By Carl Weiser
Enquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - More than $30 million in federal aid to Greater Cincinnati is in limbo, and some may vanish entirely if Congress puts off enacting a budget until next year.

For the first time since the government shutdown of 1995, Congress failed to pass a single piece of its fiscal 2003 budget by Oct. 1, the start of its fiscal year.

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Projects in peril

The partisan budget battle this year is so bad that parts of the budget may be put off until next year. That would mean a new Congress would start writing the bills all over again, and the fight to add local projects would begin anew.

Caught in the budget feud are major local priorities like the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and the Government Square bus plaza, and smaller ones like a bike trail along the Ohio River, new buses for Northern Kentucky and revitalizing High Street in Lawrenceburg, Ind.

"A delay would certainly not be the best possible thing for us," said Spencer Crew, executive director of the Freedom Center, a $110 million complex rising along the riverfront. "It means we would have to search for ways to bridge the needs until money arrives."

Metro general manager Paul Jablonski said he'd like to have the money for Government Square "today, of course."

The arrival and departure point for about a third of downtown's 80,000 workers, the bus center is 25 years old and the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority is relying almost entirely on federal help to bring the facility up to date.

That means building larger passenger shelters and adding real-time arrival and departure information.

"We're just keeping our fingers crossed," he said.

For other projects, the delay is less important than the chance that the money could be lost.

There's $4 million, for example, for lighting, signals and antennas needed for a fourth runway at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

The money is in the House and Senate transportation spending bills, so it will arrive if the two sides can reach a compromise.

If it doesn't come, the airport would be forced to dip into its own money - paid for by passenger fees, said Barbara Schempf, the airport's government affairs manager.

"It's ridiculous putting in a runway without the navigational aids that go on it," said airport spokesman Ted Bushelman.

The Greater Cincinnati congressional delegation insists that the money will eventually come through. There may be a lame duck session after the elections.

"We are hopeful that the Senate will take up the appropriations bill in November and/or December, but a chance remains that they will hang over into next January," said Amanda Flaig, spokeswoman for Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

"The process is just stalled right now because of other world events," she said. "But there's no doubt these bills are going to get done."

But there's no guarantee that the next Congress - perhaps under different party control, perhaps distracted by an expensive war with Iraq - will write the spending bills the same way.

"I can't make that promise," Ms. Flaig said.

None of the Greater Cincinnati projects are controversial themselves. Nor, for that matter, does Cincinnati or Ohio get a lot of money for local projects.

To some, those projects are "pork" - a local project inserted into a spending bill even though the administration didn't ask for it.

In fiscal 2002, Ohio ranked 40th in per capita "pork," according to Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group. Ohioans got about $20 per capita in local earmarks, while the national average was about $32.

Kentucky ranked 14th with $69 per capita, while Indiana ranked 38th, with $21.

"None of Cincinnati's projects are huge projects," said Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. "We try not to be too greedy."

The federal budget is divided among 13 spending bills. It's rare for Congress to get them all done before the start of a new fiscal year. Only three times in the last quarter century has that happened, according to the Congressional Research Service.

But budget tardiness this severe is unusual. In 1980 - like this year, a contentious election year - partisan debates forced the spending bills into the new year. President Reagan signed the last of the fiscal 1981 bills in June, three months before the fiscal year ended.

In the meantime, Congress passes what are known as "continuing resolutions" to keep the government running at last year's levels.

The gridlock is driven by election-year politics in a Congress where the Democrats barely control the Senate and Republicans barely control the House.

One Republican leader, Texan Tom Delay, accused the Democrats of "spending with addiction. They are addicts."

Democrats, meanwhile, accuse the Republicans of not spending enough on education.

In reality, the difference between the two sides overall is not that large: about $9 billion out of a $2.1 trillion budget. Watchdog groups like Citizens Against Government Waste accuse Congress of gridlock and dereliction of duty.

The delays could genuinely threaten some homeland security and defense efforts, like grants to cities to prepare for bio-terrorism.

"What a way to do business," said Tom Schatz, the group's president.

E-mail cweiser@gns.gannett.com