By Tim Bonfield
Enquirer staff writer

Be it higher taxes on cigarettes or beer, maintaining a "temporary" statewide sales tax, eliminating corporate tax loopholes or all of the above, Ohio needs to raise more money to pay for the rising costs of health-related services.

So says the Campaign to Protect Ohio's Future, a coalition of more than 300 health and social service agencies that met Thursday in Cincinnati. The group is launching an early lobbying campaign against budget cuts that it expects will be proposed this fall and early next year as part of Ohio's budget for 2006 and 2007.

When Ohio's current budget was passed for 2004 and 2005, non-profit organizations helped defeat several controversial proposed cuts, including calls to:

• Cut Medicaid health coverage to more than 60,000 low-income adults.

• Eliminate optional vision and dental benefits.

• Reduce spending on mental health services.

• Slow spending on home support services for the elderly.

The coalition predicts that the proposed cuts will be worse in the next budget, because the cost of services keeps rising, the economy isn't improving fast enough and the state has already used several one-time sources of money to plug budget holes.

Members insist that the United Way and other private non-profit organizations cannot cover cuts the state might make.

"The philanthropic community simply cannot pick up the funding when serious cuts are made," said Gayle Channing Tenenbaum, co-chairwoman of the campaign and legislative director for the Public Children Services Association of Ohio.

So the group wants state lawmakers to raise taxes before cutting services.

"Ohio's revenue sources are not sufficient to meet the needs that government is set up to provide," said Margaret Hulbert, a vice president of public policy for the United Way of Greater Cincinnati - one of the area's biggest and most widely supported charities.

Gov. Bob Taft is expected to make a detailed budget proposal this fall, with legislative debate and action to begin in the spring.

The bad news has already begun. In July, Taft ordered state agencies to make an unplanned $118.2 million cut to cope with revenue that is coming in below projections for this year.

The non-profit coalition predicts that the 2006-07 budget shortfall will be as much as $3 billion, based on assumptions of rising demand for services, new mandates for spending from the federal government and weak state tax reveneus.

The spend-more approach advocated Thursday is certain to meet sharp opposition from anti-tax groups.

"This is not about being against social services. This is about being against the protection of the status quo in the General Assembly," said Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who has been leading a group called Citizens for Tax Repeal.

"It is possible to reform the spending habits of the state without doing violence to the most vulnerable populations of the state."

Blackwell said the Medicaid system must be reformed to reduce spending on nursing homes while increasing support for lower-cost home-based services.

Meanwhile, he said, taxes need to be reduced. Ohio already has become one of the nation's highest tax states, which is causing people and businesses to leave to seek better opportunities, he said.

"The coalition cannot show me any state that has taxed and spent its way into prosperity," Blackwell said.

E-mail tbonfield@enquirer.com