State budgets outline what sort of public investment is possible within the revenue constraints of any state government. They also outline the spending priorities of the majority. Sometimes, despite laws that prohibit logrolling, they also contain a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with fiscal matters.
Ohio’s new biennial budget reflects a priority for tax cutting. Ohio’s legislators—despite the 17 day extension required because even the huge Republican majorities in both chambers couldn’t agree on a lot of things—reached consensus that taxes should be further reduced instead of investing in services needed by the must vulnerable Ohioans. For example, the Legislature did not raise basic formula funding for 3 school districts already designated in Academic Distress or for the ten additional public school districts teetering on the edge of that categorization.
The Ohio budget conference committee, mercifully, did not insert into the state budget the Senate Education Committee’s…
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