Who will decide what projects receive money from the state?

We’re not ready to buy into state Rep. Robert F. Hagan’s conspiracy theory about the proposed state budget for local construction projects, but we are concerned about the process that will be used to establish spending priorities. With the Republican Party in control of the governor’s office and the Ohio House and Senate, the tendency to reward friends and punish enemies may be too strong to overcome.

We would remind Gov. John Kasich and the GOP legislative leadership that Ohioans have already demonstrated their aversion to political overreach.

Earlier this month, voters said no to a new collective bargaining reform law that would have stripped away many of the workplace rights enjoyed by public employees for almost 30 years. The law was a hallmark of the Republicans’ legislative agenda. The governor bet that Ohioans would embrace such a major change — and lost.

The message from the election was clear: While one party controls state government, bipartisanship is still the preferred method of governing.

Thus, we would urge Kasich to appoint a capital budget commission made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats to establish spending priorities.

Limited spending

In the past, the budget was developed by the governor’s office and the General Assembly, but now Kasich says the proposed state construction spending plan will be limited. There will be no money for new buildings, nor will there be any dollars for community projects, which regions like the Mahoning Valley have been successful in securing.

In reaction, state Rep. Hagan, D-Youngstown, said he expects Kasich to use the capital budget as a way to punish those communities that did not support the collective bargaining reform law, commonly known as Senate Bill 5.

“He has strong feelings toward that [SB 5], and I think that will be reflective when he starts awarding capital projects,” the veteran state legislator said.

We won’t indulge in such speculation, but we will note that Ohio has the capacity to borrow another $2.75 billion that would go toward new construction projects, but state Budget Director Tim Keen says the administration has no interest in going that high.

Keen is of the opinion that given the national economic crisis, restraint in spending is essential, and that the capital budget should only focus on necessary maintenance.

He added that an “extremely high threshold would have to be met in order to fund new construction.”

Establishing the threshold would be one of the assignments of the bipartisan capital budget commission we are urging the governor to create.

Higher education

And it isn’t only funding for community projects, roads and bridges that is in jeopardy. The capital budget is also used to finance construction projects in prisons, universities and colleges and local school districts.

Finally, there’s the issue of the economy and whether the state should doing whatever it can to create jobs at a time of high unemployment. Construction work pays well, and that contributes to local economies.

Indeed, the governor has acknowledged that tax breaks for corporations have resulted in less revenue flowing into the state’s general fund.

If the state has the ability to borrow more money to finance a stout capital program, should it not do so? A bipartisan panel would be ideally suited to answer that question.