Ohio Senate passes controversial bill giving bonuses to vets

By Marc Kovac

Some lawmakers want voters to approve a bond issue to pay for the bonuses.

COLUMBUS — The Ohio Senate passed legislation to provide bonuses to veterans of current and recent Middle Eastern conflicts, despite an expected veto by Gov. Ted Strickland.

The chamber, meeting for its last voting session of the year, passed the bill on a vote of 23-8 last week.

The legislation passed the Ohio House in comparable fashion earlier last week, after a comparable floor debate on the prudence of spending the state’s savings on such costs while facing a projected budget deficit of upward of $7 billion for the coming biennium.

The legislation would authorize the payment of bonuses of $500 to $1,000 to military men and women who have served or are serving in Iraq, the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan (both during recent conflicts and in 1990-91).

Bonuses were approved by voters for veterans of World War I and II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

An estimated 200,000 military men and women would be in line for the new payments, at a cost of up to $200 million. The money would come from the state’s budget stabilization fund, commonly referred to as the rainy-day fund.

Earlier, the Senate passed a version of the legislation that would have paid for the bonuses through a bond issue put before voters. Strickland supported that approach but earlier this month said he would veto dipping into the state’s rainy-day fund to pay for the bonuses.

Sen. Dale Miller, a Democrat from Cleveland, said he opposed using the rainy-day fund to pay for bonuses at this time.

“These are not normal times, and it is quite clear that we are going to need the entire balance of the rainy-day fund in order to balance the next biennial budget and to close the gap in the current budget,” he said. “And when we have used all that money, we’re going to have to make serious cutbacks.”

Sen. Ron Amstutz, a Republican from Wooster who also voted in opposition, added, “The sacrifices that our veterans made also are going to be on the line here, in the sense that we will be … either raising the taxes on veterans or cutting benefits to veterans in the next budget, or some combination thereof.”

But Sen. John Carey, a Republican from Wellston, said a bond issue would require a vote of the people and would delay payment of the bonuses by “months if not years.”

Senate President Bill Harris said his chamber would make the veterans bonus legislation one of its priorities for the next session, with a new Democratic majority in the House that likely will be supportive of the bond approach.