Auditor: Strickland's Budget Would Leave $8B Gap

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Gov. Ted Strickland's use of federal stimulus money and other one-time sources of cash to balance the upcoming two-year budget would leave an $8 billion hole to fill in the following two years, Ohio's Republican auditor said Thursday.

Auditor Mary Taylor took the unusual step of making state budget projections, saying she wanted to raise questions about the sustainability of the Democratic governor's budget proposal so that Ohioans know budget challenges have not been solved with the infusion of stimulus money.

"They probably don't know that there still is a hole at some point in time in the future," Taylor told The Associated Press in an interview preceding the release of the budget projections. "Our message is to proceed with caution and recognize what it is, and make decisions with a full understanding of what we're facing."

Republicans have criticized the governor for relying heavily on federal economic stimulus money, arguing that the state will be forced to raise taxes or make drastic cuts two years from now. But they, including Taylor, have offered few alternatives, as lawmakers on both sides have acknowledged the state has no choice but to use the federal money unless it wants to see the aid go to other states.

"We don't get to vote on the budget," Taylor said. "We're not a policymaker. It's certainly up to the Legislature and the governor to make decisions about the use of one-time money."

In a statement, Strickland challenged Taylor and Republicans to say whether they would raise taxes or make more program cuts in place of using stimulus money.

The governor said at a news conference later Thursday that he did not agree with Taylor's numbers. He said his budget proposal restructures the way the government spends money and Taylor was not taking that into account when she did her projections.

"If we put aside heated rhetoric and partisan gamesmanship, there emerges a simple truth about federal stimulus resources," Strickland said in the statement. "Without them, more Ohioans would lose jobs, fewer Ohioans would have access to health care, teachers would be laid off, tuition would increase, prisons would be forced to close. ... If these are the actions that Mary Taylor and legislative Republicans are advocating for, they should come out and say so."

Republicans used one-time sources of funding to balance recent budgets when they were in control of the House, Senate and governor's office, including taking nearly $700 million from a local government fund to help balance the 2006-2007 budget. Strickland was elected in 2006, and Democrats won the House in last November's election.

As the state's auditor, Taylor frequently makes budget and revenue projections for local governments, but not for the state. But concerns about Strickland's use of stimulus money and other one-time funding sources, and the lack of public acknowledgment of its consequences, led Taylor to devote staff time to running the state's numbers, she said.

Before Strickland developed his two-year budget plan, he warned of a roughly $7 billion deficit based on current spending levels. His plan relies on federal stimulus money, the state's rainy day fund, fee increases, program cuts, and pushing debt obligations off to future years to balance the budget.

The budget plan would increase spending by about 4 percent over the current budget - largely because of the use of the one-time money.

Taylor said her projections for the fiscal years of 2012 and 2013 are based on publicly available information from the governor's budget proposal and revenue projections. The figures include the same roughly $1 billion projected increase in tax revenue the administration has forecast, as well as cost savings the administration is making in the Medicaid program.

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