Fiscal Responsibility

The proposed Ohio budget shows the same lack of vision that has plagued the state for decades.

Rather than dipping into the state’s billion dollar rainy day fund, the Ohio House of Representatives has cut $800 million out of Gov. Bob Taffy’s proposed budget. Most of these cuts came from social services, higher education and research funding. To help cover some of the cuts to programs for poorer children and welfare recipients like Head Start, lawmakers have proposed using federal funds — which would have gone to fund other aid programs.

Since primary and secondary education benefit from tremendous funding increases, this raid on the underprivileged seems like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Funding that would have gone to programs aiding poorer students was taken away from schools so that these same schools could get more funding.

Not that many schools with economically challenged students would be getting much of an increase in funding. Current plans call for the fastest growing districts to be given the most money. Those are the richer suburban districts — creating the same funding imbalances that lead to the school funding lawsuit in the first place.

The second big loser in the budget is higher education. Community and technical colleges have been using Access Challenge grants to keep their tuition either frozen or at low increases. In the proposed budget the program would receive only a 5 percent increase in funding, instead of the 18 percent recommended by Taft. The colleges, often the only avenue open for many poor or working class people to attend college, will have to join traditional four year institutions in steep tuition hikes. Every tuition increase closes the door of higher education to thousands of Ohioans.

The current budget problems spring from a shrinking tax base in the state. State legislators just cannot seem to understand that higher education makes a stronger tax base. With a high school degree, the average Ohioan has an annual income of $23,600; with a bachelor’s, $42,500; and a post graduate degree, $52,800. Higher earnings mean higher taxes. Or, to put it simply, every dollar put into higher education by the state of Ohio yields $1.84 in returns.

“It’s not higher education,” Roderick G.W. Chu, Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, said. “It’s our economic future. You’ve got to make some investments to make it happen.”

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that Ohio has any real visionary leaders right now. All Ohioans should keep this latest budget fiasco in mind when next elections come around.