Cincinnati City Council members are comparing it to hitting the lottery, or getting a $50 million inheritance.

        But like quarreling heirs at a probate hearing, council members can't agree on how to carve up the city's $50 million windfall.

        One faction, led by Councilmen John Cranley and David Pepper, wants to put the money toward neighborhood projects. Others would like to see it used to offset future increases in health care costs or the city's projected $27 million deficit in 2003.

        The city's “rich uncle,” as some council members put it, is Anthem Inc., the former nonprofit insurance company that converted into a for-profit company last year.

        By converting the city's insurance policies into stock, the city ended up with 870,021 shares of Anthem Inc., worth about $48.3 million at Monday's closing.

        Under state law, the city cannot hold stock and must begin selling it off.

        For Mr. Cranley, chairman of the Finance Committee, the Anthem money represents a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kick-start revival of our neighborhoods.”

        Even with the city budget tightening, Mr. Cranley is reluctant to use a one-time windfall to balance an operating deficit.

        Instead, he won a 4-0 vote of his committee to create a separate capital fund for neighborhood development. Three council members — Minette Cooper, David Crowley and Alicia Reece — abstained from the vote, saying they're not sure that the Anthem stock is “free money” for council to spend as it wishes.

        That's the position labor leaders are taking.

        At least some of the city's equity in Anthem was purchased through employee payroll deductions for health care.

        And 27 percent belongs to the city's pension fund, said Dan Radford, executive secretary of the Cincinnati AFL-CIO and the chairman of the city's pension board.

        Robert Turner, the regional director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said unionized city employees negotiated their health benefits, often at the expense of wage increases.

        “The cost of health care is rising at alarming rates — 14, 15, 16, 17 percent — and that's not going to change anytime soon,” he said. “The wisest and most prudent action the city could take would be to put it back in the insurance fund.”

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