CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish and County Council President Dan Brady want the council to place a tax increase on the March ballot for an additional $35 million for health and human services, but they won’t say precisely how the new tax money would be spent.

The levy request comes on the heels of a $179-million cash windfall to the county from settlements with opioid manufacturers. Budish and Brady say still more is needed for health and human services unrelated to the opioid crisis.

On Tuesday, cleveland.com asked for a dollar-for-dollar breakdown of how the new money would be spent. But the officials in a Thursday interview refused to provide those details.

Instead, they pointed to programs that they said are under-funded. The officials said the need among health and human services agencies is even greater than the amount the new levy would generate.

The spending details will be further fleshed out in the coming weeks as council considers whether to place the tax on the ballot, Brady said. And final allocations won’t be determined until after voters have their say, the officials said.

The eight-year, 4.7-mill new tax would replace the 3.9-mill levy. It is one of two property taxes that is currently funding county programs for children, seniors, and other health and human services.

If voters approve this increase next year, Budish and Brady said the county will not ask for an increase when the other health and human services levy expires in 2024.

If approved, the owner of $100,000 home would pay $41 more annually beginning in 2021, for a total of about $164 annually. The current levy generates $105 million per year.

The county may face pushback without a detailed plan for how the money will be spent.

Already, chamber of commerce Greater Cleveland Partnership said they would take a more measured approach in backing local tax requests given what they believe is an unsustainable pattern of tax increases.

The county previously said the fallout of the opioid crisis was driving up costs and straining its human services budget.

On Thursday, Brady and Budish insisted the money is needed and cited other reasons.

Brady said the county would “be in trouble real fast” if it only sought to renew the current levy. Inflation, state cuts and a decline in federal grants prompted the county to cut some programs. Other programs have received no funding increases in recent years.

And health and human services reserves are set to run out by 2022 at current rates, they said.

While health and human services expenses, largely comprised of personnel and contract costs, increase about $5 million per year, funding from the levy remains flat, Budish said.

Other needs cited include:

· The Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board, which hasn’t had an increase in funding for six years.

· The Division of Senior and Adult Services has requested more money to eliminate wait lists and help keep seniors in their homes.

· Foster care programs, where the number of foster children continues to climb, spurred in part by social workers taking more kids into custody in the wake of the 2018 death of a 4-year-old girl involved with the Division of Children and Family Services, Budish said.

Budish believes the county has been “very fiscally responsible” and “done more with less” in recent years, but said it couldn’t maintain that practice forever. He noted the levy would be the first increase in property or sales taxes since he took office in 2015.

The proposed levy increase, Budish said, was the lowest amount the county could request while still providing “the most basic, vital services for the community.”