Linda Harris DISCUSSIONS —Jefferson County Commissioners, from left, Eric Timmons, Tony Morelli and Jake Kleineke, heard financial concerns during a three-hour meeting Thursday.

STEUBENVILLE — A Caring Place won’t get all the money its director asked for, but Jefferson County Jobs and Family Services committed Thursday to provide $48,000 to keep the child advocacy center running for the next six months.

During the three-hour county commissioner meeting, JFS administrators stressed their support for A Caring Place’s mission — to provide a safe and supportive environment for children who have been physically and sexually abused — but pointed out they’re also facing “a lot of unknowns” budget-wise that could drastically change their operations as well.

“We support their services but at the same time, there’s a lot of unknowns,” Director Michele Santin said afterward. “We are very, very cautious with our budget.”

County officials, including Santin, have voiced concern that an advocacy group’s push to do away with property taxes in Ohio would devastate local governments that rely on the revenue they generate to fund essential services — and point out whatever impacts local governments ultimately will affect the services they can provide. They point to a very long list of community services funded with property tax dollars –i ncluding public schools; the joint vocational school; the sheriff’s department and county jail; Jefferson County Board of Developmental Disabilities; 911; senior services; police, fire and emergency medical services; the public of Steubenville and Jefferson County; the Steel Valley Regional Transit Authority; and townships, villages and cities — that would be impacted if property taxes were to be abolished.

Critics, in fact, say as much as $23 billion in revenue would be lost statewide if the abolitionists get their way, and so far there’s no concrete plan to replace any of it should the measure go through.

“If they push this through, we’re done,” Santin said. “Worse-case scenario could happen, I’m fearful of that. There’s a lot of unknowns that we’re facing. We support them in their services, but we are facing a lot of unknowns with our budget as well — not least of which is what’s going to happen with this movement to get rid of the property tax?”

The discussion came after A Caring Place Director Amy Lingerfelt a week ago asked the county commissioners to find $94,000 to help cover salaries for the center’s four full-time employees for the next year, saying by the time they learned the funding wouldn’t be available it was too late for them to adjust their own spending. At the time commissioners had made it clear that while they wholeheartedly support the services A Caring Place provides to children who have been physically and emotionally traumatized by abuse, they must be cognizant of their own budgetary issues and how best to address the needs of their roughly 65,000 county residents.

“I think I’m speaking for all three of us — never (did I think) it wasn’t worth the money or that you didn’t do a good job,” Commissioner Tony Morelli said Thursday. “I want you to switch seats with us — we represent 65,000 people in our county, and it’s we’re a distressed community, we only get so much money (to work with.)”

Morelli said the three of them had been inundated with letters, texts and phone calls, but said there was never any doubt that they’d help.

Sheriff Fred Abdalla Jr., who attended the meeting, was asked by Lingerfelt to address the importance of having a child advocacy center available, telling commissioners that when they’re investigating these cases, “what we don’t want to do is cause any more trauma to the children, the families. (Experts) recommend you don’t have an officer in uniform and (have) a site where it’s more of a home-like environment, a more comfortable environment, for that victim and those families. We have worked very well together and every case that we have gotten, we take those victims out there to A Caring Place where they have their forensic interview.

Just a few weeks ago, we had a young lady who went out there and fully disclosed horrific, just horrific, circumstances someone had perpetrated on her — without A Caring Place, I don’t think that that young lady would have had the strength to come forward and say the things that she did.”

Abdalla said his office “continues to stand by “the advocacy center, adding, “I know that you gentlemen are also concerned about the same things that I am in this community and I know that you guys are going to do the best you can to try to help figure out.”

Joseph Corabi, the former juvenile and probate judge, said the center is “a place where healing begins” for children who’ve been abused.

“These children cannot wait and they cannot heal without us,” he said. “It is their only safe haven when coping with their trauma. We must remember that just because we do not see them cry or hear them cry, does not mean that abuse does not happen.”

Commissioner Eric Timmons pointed out it “was never a question of if it’s needed, just where do we get the funding,” while Commissioner Jake Kleineke reiterated his words of a week ago. “It’s a service I wish we didn’t need,” Kleineke repeated. “We understand its importance, we’ve had a lot of conversations about it.”

Commissioners originally planned to use emergency funds to keep the advocacy center open for six months, but learned they cannot legally channel general fund revenue to the child advocacy center until the children services levy funding is exhausted, which prompted JFS to step in. Commissioners said they’ll reassess A Caring Place’s fiscal situation in six months, and, in the meantime, urged Lingerfelt to amp up fundraising activities and look at other potential funding sources, including reaching out to governing bodies from outside Jefferson County that call for emergency assistance because they don’t have the same resource in their community.