Electric bills behind for Mahoning County satellite court offices
Sebring Court was told the lights could be shut off tomorrow if the $1,644 owed in electric bills is not paid by the end of the day. If the lights go off, the amount owed would be over $2,000.
The notice was delivered by First Energy to Sebring Court Monday morning, saying the monthly electric bill has not been paid in months and the final date to pay the amount owed to prevent service from being disconnected is Tuesday.
The payment is the responsibility of the Clerk of Courts, and has not been paid since May 29.
A notice has been delivered to Mahoning County satellite court in Sebring, the notice saying that the monthly electric bill has not been paid in months. Kaitlyn McCarthy has more details on the notice and what court officials say will happen next.
“There’s obviously been notice after notice after notice after notice that has been going to the Clerk of Courts downtown to pay the bill for Sebring, and they haven’t done it,” said Joe Schiavoni, County Court Judge.
Schiavoni said if the lights go off, it would cause a disruption at the courthouse.
“I mean, we not only have a court to run, but we also run titles and lawyers are communicating with staff about trials coming up on Thursday. We need power in order to run our court, and it’s honestly embarrassing that this bill hasn’t been paid by the Clerk of Court since May,” said Schiavoni.
Schiavoni said if the problem continues, and the lights are turned off, legal action could be considered.
“If this bill doesn’t get paid and we can’t have court, and it’s their fault, then they’re disrupting the court. And there’s some actions that we’re talking about taking as a group,” said Schiavoni.
Clerk of Courts Michael Ciccone said he fixed the issue and the lights will remain on, but the problem stretches to all of the Mahoning County Court satellite offices.
The Clerk of Courts is two months behind on paying electric bills for the other satellite court offices in Mahoning County.
Mahoning County Auditor Ralph Meacham said the county ran into the same problem at the end of last year.
“Prior to January 1 of this year, all the county courts were delinquent in paying their utilities,” said Meacham. “The utilities send the invoices for the bills to each court, and the court’s supposed to process those, send them downtown to the Clerk of Court’s office, and they’re supposed to submit it to my office for payment. That didn’t happen.”
When asked why the payment was not made, the Clerk of Courts sent 21 News the following statement:
Mahoning County Clerk of Courts Michael P. Ciccone announced today that his office was recently made aware that the electric bill for the Sebring Court had not been paid since May 2026.
Upon learning of the situation, the Clerk of Courts Office took immediate action to address the outstanding account and ensure there would be no interruption of electrical service to the court.
The responsibility for monitoring and ensuring payment of the account had previously been assigned to personnel who are no longer employed by the Mahoning County Clerk of Courts Office. The matter was identified in sufficient time to prevent an outage, and court operations will continue without disruption…The Sebring Court remains fully operational, and no interruption in court services occurred as a result of the matter.
Ciccone said he will personally provide an additional level of oversight by reviewing accounts as a third check and balance for all of court locations, and that additional oversight will be implemented.
The Mahoning County Auditor’s office reached out to First Energy Monday afternoon, promising to pay the bill Tuesday and was told the power will not be cut.
“We have the money. We have full liquidity. This is strictly a matter of the clerk of courts not doing their function of passing these invoices along for processing,” said Meacham.