Cuyahoga County isn’t in a hurry to spend the new tax money for social services that it won with the passage of Issue 11 last week.
The property tax increase will deliver an estimated more than $110 million in additional money per year to the county budget for child services, aid to seniors, homeless assistance and more. The levy received support from about 60% of county voters.
That new money will stave off “practically all” of the $16 million in new service cuts proposed for next year, County Council President Dale Miller told reporters on Tuesday.
Beyond that, council is taking a “conservative approach” to spending health and human services levy dollars, he said. That approach includes making a plan to build reserves over the 10-year lifespan of the levy, he said. He suggested that a longer-term spending plan might not take shape until next year’s budget process, which will lay out spending for 2028 and 2029.
This week, Council Vice President Yvonne Conwell similarly cautioned social service providers that spending still would be tight.
“I’m not saying that we’re going to say ‘no’ to everything, but we’re going to be very careful in how we look at this budget,” Conwell said Monday at a panel discussion on the election results hosted by Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry.
County Executive Chris Ronayne released a 2027 budget update Tuesday that did not take the passage of the new levy into account. But it did lay out a few new health and human services spending items.
Next year, the county plans to spend $3.9 million more for seniors and $9.8 million more for children in county custody. The county is also budgeting $9.1 million more for food assistance to make up for a cut in federal reimbursements for administrative costs. The budget also includes a $1 million increase in emergency homeless shelter spending.
The levy will raise taxes $87.50 per $100,000 of property value. Voters also passed Issue 10, which will cost $79 per $100,000 of property value and raise nearly $100 million for the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities.
Ronayne: Levy brought ‘relief’ after cuts in county services
In an interview after the election, Ronayne acknowledged that the levy’s main goal had been to prevent more cuts. The county already reduced safety net spending in its original budget for 2026 and 2027.
“We did not want to endure those cuts again, and we were down to the bone,” he told Signal Cleveland. “And at least we’ve seen some relief, and we’re grateful.”
As for future spending, he said he planned to work alongside council and service providers on an “action plan that sustains services.”
Ronayne’s administration has offered a few other suggestions for spending new levy dollars. A fact sheet released before the election said the tax increase would support $25 million more for children’s services, $6 million more for seniors, $10 million for food assistance, $5 million more for juvenile probation and $28 million more for county health and human services staff.
The county’s fact sheet also promised to restore $4 million that was cut from the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board. Miller said it was “reasonable” for the board to ask for more money.
But on the whole, he said he didn’t expect the county would initiate much new spending on health and human services right away.
“We don’t want to say, ‘We’ve got all this money, and we’re just going to go out and spend it,’” Miller said, “and then inflation will hit us, and we’ll run out of money long before the 10 years is up.”
