Saturday, March 20, 1999
Taft firm on budget priorities
Wants schools put ahead of tax cuts
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ohio Gov. Bob Taft said Friday he will stick to his guns and push the legislature to commit all state surplus money to schoolconstruction and repairs, despite opposition from his party.
“It's the right thing to do,” the first-term Republican governor said Friday in a meeting with the Enquirer editorial board.
Some Republicans in the GOP-controlled Ohio General Assembly have balked at Mr. Taft's call to use surplus mon ey for school repairs and construction. They would like to see tax cuts.
But with the state under a court order to spend more on education, Mr. Taft said the surplus is needed for schools.
“There are huge school-building needs in this state,” the Cincinnati native said. “School buildings have been neglected for a long, long time.”
Mr. Taft floated the pro posal in his State of the State address this month. The speech came 11 days after a judge ruled the General Assembly failed to comply with an Ohio Supreme Court order that struck down the state's school funding system.
Now, the judge's decision is under review by the Ohio Supreme Court.
Mr. Taft said Friday that if the Ohio Supreme Court agrees with the Perry County judge and the state has to start from scratch in putting together a new school funding plan, “it would be a real crisis.”
“If we have an adverse decision from the Supreme Court, we're going to have a real difficult situation next year,” he said. “There will be the potential for billions in new taxes.”
Mr. Taft said he hopes the legislature will approve his budget proposal, which would set aside more than $13 billion — including nearly 50 cents of every new dollar in state spending — for school operations over two years.
The Taft administration has also proposed $25 million to help schools with academic problems and $20 million to reward those that improve their proficiency test scores, attendance and graduation rates.
“We're trying to incentive-ize the system,” Mr. Taft said.
On other matters, Mr. Taft said it is too early to tell how Ohio's share of the tobacco litigation settlement will be spent and how much will be claimed by the federal government.
“We don't know exactly how the money will flow and how much of it we are going to be able to keep.”
Ohio's two U.S. senators — Republicans Mike DeWine and George Voinovich — will work to assure the state keeps “as much as possible,” the governor said.
Ohio expects to have its first payment from the settlement — about $130 million — by July 1. Mr. Taft said he has recommended it be put in a separate account under the state controlling board until it is decided how the money will be spent.
Mr. Taft said the first priority for the money would be to fund “smoking cessation” programs and “certain health-related expenditures.
“I wouldn't rule out using some of that money for school construction,” Mr. Taft said.
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