Fourth of July fireworks
2008 Cityfolk Festival
Spotted at the Cityfolk Festival
Strickland signs budget; Riverside's WPAFB tax banned
Governor's line-item vetoes include cutting special education vouchers to be used at private schools.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
COLUMBUS — Gov. Ted Strickland on Saturday signed the $52.3 billion, two-year state budget, which included a ban on the municipal income tax that Riverside has been imposing on some civilian employees at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Strickland used his line-item veto 38 times, including to cancel a pilot program of vouchers of up to $20,000 a year that as many as 8,000 special education students could use at private schools
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The budget takes effect today, the start of the state's new fiscal year and continues until June 30, 2009.
The 1,865-page budget was the first in Ohio's new era of shared government with a Democratic governor and Republican-controlled legislature.
Despite political differences, Strickland and legislators collaborated more than collided on the budget, which got near-unanimous approval from the legislature last Wednesday. The only "no" vote in the House and Senate came from Rep. Diana Fessler, R-New Carlisle.
"This budget represents a historic consensus," Strickland said in his budget message. "But long after our agreement is forgotten, the people of Ohio will be benefiting from what we agreed upon."
Still, House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, lashed out at Strickland's special education voucher veto.
"It strips hope away from parents seeking a better education for their children and denies these children access to services they need to learn and succeed," Husted said in a press release.
Overriding a veto would take 60 votes in the House and Republicans hold just 53 seats.
Strickland's veto message said "funding private schools with public tax dollars deprives the state and its taxpayers of proper oversight and accountability of these programs."
Strickland also vetoed two provisions requiring that abstinence only be taught exclusively in sex education programs. By removing the language, Strickland believes that the money — $1 million from the state for abstinence and adoption education and an estimated $1.6 million from the federal government — can be used for comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education, including abstinence, said Keith Dailey, Strickland's spokesman.
The budget includes Strickland's plan to provide property tax relief averaging about $400 a year to all homeowners 65 and older and disabled homeowners. Taking a $5 billion cash payment for Ohio's share of the national tobacco settlement will finance the tax relief plan.
The budget includes major spending increases for higher education plus a two-year tuition freeze at public colleges and universities.
Other budget highlights:
• Expanding Medicaid health insurance eligibility so children in families earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level — $62,000 for a family of four — would quality and allowing higher income families to buy into Medicaid if their children have health conditions that make them uninsurable.
• $100 million college scholarship program for students in the STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – disciplines.
• Five new STEM schools for grades 6-12.
