STATE BUDGET Spending cutbacks affect Ohio residents

The shortfall will result from lower-than-expected collections.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Fewer home visits for first-time and teenage parents, slower checks for pollution in Ohio's streams and rivers and a longer wait for some permits are among the effects Ohioans will see as most state agencies cut their spending by 6 percent.
Gov. Bob Taft ordered $118.2 million in cuts as the second half of the state's two-year budget began Thursday. Education, job creation programs, college financial aid and a home-care program for senior citizens were spared cuts. Prisons, youth detention centers, mental health and mental retardation services and nursing homes for veterans will have 1-percent cuts.
"I don't think any of us should underestimate how difficult it is to make the cuts that our agencies have made," state Budget Director Tom Johnson said. "In many ways we're trying to make an opportunity of this to be more efficient."
The cuts were $30 million less than projected in March, in part because of increased income tax collections, Taft's office said. Also, the state announced savings of $52 million in the Medicaid program in March because of increased federal help.
The state has done a good job in controlling increases in Medicaid, the joint federal-state insurance program for the poor that's one of the fastest-growing parts of the budget, Johnson said. Medicaid came in at $4 million less than its projected $9.8 billion spending for the year, spokesman Jon Allen said.
What's affected
The state Health Department absorbed most past cuts in administration, but this year's $3.7 million reduction will affect programs, spokesman Kristopher Weiss said.
The department is protecting disease prevention programs, he said, such as by moving $500,000 to vaccinations from a $9.8 million program for home visits for first-time and teenage mothers. Food laced with rabies vaccine for raccoons still will be placed along the eastern state line, but accompanying public education was cut.
Fees support most Ohio Environmental Protection Agency programs, but state budget cuts affect permits, monitoring and enforcement for air and surface water pollution, spokeswoman Carol Hester said.
"It will still get done, it just slows the pace down," she said.
The $48 billion two-year budget the Legislature passed in 2003 projected that the state would end the first half with a $120 million surplus to be rolled into the second year. The 2004 budget that ended Wednesday was 25 percent better than that, with a $157.5 million surplus. That came after Taft ordered $77.5 million in cuts, and the Ohio Supreme Court voluntarily cut $7 million because of a delayed move.
The shortfall over the next 12 months will result from lower-than-expected collections in taxes on personal income, inheritances and utilities.
Also, lawmakers' plan to stow $100 million in the state's depleted rainy day fund next July is no longer a firm commitment, Johnson said.
Since 2001, Ohio has cut its budget by $1.3 billion, eliminated 3,500 jobs, stopped pay raises, and ordered the closing of two prisons, two youth detention centers and two institutions for people with conditions such as mental retardation and autism.
Modest growth in the economy brings hope, Johnson said.
"We're like the other Midwestern states," he said. "It's been slow but for the first time we see revenues and growth heading in the right direction."