Challenge to slots plan could break the fragile budget

Challenge to slots plan could break the fragile budget

Everybody wants government to cut spending, but it seems nobody wants the cuts to come at their expense. And nobody wants tax increases.

Thus it is with the recently passed Ohio budget.

In the two weeks since a budget deal was reached between Gov. Ted Strickland and the General Assembly, some of the spending cuts that were included in the budget are being noticed.

A tuition freeze at public universities that had been in effect for two years was lifted, and the first $100 million of a five-year, $250 million program to give Ohio college students more opportunities for internships at Ohio businesses was cut.

Ohio libraries didn’t take as big a cut as had once been feared, but they are looking at more than 10 percent cuts in state funding in each of the next two years. Branches will close, hours will be reduced, jobs will be eliminated and fewer books and other materials will be bought.

The budget eliminated state funding for a division of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources that oversees 89 unique prairies, gorges, lakes, woods, waterfalls and marshes in the state and will see a decrease of more than 35 percent in state funding in the new biennium, compared to the two previous years. State parks will remain free and open to the public, but park-goers can expect to see fewer rangers and maintenance workers and no new construction.

Cuts to in-home and community-based services that help senior citizens pursue more independent lives have the potential of forcing people out of their own homes and into nursing homes, the kind of cut that defies logic because it will drive the expense of serving the aging population higher in years to come.

And those are only thumbnail sketches of a handful of programs that will be affected by the tighter budget.

Danger ahead

Now there’s a deal breaker on the horizon. Strickland managed to balance this tighter budget only by pursuing a plan that will place 2,500 slot machines in the state’s seven horse-racing tracks. Those franchises are presumed to provide $65 million each in licensing fees, beginning this fall, and more than $900 million in income over the life of the budget to the Ohio Lottery Commission, which will oversee the slots.

But all that money is in jeopardy because LetOhioVote.Org, a group of churches and political conservatives, has started a drive to put the slot machine proposal to a vote. Opponents argue that Ohio voters have rejected various gambling initiatives in the past and so should get a vote on this one before it is put into effect. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner says the budget legislation calls for the slots policy to be initiated immediately, which means it is not subject to a referendum vote. Both Brunner and LetOhioVote cite state Supreme Court rulings for why the issue should or shouldn’t be on the ballot, so for now the fate of all that potential slot machine revenue is in the hands of the Ohio Supreme Court.

If the court enjoins the state from initiating its slot machine plan until after the issue can be placed on the November 2010 ballot, the budget is busted. No one in Columbus can say how it could be fixed.

We have opposed an expansion of state-sanctioned gambling in the past, but believe that Strickland’s proposal for slot machines limited to the state’s race tracks is worth seeing through. It’s an unhappy alternative to higher taxes or draconian budget cuts.