The Trumbull County Commissioners say they had tough decisions to make when slashing money from departments to balance this year's budget. 

Almost all departments got less than what they asked, most getting a reduction of 10 to 40 thousand dollars.

The departments with the biggest cuts were the Commissioners, Auditor, Prosecutor, Board of Elections and Sheriff's Office. 

“We were handed a bag of rocks,” Commissioner Rick Hernandez said. “We don't have the ARP monies anymore. We have to make those cuts, we have to make those hard decisions and we said it wasn't something we enjoyed doing but it needed to be done.”

Trumbull County MetroParks only got half of what they asked for. The commissioners decide while the battle between them and the park over the Leavittsburg dam continues, they’ll fund them for the first half of the year and then revisit giving them the other half down the road. 

The commissioners are hoping to be able to give several departments more money later in the year and encourage people to shop locally so they can use the sales tax revenue to do it. 

“We just have to cut back on some of the excess that we’ve been dealing with for years. We have to be more fiscally responsible because now the cost of things are going up,” Commissioner Denny Malloy said. “We’re not going to splurge, we’re not going to go into excess. We’re going to live within our means and hopefully everybody gets fed, nobody gets put out on the street, nobody gets laid off.”

As commissioners went line by line to get a $64 million total - they were still $1 million over that goal. To make it up, they slashed $1 million from the sheriff's office but say as more money comes in throughout the year they’ll be the first to get it back. 

“Hopefully those are temporary cuts. I think those are two areas that we definitely can't cut,” Commissioner Tony Bernard said about the Sheriff's office and 911 in the county. “We need law enforcement and we need protection for our unincorporated areas especially those up north.”

Commissioners decided to only use what they have now for the budget and did not impose a sales tax increase, property tax increase or any additional levies. 

The Commissioners plan to revisit the budget quarterly.

The budget must be finalized with a vote by April 1.