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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > June > 26
Friday, June 26, 2009
Ellen Belcher: Strickland is scared he’ll lose if he leads
If Gov. Ted Strickland is re-elected next year, it will be because his supporters have nowhere else to go. They can’t very well cast a protest vote for John Kasich.
But his backers are disappointed, and they have a right to be. He’s not getting it done, and he’s selling out.
Put aside for a minute the awful choices he has about a budget sinkhole, a situation not of his making. Let’s talk about what is in his control.
He had two years to figure out what to do on school funding. When he rolled out his big plans, he endorsed requiring children to go to school for longer periods, and he wants to raise the academic bar to get more kids to college.
But when it came to paying for his changes, he didn’t have any brilliant ideas, and when it came to spending money, he pretended that the lack of it doesn’t matter. Mostly, he wants credit for intentions.
After two years of effort, the former member of Congress who hadn’t ever faced down a myopic public education establishment has figured out what smart and dumb governors and lawmakers always learn to their everlasting dismay:
Funding more than 600 school districts that have widely different needs and resources — but similarly great expectations about what the state should give them — is thankless work.
When he spoke about his plans, the governor was passionate about all-day kindergarten and requiring students to take college entrance exams. But when it came to details, he would quickly turn to aides who don’t command confidence. His heart, not his head, was in the game.
The contrast between the brain trust working on K-12 schools and Chancellor Eric Fingerhut’s efforts to reshape Ohio’s public colleges is stunning. The governor has been incredibly well-served by Fingerhut & Co., while he’s been let down by his K-12 advisers. He, however, picked his team.
Now about his proposal to allow slot machines at race tracks in the hope of bringing in almost $1 billion to bridge a newly discovered $3.2 billion gap: This is a total sell-out.
A Methodist minister, a psychologist who knows about addiction, a politician who has adamantly opposed casinos is suddenly going to support throwing up slot machines?
The government is not going to be content selling you Lottery tickets, but also is going to entice you to drop money in its machines that are stacked against you?
This is political desperation gone mad.
Now to the budget: No question about it, the governor is over a big barrel. Cutting 6 percent out of a budget may not sound like much. But we’re talking about cuts on top of cuts, and, in a recession, state spending goes up automatically on things like Medicaid.
Meanwhile, prisons still have to be staffed and more people are deciding to go to college (which costs the state money because funding is tied to enrollment) and little of anything gets cheaper.
But here’s what Strickland (and everyone else in Columbus) knows but won’t say:
A tax increase is coming — if not today then after the election in 2010.
This proposed budget is patched together with almost $6 billion in one-time federal stimulus money. If finding $3 billion is hard today, making up that $6 billion in two years — even if the economy has picked up and not all of it is needed — will be harder still.
In the governor’s defense, even if he were willing to say that the state needs to suspend the fifth and last installment of Ohio’s 21-percent income tax cut, Republicans aren’t eager to go there. Many of them are up for re-election next year, too.
Though House Democrats should be on Strickland’s side, every one of them will be campaigning next year and most of them are scared thoughtless.
Here’s the thing, though: Does anyone think that all the spending cuts that are coming will be painless?
When libraries close, when people in group homes lose their state funding, when parks fill up with trash, when seniors stop getting their in-home care, when exceptional charter schools close, when students lose their scholarships, do you think voters aren’t going to notice?
The governor alone isn’t accountable for Ohio’s well-being. But he is the man at the top. And he has an obligation to level with people about what will happen if Ohio just cuts its way out of its hole.
He has shamelessly not done that. And it’s because his foremost concern is being re-elected.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Economy, Ellen Belcher, Higher Ed, Ohio government, Ohio politics
Editorial: State workers not Ohio’s piggybank
Gov. Ted Strickland cannot be faulted for using one-time money to make the next two-year state budget come together.
Taking almost $6 billion in federal stimulus money — a stunning amount by any measure — and looking under every rock for other money even if it won’t be available down the road totally makes sense. First problems first.
But he has flipped his lid if he thinks deferring not quite half — 6 percent — of the state share for pension payments — promising to pay back the pension fund later — is acceptable public policy.
If the state can’t afford its pension obligations, the governor needs to say it’s unsustainable to keep kicking in 14 percent on the dollar to fund state workers’ retirement benefits. (Employees pay 10 percent.)
The unions, which backed Gov. Strickland in his election campaign, are right that this is a slippery slope. If the pension funds become a slush fund for governors and lawmakers, there’s no telling how often an “emergency” will come up and people’s retirements will be raided.
Moreover, it’s not as if the state employees’ pension fund is flush. It has been hit by the stock market decline, even as the optional medical benefits it provides retirees have become increasingly pricey.
All of the public pension funds — for state workers, police, firefighters and teachers — are agonizing about how to cut back benefits without inciting a war with the beneficiaries (which may yet occur, depending on how many changes have to be made).
Delaying the pension payments would free up $236 million, which is real money at a time when the governor is looking to fill a $3.2 billion gap in his $54 billion budget. But the “loan” would have to be repaid, and paying it back over 10 years amounts to shoving today’s problems off on governors, legislatures and taxpayers down the road.
Moreover, there are also good — and unanswered — questions about how much interest would be owed the pension fund, and how to calculate the lost opportunity gains the fund could have made in the market over the next decade.
Ohio’s public employee pension plans are expensive propositions. The employer contributions are huge cost drivers not just for the state, but also for local governments and school districts.
Government retirement benefits, as compared to the private sector, are exceedingly generous and the funds are having a difficult time keeping up with growing obligations.
Retirees are living longer, their medical care has become increasingly expensive and the market isn’t cooperating in the least to make up for rising costs.
With all these challenges already staring the pension boards in the eyes, this is the worst time to think of robbing any of the funds.
Who would allow that with their own pension? Why should state employees have to assume the risk of an accounting gimmick?
Gov. Strickland has his hands full, and it’s not clear how much legislators are going to constructively contribute to what’s a real financial crisis.
But there should be no bail out from the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Ohio government, Ohio politics
