By Randy Ludlow, The Columbus Dispatch, staff and wire reports
COLUMBUS – As the long-in-the-tooth economic expansion sputters and Ohio’s anticipated tax take dwindles, its small-growth state budget is being downsized to no growth.
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Gov. John Kasich and majority Republican legislative leaders are shopping for cuts of $400 million a year in the proposed two-year budget beginning July 1.
The budget effectively will be flat-funded, with some areas scheduled for increases perhaps about to lose them and others to get less than they do now.
“We’re going to look at all the options,” the governor said Thursday in announcing the pending reductions. “Everything has to be under the microscope.”
Asked if any areas, such as schools, were immune from reductions in the $71 billion-a-year state budget, Kasich said: “The message is we’re not going to take anything off the table.”
Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, R-Clarksville, Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, and Kasich said, however, that funding to battle Ohio’s opioid-addiction and overdose death crisis likely will not be affected, a claim disputed by at least one Democratic lawmaker.
“The fact is – we haven’t fully funded anti-opioid efforts to date, said Rep. Michael O’Brien (D-Warren). “There’s no fat to cut – we’re deep in the muscle at this point.”
How much is $400 million, in terms of state spending? Kasich’s budget sought a $290 million increase (2.6 percent) in school funding over two years. About $400 million a year also would operate the Department of Natural Resources and its state parks with some to spare.
The pending cuts in spending proposed by Kasich are a result of economic growth throttling back both nationally and in Ohio. Times may be tight, but Ohio has fared better than many states, the governor said, pointing to mid-course budget cuts in 19 other states last year.
Kasich adds that Ohio’s already tenuous budget situation could become devastating if fellow Republicans in Washington follow through with a campaign promise to repeal the federal health care law without protecting Medicaid. The 2016 presidential contender railed Thursday against actions taken “to meet some ideological goal or some campaign promise” that “cut people off at the knees.”