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Strickland goes here, there and everywhere
Gov. Ted Strickland’s State of the State address was similar to buckshot.
There was a main target — education — but Strickland was all over the place when discussing changes he wants to make.
If everything Strickland proposed during Wednesday’s address is fully implemented, it would take 10 years. Even if Strickland, a Democrat formerly of Lisbon, is re-elected in 2010 to another four-year term, he’ll be long gone before his plan is complete.
Strickland only provided little in the way of details about his proposals in the address. The governor said the specifics will be released Monday.
The state is currently facing a $7.3 billion deficit for the next two years without significant cuts. With the way the economy is going, that may be a modest number.
Strickland promised in the address that he’d balance the budget. It’s not much of a promise when you consider that the state is required to have a balanced budget.
Strickland said he wouldn’t raise taxes on Ohioans to balance the budget.
Instead, Strickland said he’d “call for many program reductions of 10 to 20 percent.” He didn’t say which programs.
“We will leverage existing resources and one-time cash transfers.” Again, no details. But those in the know say they expect a one-time transfer of about $1.6 billion from the state’s budget stabilization fund, also known as the rainy-day fund.
Strickland plans to increase “various state agency fees, fines and penalties.” Once again, no word on which ones.
“Modify our Medicaid policies to manage our costs.” That stuff is way too complicated for a simple guy like me to understand so I’ll trust the governor that those modifications will save money.
And the big one is $3.4 billion expected from the federal government for state fiscal relief.
“Without the infusion of federal resources, we would have had to impose far more substantial cuts to balance our budget,” Strickland said. That’s quite the understatement.
Later in the speech, Strickland discussed his education initiatives. Get ready because this is a long sentence.
All-day kindergarten
Strickland wants a 200-day school year implemented over the next 10 years, all-day kindergarten, something called the Ohio Academic Olympics, a four-year new teacher residency program, scholarships for future teachers who agree to work in hard to staff schools or in hard to staff subjects, the addition of new classes in global awareness and life skills to the student curriculum, the elimination of the state’s graduation test to be replaced by the ACT college entrance exam and three additional measures, audits by the Department of Education to make sure schools are maintaining academic and operating standards to be established, help for those school districts to succeed, and shutting down failed districts.
The governor also wants to change how schools are funded. This has been something he promised to address on the 2006 campaign trail. In last year’s State of the State Strickland said he’d have a school funding plan by the next State of the State.
Strickland’s plan would supposedly lower what property owners pay to fund school districts and increase state aid, which largely comes from taxes.
School funding
Strickland said his proposals would make the state’s education funding method constitutional. The Ohio Supreme Court had ruled four times that the state relied too much on property taxes to fund education. That court has seen a change in its make-up since the last decision, and has absolutely no interest in tackling this issue in the foreseeable future.
Strickland’s plan increases primary and secondary education funding by close to $1 billion over the next two years. State aid currently makes up about 52 percent of school funding. Strickland’s plan would increase that amount to 55 percent during the next two years and eventually hit 59 percent.
As many legislators, even Strickland’s fellow Democrats, said of his proposals, “the devil’s in the details.” Hopefully those details will be easy to understand and implement.