House GOP wants new budget director

COLUMBUS (AP) — Ohio House Republicans called on Gov. Ted Strickland to replace his budget director Monday, saying she had made several inaccurate revenue projections and had presented an initial budget to lawmakers they said was unbalanced.

House Republicans also are still upset by the Democratic administration’s delay in turning over financial information from the 2008 fiscal year to the state auditor so an audit can be completed.

The call for Pari Sabety’s resignation evokes a different partisan battle from six years ago, when then-minority Democrats called for Republican Gov. Bob Taft’s budget director to resign because of faulty revenue projections. Tom Johnson did not step down, however.

In February 2008, Sabety presented three economic scenarios that would affect the current budget, requiring between $733 million and $1.9 billion in cuts. The administration started with the first scenario, made cuts, then made two additional rounds of cuts as the economy worsened.

Though Strickland has touted the cuts as responsible budget management, House Republicans said it’s irresponsible to start out with the “rosy” projection.

“From the very beginning, we’ve had problems with the projections about what the economy is going to be like,” said House Minority Leader Bill Batchelder of Medina.

Strickland is standing by Sabety.

“It’s a little disappointing that Minority Leader Batchelder would engage in bringing this kind of Washington-style attack politics to Columbus,” spokeswoman Amanda Wurst said.

The Republicans who control the Senate didn’t join their House counterparts in calling for Sabety’s resignation.

“Our focus is more on policy than personnel,” said state Sen. John Carey, chairman of the Finance Committee. “I’ll continue to work with Director Sabety, and I’m sure we will have some questions and some disagreements.”

“We have not had — and we don’t have now — a solid budget number,” Batchelder said. “And along with that, we’ve run into some real problems with education finance.

“There comes a point where you are just guessing,” he said.