By Jennifer Edwards
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LEBANON - Commissioners on Tuesday approved $1.3 million in appropriations for the Warren County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities - but they urged the agency to scale back staff raises next year.

MRDD officials asked for the money to be tacked onto their $17.8 million budget this year - a 44 percent increase overall compared to last year's budget - to help pay for salary increases and to hire more staff.

Last year, the full-to-overflowing agency had to freeze all salaries and lay off 14 workers before voters passed a 4-mill replacement levy.

MRDD's costs have skyrocketed as its client population keeps pace with the general population, Deputy Superintendent Mike Virelli told commissioners. The agency with 274 employees provides housing, jobs and education for 1,068 mentally retarded adults and children.

"If you want us to keep the level of service and assure safety in our program, we have to put the $1.3 million back in," Virelli said. "The numbers are staggering. It's going to be the same thing every year. This thing is not going to go away."

The levy gives MRDD an additional $6.5 million a year and costs the owner of a $100,000 home an additional $61 a year.

The employees who were laid off last year worked in an adult services program, which helped mostly wheelchair-using, assisted-living patients who cannot speak with therapy and job skills, Virelli said.

Each year for the next five years, MRDD officials are anticipating the number they serve to climb 10 percent.

Commissioners acquiesced to the appropriation request but - citing the down economy and pending state and federal funding cuts - balked when Virelli told them the MRDD board has agreed to 4 percent raises for union employees for 2004 and 2005.

Commissioner Pat South suggested those raises be shaved back to at least 3 percent, possibly lower, to ward off future layoffs.

She also hinted that county employees should expect low raises next year.

"I would highly recommend that the (MRDD) board consider limiting all pay increases to at least 3 percent until we see a light at the end of the day of this economy," she said. "There is none of us who know how long this is going to last. We have been known in tight years to give less than 3 percent."

Virelli said MRDD is trying to be frugal but can't scrimp on salaries. Otherwise, he cautioned, the agency will keep losing experienced staff to other MRDDs or school systems.

"We are continuing to lose our competitive edge," he said. "We hire people, train them and lose them."

Commissioners praised Virelli, other MRDD officials and the board members for raising the agency's standards and performance.

The county MRDD came under fire in 2000 over two houses that officials bought at well above market value. The board and top administrators were pushed out. MRDD's new leaders have been credited with overhauling the agency.

"You guys brought this up from the basement to the towers," Commissioner Larry Crisenbery said.

E-mail jedwards@enquirer.com