Portage County commissioners explain budget process and say sales tax is the largest revenue source

Commissioner Jill Crawford outlined Ohio county budgeting as a two-step process: a tax budget filed in July that forecasts next-year resources and a temporary budget adopted in December with a permanent budget due April 1. She emphasized the need for cash carryover and said counties should hold roughly 30 days of prior-year expenditures in reserve to avoid fiscal watch or emergency.

Crawford said sales and use taxes are the single largest bucket of revenue for the general fund, and that the county retains only a small portion of the combined sales rate. "So we get 1%. The state of Ohio gets 5.75% of that," Crawford said, noting Portage County's combined sales-tax rate is 7% and that the tax-budget estimate for sales and use tax for 2027 is about $29 million. She also described other major revenue streams — property taxes, investment income and the local government fund — and urged residents to look at the tax-bill pie chart to see how levies and school levies drive local allocations.