Raiding of funds to plug budget holes angers advocates

COLUMBUS (AP) — Raiding special funds devoted to specific causes to plug budget holes is nothing new. Just be careful which funds you choose.

When Gov. Ted Strickland took $2.7 million from two funds intended to prevent blindness and encourage organ donation, he ruffled the feathers of a couple of sympathetic constituencies — ones that got their money from motorists who chose to give a dollar to the cause.

The raiding of $1.4 million from the Save our Sight Fund to prevent blindness, and $1.3 million from the Second Chance Trust Fund to encourage organ donations, was done to help plug a $1.9 billion gap in the two-year budget that ended in June. The move angered advocates for those causes — and likely many motorists who chose to donate.

“I have to think that was just a slip-up,” said Rick Yocum, president of the Ohio Public Expenditure Council. “I can’t imagine they just went in there and grabbed that money, because anyone would know the repercussions would be fast and furious.”

Indeed, when asked about the two funds that come from $1 contributions from Ohio driver’s license applicants, Strickland swiftly said he would correct the misstep. He said he didn’t know about it.

“That is not something I was aware of. I will find out why that has occurred, and it will be corrected,” Strickland told The Columbus Dispatch last week. A Strickland spokeswoman said Monday that the governor has directed his budget staff to begin finding ways to replace the money.

About 70 so-called rotary funds were tapped this year for a total of $120 million put toward balancing the budget by a June 30 deadline.

One newly appointed Republican lawmaker immediately pounced on the governor.

State Sen. Shannon Jones of Springboro, fresh from the Ohio House, issued a news release expressing outrage at the governor’s actions.

“In this case, they got caught, and they are covering their tracks, but what about the next time?” Jones said. “I believe the Legislature needs to look at removing the temptation to do these kinds of rotary raids and to inject more transparency into the process.”

She said she is drafting legislation to rein in the governor’s authority to raid charitable accounts, signaling it may be another of Strickland’s budget decisions — in addition to the establishment of slot machines at race tracks — that Republicans use to attack him during his re-election campaign next year.

The release did not mention the common use of rotary funds, including by Republicans, to plug budget gaps.

Gov. Bob Taft, a Republican, transferred roughly $44.3 million from rotary accounts in June 2002 to make up for lagging revenue. In 2003, House Republicans went on what one lawmaker described as an “Easter egg hunt” to find money in rotary funds, including one made up of money from hunting and fishing license fees, to try to avoid tax increases Taft proposed. The hunt turned up hundreds of millions of dollars that could be used to plug into the budget.