Partisan staffers unite against Ohio’s red ink

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

It’s another June 30 and state legislative staffers have thrown off their party labels and come together at a watering hole not far from the Ohio Statehouse to ring in a different kind of new year: the start of the state fiscal year.

“Rockin’ Fiscal New Year’s Eve” is more than a party. The relationships represented here span party divides, legislative term limits and the passage of years.

Behind the scenes, they will have a role to play as Ohio faces its worst budget outlook in modern history: an $8 billion hole.

“It doesn’t matter if you are a Democratic staffer or a Republican staffer. If you are a budget staffer, the red number is your enemy,” says Brian Perera, the Senate Republicans’ budget chief since 1994.

Perera, 42, helped conceive this bipartisan soiree. It’s no surprise. A loyal Republican whose late father grabbed headlines as a left-wing activist, Perera was raised to defend his politics in a mixed crowd.

And there’s the House Democrats’ policy chief, Andy DiPalma, another founder. The soft-spoken DiPalma, 52, grew up in working-class Steubenville along the Ohio River. He landed a job as a legislative page in the 1970s through a contact made during one of his father’s many unsuccessful runs for Jefferson County commissioner. His dad, also named Andy DiPalma, is now 84 and still has his eye on the seat.

“The notion that we’re not political and we’re not trying to box the other side in is a little naive. There’s plenty of that going on,” DiPalma said. “But the relationships the staff have can keep the wheels moving, the gears turning when things break down between the members.”

Another mainstay of the “Rockin’ Fiscal” gatherings is Tim Keen, a former bean counter at the state budget office whom Gov.-elect John Kasich recently named as his budget director.

Keen, 48, started as a legislative budget analyst almost 25 years ago. After stints in both the state House and state Senate, he became an assistant director at the state Office of Budget and Management in 1999. For about 10 months in 2006, the year of the Democrats’ near-sweep of state control, he served as director. The Kasich transition team isn’t allowing Keen to speak publicly yet about his new role.

For those outside the political limelight, the non-politicians, the fiscal new-year’s-eve party is a chance to cut loose and celebrate the end of months of painstaking work crafting a balanced state budget. Imagine balancing a checking account to the dollar that last cycle was worth $50,519,710,735.

The $8 billion deficit figure is Perera’s estimate — a number that encompasses the loss of billions in one-time federal stimulus dollars used to balance the current $50.5 billion budget. Perera says it’s more than twice as large any deficit Ohio has faced before, a challenge for even experienced budgeters.

“We are in uncharted waters at this point,” he said.

DiPalma said the fact he’s shared occasional beers with Keen and Perera over the years eases some of the tension associated with the brutal budget season ahead. Despite the increasingly bitter partisan rancor visible to the public, DiPalma says staffers “get along OK for the most part.”

“Brian Perera’s this huge Dean Martin fan, and I’m from Steubenville, which is Dean Martin’s hometown, so we have this kind of mutual interest around Dean Martin stuff, which is kind of funny,” he said.