Strickland, Senate Republicans reach budget deal

Gov. Ted Strickland just announced a budget deal that protects schools, libraries and social services from cuts to fill an $851 million funding gap. Sounds like the legislature gets to go home for the holidays after all. Strickland had threatened to call them back into session on Christmas Day if necessary to get a deal on the 2010 budget.

Instead, as state Democrats hoped, a planned cut in the income tax will be delayed.

The few Senate Republicans who were willing to hold off on the tax cut wanted, in exchange, to reform the state's century-old construction laws. Democrats were loath to do that. In a compromise, a pilot project to test construction reforms will allow three public universities to build projects under new rules.

The $851 million budget hole has needed filling since the state Supreme Court struck down the governor's plan for slot machines. This week, Senate Republicans pushed Strickland to make the cuts in the non-education parts of the state budget. Strickland refused, saying those other parts of the budget, such as social services, had already been slashed this summer. He claimed he'd have no choice but to cut education if the tax cut wasn't suspended.

For more background, here's the Columbus Dispatch's story from overnight, which anticipated the deal.

Here's the press release:
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Strickland Statement on Bipartisan
Education Budget Compromise

Columbus, OH – Ohio Governor Ted Strickland today issued the following statement after achieving a bipartisan agreement on H.B. 318 with House Speaker Armond Budish, Senate President Bill Harris and Senate Minority Leader Capri Cafaro:

“Across the country, some states have chosen to slash education budgets in an attempt to make it through the recession. Here in Ohio, investing in education is the cornerstone of our plan to rebuild Ohio’s economy from the ground up. We have again overcome political differences to achieve a bipartisan agreement to balance the budget and protect our schools from devastating cuts.

“This compromise will avoid thousands of teacher layoffs, school building closures and the elimination of athletic programs in our schools. And we can now refocus our efforts on competing for federal Race to the Top resources that, along with our education reform plan, will improve our students’ ability to compete with students anywhere in the world.

“Nearly three months ago, a state Supreme Court decision opened an $851 million hole in education funding. We were faced with three options to fill the budget hole. One option was to raise taxes. A second option was to cut $851 million budgeted for Ohio schools. A third option was to freeze state income tax rates at the 2008 level, postponing the final 4.2 percent reduction while leaving in place the rate cuts made to date.

“I deeply appreciate the business and education communities, as well as libraries and human service organizations, for their vocal support of the common sense solution to temporarily postpone the last phase of income tax reductions. Ohio families and businesses will continue to receive a $1.8 billion tax cut this fiscal year because of the broad-based tax reforms we shepherded through the most difficult economic environment in 80 years.

“This compromise also advances several important initiatives. After we brought construction reform to the forefront, it will be undertaken in a demonstration capacity at three University System of Ohio institutions. We are also meeting our commitment to ensure needed mental health services continue to support Ohio’s most vulnerable citizens.

“With bipartisan cooperation, we are making steady progress toward a new, more competitive Ohio.”


Framework of the Bipartisan Compromise

Temporary Postponement of Tax Rate Reduction to Protect Ohio Schools
The legislature will postpone the last part of the scheduled income tax reduction by freezing income tax rates so they remain exactly the same as last year. Ohio taxpayers will continue to pay a tax rate 16.8 percent less than in 2004. Ohio’s schools will receive approximately $844 million in resources for the biennium.

Construction Reform Demonstration Projects
The Chancellor of the Board of Regents will establish criteria to determine three capital projects at University System of Ohio institutions to utilize alternative construction management methods, to serve as a demonstration of construction reform.

All-Day Kindergarten
All-day kindergarten remains a requirement for every Ohio school district beginning in the 2010-11 school year. To support districts that may have fiscal or other challenges to successfully implement all-day kindergarten next year, a new requirement in law will permit districts to request and receive a waiver, but only if a resolution from the local School Board of the district provides a justification for a delay.

Evidence suggests all-day kindergarten benefits students, especially the most vulnerable and at-risk. In a recent Ohio Department of Education survey of Ohio’s school districts, only 150 respondents indicated that they would request a waiver to delay implementing all-day kindergarten.

Potential Additional Resources for Non-public, Chartered Schools
Non-public, chartered schools may benefit, up to FY 2009 spending levels, from lapses in the state budget. While the lapses may come from anywhere in the budget, the transfers to non-public schools cannot total more than the amounts lapsed in the GRF line items of the Ohio Department of Education’s budget.

Corrections from HB 1:

Mental Health Services Fix
The compromise will correct a legislative drafting error from HB 1, ensuring that $14.7 million in mental health funds are directed to the correct fund for community mental health services.

The Ohio State Employment Relations Board
In HB 1, the Ohio State Employment Relations Board (SERB) and the Personnel Board of Review (PBR) merged backroom offices without adequate funds to successfully complete the merger. The compromise will provide $2 million to SERB from the state administrative fund at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

State budget deal winners: racetracks, Columbus Dispatch

If you'd like to know how the state budget crisis got resolved, the Plain Dealer's story today is OK. But I got a lot more out of the very clear explanations in the Columbus Dispatch's four stories.

It's not easy to make budget battles clear and exciting, but lawmakers' decisions affect thousands of people. For weeks now, the Dispatch has used its home-field advantage to explain it all clearly and vividly.

Today, "Keeping Score" explains who won and lost: Racetracks and food pantries were winners, prisons and libraries did "better than feared," while losers included mental-health services, colleges and universities, and hospitals.

This story quotes advocates about how the budget cuts will affect mental health and addiction treatment as well as libraries. The lead story explains how Gov. Strickland and the Republicans made the deal. "This is in the budget?" catches all the random stuff that got slipped into the budget bill (like, protection for teachers who lead kids in the Pledge of Allegiance).

I'm going to bookmark dispatchpolitics.com for my state politics news from now on.

The Plain Dealer's front page did note one bit of news the Dispatch almost missed: after a long battle, tax credits for the state's film industry passed as part of the deal.

Update, 7/15: The PD came back today with some Day 2 stories, including their own interesting piece about random stuff in the budget bill. They figured out that the Pledge of Allegiance bit was aimed at the Oberlin public schools, which have a policy of not saying the Pledge.

Also, corporal punishment is now officially banned in Ohio schools. Turns out a few scattered schools in the state were still paddling!

Interim budget signed; deal nears, but slots are sticking point

Gov. Ted Strickland just announced that he's signed an interim budget to keep the state going for a week while he and statehouse Republicans keep negotiating a budget deal.

This Columbus Dispatch article says Strickland and the Republicans are still at odds over slot machines in racetracks, but otherwise, the outlines of a two-year budget deal are taking shape.

How's this for a painful tradeoff?
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Statehouse leaders are expected to further cut higher education to help reduce proposed cuts to libraries, mental-health services and home and community-based services for Medicaid recipients.

Citizens, lobbyists deluge legislature with pleas as budget-slashing hour nears

I don't know about you, but I'm getting deluged with e-mails asking me to call my state legislators to protect library funding, arts funding, and social service funding. That's because the Ohio General Assembly has to write a new two-year budget by Tuesday.

Tax revenue is way down thanks to the recession. Democrats and Republicans are playing a game of chicken, refusing to be the first to suggest new taxes because they're afraid that'd spell doom in the 2010 elections. So everything must go. Given the legislature's habit of procrastination and brinksmanship, major decisions affecting millions of people will probably be made around 11 p.m. on Tuesday night.

Maybe it's the home-field advantage, but the Columbus Dispatch is writing especially good stories about the high-stakes budget rush. Reporter Alan Johnson uses The Turtle Lady to tell the story of citizen efforts to stop the cuts. Jim Siegel's vivid story shows us how the debate looks from the point of view of a key lobbyist and legislators being lobbied.

Update, 2:10 pm: Librarians and their supporters rallied against the library cuts in downtown Cleveland this morning. Check out Kristin Majcher's report on Cleveland Magazine's main blog.