Trumbull County Commissioners are still hard at work on getting their budget down, but are still about $6.9 million off from where they need to be.

During a meeting on Thursday, commissioners met with departments who were supposed to have the bare bones of what they needed to get by.

Commissioners say some departments did bring those to the table, but others did not, with some being able to find room to make cuts, but others still being higher than commissioners would like.

"With the sales tax money coming in a little less than past years, we can't grow as quickly as we'd hope, so everyone needs to tighten the belt a little bit to make sure we don't have to cut any services," said Commissioner Denny Malloy.

Commissioner Tony Bernard says even with a sales tax hike, the county wouldn't reap the benefits right away.

"What I don't like is how we got here with that," he said. "So I think the voters, anytime you have to put a sales tax increase on anybody, I think the voters should have the final say."

County Commissioner Rick Hernandez tells 21 News commissioners want to make cuts rather than layoffs and will have some hard decisions to make in the next week.

"We will make a decision to appropriate the monies we have to delegate them to those departments. I can't say the departments are going to like it, but we're working in the best interest of our taxpayers and we're working with what monies we have available to work with," Hernandez said.

Commissioners plan to meet again Friday, February 28 with the plan to give each department their allotted money to work within. Commissioners say one option could still end up being a proposed .25% sales tax increase.