County Sanitary Engineer has suggested the water rate increase to $12.50 cent per thousand gallon and a $5 replacement improvement fee for each account. The county hasn't had a water rate increase in the past ten years.

The Bazetta Township Trustees previously voted to unanimously oppose both increases. Trustee Michael Hovis said after the vote that they wanted to protect their residents' wallets and urged the commissioners to find another way to balance the budget other than passing it onto the taxpayers. 

Commissioner Denny Malloy previously told 21 News he would vote no on both increases if it was put on an agenda item.

Newly elected Commissioner Rick Hernandez told 21 News he’s not agreeing at this point to a sales tax increase. He added that he feels the water rates should have been increased “systematically” over the past ten years in the county and wanted to discuss the option of a smaller rate increase with the sanitary engineer.

Newly elected Commissioner Tony Bernard did not respond to our request for comment by the time of publishing. 

The commissioners do not have either increase on an agenda to vote on right now and say these are just discussions.

The Liberty Township Trustees have not set a date for when they will revisit the vote for the opposition. 

The commissioners will have another meeting to discuss the budget on Thursday, Feb.13. The budget has to be finalized by March.