The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

$8 billion deficit looms for Ohio

Local state senator is  on a committee that will look for ways to slash spending.

Local Focus: Clark County for Feb. 7
New 4 min. ago
Drop boxes encourage disposal of prescription drugs
New 8 min. ago
City razes downtown building for $9 million parking garage
New 10 min. ago
Plan would change county government
New 13 min. ago
2011 a good year for New Carlisle
New 29 min. ago
> More headlines

By Megan Gildow  and Bridgette Outten, Staff Writers 9:38 PM Saturday, June 26, 2010

COLUMBUS — Local officials are keeping an eye on developing state budget problems and the proposals to address what could be as high as an $8 billion deficit.

State Sen. Chris Widener, R-Springfield, is on a bipartisan budget commission that begins meeting Tuesday, June 29, to address the deficit. Widener said he has concerns about one-time funds the state won’t receive in the next fiscal year and how the current budget will end.

The state will also have to begin paying interest on billions of dollars it borrowed from the federal government for unemployment, Widener said.

Widener said he agreed with colleagues Rep. Vernon Sykes, D-Akron, and Sen. Shannon Jones, R-Springboro, that tax increases will not be considered to plug the shortfall.

““We have to take another look at every program, every expense ... that means we’re going to have to make some tough decisions,” he said.

Meanwhile, local officials aren’t quite sure what to expect.

Clark County Administrator Darrell Howard said he hasn’t heard recently what further cuts could be made and the last figure he was aware of was an 8 percent to 10 percent slash in local government funds that come from the state.

Job and Family Services of Clark County Personnel Director Kerry Pedraza also is bracing for a 10 percent cut. Champaign County Job and Family Services Director Susan Bailey has been preparing for up to 20 percent in cuts across the board by 2013.

Although so far ideas to tackle the deficit do not include a cut to the amounts schools are allocated through the state’s funding formula, that could change, local education officials said.

“It can happen with the blink of an eye or the swing of an ink pen and all of the sudden we can get a 10 percent cut,” said Springfield City Schools Treasurer Chris Mohr.

Education officials were asked to prepare a five-year forecast — a legally required document that details projections of revenues and expenditures for Ohio school districts — that showed a 5 percent decrease in state aid for fiscal year 2012, said Mohr.

Mohr criticized a current legislative break — while the bipartisan budget commission is meeting, the legislature is on a break now and not expected to return until after the November election.

“I, for one, don’t think that the state legislature ought to be taking any breaks over the summer right now,” he said. “I think they ought to be canceling that and be downtown working all summer to try to figure out what their contingency plans are because this is just not business as usual in our economy right now.”

Share this article