June 30, 2025 • 18 mins
Willie breaks down the Ohio budget with Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Bill cunning and the Great America, and welcome this Monday afternoon.
The Tri State Reds Baseball kicks off about six oh
five tonight. But the Red Sox, believe it or not,
the Red Sox have a losing record, and the Reds
have won five of the past six series. Is look
hotter than a firecracker, and we'll see what happens. They
have three games in Boston, then they're often have three
games in Philly, and they come home next week getting
ready for the All Star break, and have seven games
(00:28):
and home against weak opponents. But nonetheless, the Reds are
with a rocket right now, one of the best teams
in baseball, which I find hard to believe on June thirtieth,
but that's the case. But until then, the Speaker of
the House in columbuses, of course, Matt Huffman from Allen County, Alama,
home with the q P Burger and so much more.
And Speaker of Huffman, welcome again to the Bill Cunningham Show.
(00:49):
And I asked you off the air. We do have
white smoke over the Capitol, but there's also a possibility
of the governor vetoing parts of this which you can override.
With sixty and twenty house in the Senate. But one
thing in Cincinnati which is bigger than Montana is the
Bengals and the Browns now living in Lima. I'm not
sure you care a lot about Bengals and Browns football.
(01:10):
You probably care more about about the legacy of Leonard
Rush and also Ohio State. But there's a lot of
concern here that you're treating the Cleveland Browns differently by
giving them the hundreds of millions of dollars from unplaying funds,
while the Bengal deal, which is an loi, is not
yet signed, but it's a promise to sign. So can
you tell the American people this Monday afternoon what is
(01:33):
the status of the Bengals deal and the Browns deal
and why one deal was approved the other other one
wasn't unclaimed funds, etc. That was used. Instead of an
additional tax on gaming many ways to fund it, you
came up with the unplaying funds. Explained the deal to
the American people.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Well, first, the Bengals do have an opportunity to take
advantage of this fund, these unclaimed funds, as as do
other sports and cultural facilit There's an entire track of
things that people can do that that entities can do
qualify and the Bengals can do that, as could the
Columbus Symphony Orchestra, and maybe some day the Symphony, Reds
(02:11):
or fill in your favorite entity, so there will be
a way for the Bengals to qualify like this there
The Browns organ or the Browns program, of course, was
much different I think than probably any entity for a
long time in that they they're putting in a couple
(02:32):
of billion dollars of private money. But there is a
there is an entire scheme in place for the Bengals
to take advantage of this, and you know, I do
think that this is the best way to do this.
I didn't want to raise taxes the bond uh provisions
that we use so often in other areas. We did
(02:52):
that six hundred million dollars for the Brent Spence Bridge
transportation capital budgets we have. We always have billions of
dollars and bonds out there, but that would have added
about an extra three hundred and thirty million dollars onto
the costs of the taxpayer. The unclaimed funds is simply
money that is sitting accumulating interest. We can't spend the interest.
(03:14):
And the interesting thing about this one has about four
point eight billion dollars. It's collecting about one hundred and
ninety million in interest every year, and in non interest
income it collected five hundred and twenty four million dollars
only paid out one hundred and forty five The amount
of money that's coming to this fund has skyrocketed over
(03:35):
the past ten to fifteen years. I think the reason
is people are losing their money on the internet place
and it eventually gets turned into the state, so it's
a good way to do it. We of course ensure
that the Browns, the Bengals, and anyone else taking advantage
of this money will create enough new revenue to pay
the fund back. The Browns can't get the money or
(03:58):
anybody else until they show the Tax Department and they
show Office of Budget and Management that the project is
viable and that the fund will recover its money.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
As far as the LOI that was signed, Alesia Reese
County Commissioner and she served in the legislature for a
long time maybe when you were there, has set on
our air repeatedly, there's no deal that there's an LOI,
letter of intent and now the lawyers get together, the
George Vincent types who's brilliant in Densmore and Alex trent
Tefilu who works at Densmore gets together along with the
(04:30):
Bengal lawyers. And the Bengal lawyers are undefeated, untied, unscored
on hell. Mike Brown takes the I R S to
tax court and beats the IRS and tax court. So
these sets of lawyers are making one thousand bucks an
hour and they're going to hash it out. Well, once
they hash it out and say, okay, we really have
a deal, there was a lot of a lot of
confetti and a drinking the champagne and were screaming, hollering
(04:53):
and shouting about a week ago, we got a deal,
we got a deal. In reality, there's not a deal.
There's an understanding in the future to maybe get a deal.
But if the deal is signed, you're saying that the
Bengals had the capability of getting that missing three hundred
and fifty million dollars out of the state quote the
unplaying funds. But the deal has got to be a
real deal, has got to be examined and has got
(05:14):
to be the model rule. Can you explain to the
American people, Speaker Huffman, the model rule that has to
be applied. If this Bengals take money, does that solidify
them in Cincinnati? They say it's eleven years. They say
it used to be a thirty year, now it's eleven.
Can you explain that to the American people?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Sure so. But just to be clear, the amount of
money that the Bengals and again anybody else building large
facilities like this get, they would have to come and
apply to the state for that fund and make sure
that the taxes would pay back ultimately the money to
the fund. And that's going to be dependent on whatever
(05:55):
deal it is that the Bengals or the city, or
the county or the NFL or whoever bring us to
the state. They can convince them, hey, look, state, now,
whether it's three hundred and fifty or two hundred and
fifty or whatever it is, based on what's in the statue.
Then someone will say, Okay, we're convinced that the folks
at the Office of Budget Management, we're convinced we're going
(06:15):
to get our money back. Here's the money, and here's
all the parameters. But until there's an agreement, no one
can say, oh, we're going to get this, or we're
going to get that. We basically modified the Medel rule
to say that, you know what the state legislature's interested
in is the state of Ohio. And in this particular case,
(06:37):
this new facility in Cuyahoga County is built about one
mile outside of the city limits. Brook Park is actually
about the city of Cleveland. I don't think that was
ever intended to do that now. I don't think the
Browns are going to move to Akron or Bima, although
that would be great. But what essentially does is prevent
(07:00):
not just penalizes, but prevents teams who have signed agreements
and taken state money from leaving the state of Ohio.
And again, you know that's essentially what the new rule
is because you know before it was Cleveland donate. Well,
they can build this new facility there and it essentially
(07:20):
serves the same population. And again, the state of Ohio
is what we care about, not necessarily the lines in
a particular county.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
So if and when the LOI becomes a real deal,
it'll be eight thousand pages long. The lawyers will get
their cut of the deal. It's going to be signed,
seal them, delivered, at that point the Hamleting County with
the Bengals, and I guess the NFL applied to this
fund to get three or four hundred million dollars. And
if that happens, that's like the guarantee that the Bengals
(07:51):
threat to move, which the Browns have done one time
they go went to Baltimore, and Mike Brown one point
showed up in Baltimore when the negotiations are going on.
So if Ohio has put up this money, and this
might be three to six months down the road, Speaker
Matt Heffman, and they take the money, then it's going
to be very difficult for the Bengals to leave. Is
that fair to say?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
That's absolutely fair to say. Yeah, yeah, And again the
state isn't sitting here saying how can we give this
money away or how can we make these deals individual communities.
I mentioned the Columbus Symphony Orchestra because they have plans
for a two hundred million dollar facility. They're not maybe Columbus,
Franklin County other people can raise that money, but you know,
(08:33):
that's that's money that potentially they can apply for the
fund and not just mega facilities, you know, like the
Browns or the ones that we were just talking about.
But but but other facilities which you know, are going
to course enhance our lifestyle and a lot of people
want to come here and live. You know, this facility
(08:54):
in Cleveland is going to be, you know, state of
the art. And I think you know, I think you
and I agree that if the Bengals renovation happens, that
it's going to be great for downtown wonder by the way,
I'm a Reds fan, well I may.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And at this point, part of the deal, which isn't done,
I want to say as loud as I can, there
is no deal between the county, the state, and the
Bengals for the renovations. It's a promise to get an
agreement down the road, which we hope happens. But also
the Bengals are giving up a lot of control over
the entire riverfront. That was stupid to give them control
in the first place. It also opens up other events
(09:32):
like Beyonce or maybe Taylor Swift to come back. And
it opens up the ability of this new commission in
Hamilton County to say, Okay, we're going to use pay
Corpse Stadium more. All that's good stuff will see what happens. Secondly,
my friends in public education say you're screwing public education
by this forty percent carryover. Can you maybe, in one
paragraph explain why you're not screwing public education to put
(09:56):
those fears to rest.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Well, first of all, public education is being funded an
additional seven hundred million dollars through this budget. I had
a reporter asked me last week. He said, what would
you say to the people who are set with you
for cutting funding to public education? And I said, I
would tell them that they have been misinformed and they
should be upset with anyone, including news outlets, that are
(10:22):
telling them that in fact, public education is being cut.
So here's what we're trying to do. There's a lot
of we've got real problems with backating property tax. There
are a lot of folks who are eliminated completely that
may be on the ballot next year. And essentially what
we've done is say, look, there are a lot of
(10:46):
public school districts, not all of them, who are carrying over,
who are getting tax money both from the state and
local property and not spending it. They're spending a lot.
You look at the amount of money, for example, that
the Columbus Public schools are spending per child. They had
a forty six percent carryover about four hundred million dollars
(11:10):
that they didn't spend, And there are a lot of
other school districts just like that. Of course, Columbus Public
is way above average in terms of how much it's spent.
There are other school districts like Bluffton in the Great
Town of Bluffton, Ohio and Island County they only spend
twelve thousand dollars per kid. The average statewide is sixteen thousand,
three hundred. Go check your local school districts, see how
(11:32):
much they're spending.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
For twenty three thousand, the Cincinnai twenty three thousand.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Well there you go. Now, I don't know what the
carryover for Cincinnati is, but if it's more than forty percent,
we're simply saying the school districts, like I know, Columbus
Orange School District, several others around the state. Look, all
we're asking is at least return the money that you're
(11:58):
not spending. We're not saying go back and get rid
of you know, building wellness managers, which one of the
school districts recently, someone told me they hired all the
other you know things that school it appears that public
school districts spend money on, but no other, no other
governmental entity is spending the kinds of things that they're doing.
(12:19):
And all we're saying is, can you keep spending as
much money as as your local school board wants to
do that, but if you have extra money that you're
not using, at least return that to the taxpayer. And
so we have school districts that are sixty eighty one hundred,
one hundred and fifty percent carryovers, and in fact, the
recommendation by school business officials is carry over at least
(12:42):
twenty five percent. Now they're not going to put that
in their talking points that they're going to send to
Bill cunning In. So we have to do something about
property taxes, because what are these schools going to do
If this goes on the ballot next year and pass it.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
It's going to pay it happens, it's going to pass.
I had one of your cohorts on who said, look,
it's either property tax, income tax, or sales tax. And
people hate all of them. The least hate full, I guess,
is sales tax. You pay a little bit, but one
of your Cohorts said to me, the property taxes eliminated,
that means the sales tax in each county would have
(13:18):
to be about twenty percent and income taxes would double
a triple. And you haven't had to confront this yet.
But as the main guy in Columbus, what do you
do if property taxes are voted down? In other words,
you can't use them. They don't exist anymore. What's the
sales tax and income tax look like?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Well, I don't think that there's going to suddenly be
a push to double income tax and sales tax. What
we have are talent, and I've mentioned this last time
was one thousands of local taxing entities, and you know,
people are willing to pay that apparently, but we may
not be able to afford six hundred plus school districts
(14:01):
and several hundred cities, townships and villages and all of
the things that we pay for right now. And I
think that if this passes next year, we're going to
have to look at a restructuring of local government and
how we do it. Now. Everybody wants to have their
own local school, everybody wants their own police and fire department.
(14:22):
You have to figure out how to pay for that.
But if this thing passes next year, then what we're
talking about in this budget is peanuts. People will be saying,
where do I sign up for that plan that we
had last year. I think that there is substantial property textually,
if not just in the carryovers situation, but there's a
(14:43):
whole number of other things. We're eliminating emergency leveles, renewal
levees with increases, substitute levees, combined levees, all things that
most of the public don't know about. They just end
up saying, well, I'm for the kids, so I'm going
to go to the.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
School, and they always pass.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, you're not.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
You're in Allen County. In Hamlton County, we have mentally
retarded my I use that term because it's in the statute.
We have senior citizen levee, we have a zoo levee,
we have the library level, we have the engine level.
We got all these levees. We have eleven special levees
that always win. Matt Heffan, and no point does anyone
ever vote against any of them. Because you got poor,
hungred kids have to be fed, and the property tax
(15:22):
is completely out of control, especially in Hamlin County, and
you give us a shot to vote that down, we're going.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
To do it. Yeah. Look there's the other, you know,
sort of improvement center. This. If the school district has
more than a one hundred percent general fund carryover, they're
prohibited from going to the ballot. The school district can't
increase tax revenues, which is some of the things that happen.
They shift the purpose of the inside melage without they
(15:50):
have to do it with the public meeting. And these
are all sort of strange words to most people, right,
but this is how suddenly your taxes go up. You
didn't vote for it, there wasn't a public meeting. Oh
my gosh, how did that happen? So, you know, the
other thing will happen. And it may not happen in
the Cincinnati Public schools, but in many places, people are
(16:11):
going to show up at their school board and say, hey,
wait a minute. You suddenly have this operating extra operating
money and you put it into the permanent improvement fund,
and now I don't get a tax cut because of that. Well,
well we're going to build a new building. Well I
would have liked to remodel my bathroom with that extra
(16:32):
tax money. So there really needs to be a local
involvement in what these taxes are. And you know, I'm
just as guilty as there I think. You know, my
local school ever comes up, I vote for it in
the park and all of those things. But you know,
there are a lot of people, of course paying these
taxes that don't get to vote, and there are a
(16:53):
lot of people who don't pay the taxes who do
get to vote. And the question really needs to be
what is it that we can do to make sure
I think the current question is what do we do
to ensure the public that next year's potential ballot initiative
isn't necessary, that we've made the changes in this budget,
and if folks aren't convinced, then we are looking at
(17:17):
local government armageddon next year.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
It will be armageddon. But nonetheless, I like the Tony Benders,
rich and famous, my producer. He likes the two point
seventy five percent cap on high income Americans so they
pay less money in state taxes, which I like to
a little bit. But Matt Huffman, we're going to have
on the governor Tuesday or Wednesday. He's got till midnight
tonight to veto line out in veto, it can be overruled.
(17:40):
But you told me off the air. Depends what the
issue is. You're not sure yet what's going to be vetoed,
what's not. Then you get back together. The pow wow
happens Tuesday and Wednesday, override the veto and the way
we go. But Speaker of the House, Matt Huffman, once again,
thanks for setting the record strait, especially about the Browns
and Bengals. And you continue to have a great day,
and thank you, mister speaker.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
All right, thanks Bill, God bless thank you, very.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
God bless all. Let's continue with more. There you have it.
So until there's a deal, is there a deal with
the Bengals. Watching the media, we got a deal. In reality,
there's no deal. Bill Cunningham, News Radio seven hundred WLW
Bill cunning and the Great America, and welcome this Monday afternoon.
The Tri State Reds Baseball kicks off about six oh
five tonight. But the Red Sox, believe it or not,
the Red Sox have a losing record, and the Reds
have won five of the past six series. Is look
hotter than a firecracker, and we'll see what happens. They
have three games in Boston, then they're often have three
games in Philly, and they come home next week getting
ready for the All Star break, and have seven games
(00:28):
and home against weak opponents. But nonetheless, the Reds are
with a rocket right now, one of the best teams
in baseball, which I find hard to believe on June thirtieth,
but that's the case. But until then, the Speaker of
the House in columbuses, of course, Matt Huffman from Allen County, Alama,
home with the q P Burger and so much more.
And Speaker of Huffman, welcome again to the Bill Cunningham Show.
(00:49):
And I asked you off the air. We do have
white smoke over the Capitol, but there's also a possibility
of the governor vetoing parts of this which you can override.
With sixty and twenty house in the Senate. But one
thing in Cincinnati which is bigger than Montana is the
Bengals and the Browns now living in Lima. I'm not
sure you care a lot about Bengals and Browns football.
(01:10):
You probably care more about about the legacy of Leonard
Rush and also Ohio State. But there's a lot of
concern here that you're treating the Cleveland Browns differently by
giving them the hundreds of millions of dollars from unplaying funds,
while the Bengal deal, which is an loi, is not
yet signed, but it's a promise to sign. So can
you tell the American people this Monday afternoon what is
(01:33):
the status of the Bengals deal and the Browns deal
and why one deal was approved the other other one
wasn't unclaimed funds, etc. That was used. Instead of an
additional tax on gaming many ways to fund it, you
came up with the unplaying funds. Explained the deal to
the American people.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Well, first, the Bengals do have an opportunity to take
advantage of this fund, these unclaimed funds, as as do
other sports and cultural facilit There's an entire track of
things that people can do that that entities can do
qualify and the Bengals can do that, as could the
Columbus Symphony Orchestra, and maybe some day the Symphony, Reds
(02:11):
or fill in your favorite entity, so there will be
a way for the Bengals to qualify like this there
The Browns organ or the Browns program, of course, was
much different I think than probably any entity for a
long time in that they they're putting in a couple
(02:32):
of billion dollars of private money. But there is a
there is an entire scheme in place for the Bengals
to take advantage of this, and you know, I do
think that this is the best way to do this.
I didn't want to raise taxes the bond uh provisions
that we use so often in other areas. We did
(02:52):
that six hundred million dollars for the Brent Spence Bridge
transportation capital budgets we have. We always have billions of
dollars and bonds out there, but that would have added
about an extra three hundred and thirty million dollars onto
the costs of the taxpayer. The unclaimed funds is simply
money that is sitting accumulating interest. We can't spend the interest.
(03:14):
And the interesting thing about this one has about four
point eight billion dollars. It's collecting about one hundred and
ninety million in interest every year, and in non interest
income it collected five hundred and twenty four million dollars
only paid out one hundred and forty five The amount
of money that's coming to this fund has skyrocketed over
(03:35):
the past ten to fifteen years. I think the reason
is people are losing their money on the internet place
and it eventually gets turned into the state, so it's
a good way to do it. We of course ensure
that the Browns, the Bengals, and anyone else taking advantage
of this money will create enough new revenue to pay
the fund back. The Browns can't get the money or
(03:58):
anybody else until they show the Tax Department and they
show Office of Budget and Management that the project is
viable and that the fund will recover its money.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
As far as the LOI that was signed, Alesia Reese
County Commissioner and she served in the legislature for a
long time maybe when you were there, has set on
our air repeatedly, there's no deal that there's an LOI,
letter of intent and now the lawyers get together, the
George Vincent types who's brilliant in Densmore and Alex trent
Tefilu who works at Densmore gets together along with the
(04:30):
Bengal lawyers. And the Bengal lawyers are undefeated, untied, unscored
on hell. Mike Brown takes the I R S to
tax court and beats the IRS and tax court. So
these sets of lawyers are making one thousand bucks an
hour and they're going to hash it out. Well, once
they hash it out and say, okay, we really have
a deal, there was a lot of a lot of
confetti and a drinking the champagne and were screaming, hollering
(04:53):
and shouting about a week ago, we got a deal,
we got a deal. In reality, there's not a deal.
There's an understanding in the future to maybe get a deal.
But if the deal is signed, you're saying that the
Bengals had the capability of getting that missing three hundred
and fifty million dollars out of the state quote the
unplaying funds. But the deal has got to be a
real deal, has got to be examined and has got
(05:14):
to be the model rule. Can you explain to the
American people, Speaker Huffman, the model rule that has to
be applied. If this Bengals take money, does that solidify
them in Cincinnati? They say it's eleven years. They say
it used to be a thirty year, now it's eleven.
Can you explain that to the American people?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Sure so. But just to be clear, the amount of
money that the Bengals and again anybody else building large
facilities like this get, they would have to come and
apply to the state for that fund and make sure
that the taxes would pay back ultimately the money to
the fund. And that's going to be dependent on whatever
(05:55):
deal it is that the Bengals or the city, or
the county or the NFL or whoever bring us to
the state. They can convince them, hey, look, state, now,
whether it's three hundred and fifty or two hundred and
fifty or whatever it is, based on what's in the statue.
Then someone will say, Okay, we're convinced that the folks
at the Office of Budget Management, we're convinced we're going
(06:15):
to get our money back. Here's the money, and here's
all the parameters. But until there's an agreement, no one
can say, oh, we're going to get this, or we're
going to get that. We basically modified the Medel rule
to say that, you know what the state legislature's interested
in is the state of Ohio. And in this particular case,
(06:37):
this new facility in Cuyahoga County is built about one
mile outside of the city limits. Brook Park is actually
about the city of Cleveland. I don't think that was
ever intended to do that now. I don't think the
Browns are going to move to Akron or Bima, although
that would be great. But what essentially does is prevent
(07:00):
not just penalizes, but prevents teams who have signed agreements
and taken state money from leaving the state of Ohio.
And again, you know that's essentially what the new rule
is because you know before it was Cleveland donate. Well,
they can build this new facility there and it essentially
(07:20):
serves the same population. And again, the state of Ohio
is what we care about, not necessarily the lines in
a particular county.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
So if and when the LOI becomes a real deal,
it'll be eight thousand pages long. The lawyers will get
their cut of the deal. It's going to be signed,
seal them, delivered, at that point the Hamleting County with
the Bengals, and I guess the NFL applied to this
fund to get three or four hundred million dollars. And
if that happens, that's like the guarantee that the Bengals
(07:51):
threat to move, which the Browns have done one time
they go went to Baltimore, and Mike Brown one point
showed up in Baltimore when the negotiations are going on.
So if Ohio has put up this money, and this
might be three to six months down the road, Speaker
Matt Heffman, and they take the money, then it's going
to be very difficult for the Bengals to leave. Is
that fair to say?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
That's absolutely fair to say. Yeah, yeah, And again the
state isn't sitting here saying how can we give this
money away or how can we make these deals individual communities.
I mentioned the Columbus Symphony Orchestra because they have plans
for a two hundred million dollar facility. They're not maybe Columbus,
Franklin County other people can raise that money, but you know,
(08:33):
that's that's money that potentially they can apply for the
fund and not just mega facilities, you know, like the
Browns or the ones that we were just talking about.
But but but other facilities which you know, are going
to course enhance our lifestyle and a lot of people
want to come here and live. You know, this facility
(08:54):
in Cleveland is going to be, you know, state of
the art. And I think you know, I think you
and I agree that if the Bengals renovation happens, that
it's going to be great for downtown wonder by the way,
I'm a Reds fan, well I may.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And at this point, part of the deal, which isn't done,
I want to say as loud as I can, there
is no deal between the county, the state, and the
Bengals for the renovations. It's a promise to get an
agreement down the road, which we hope happens. But also
the Bengals are giving up a lot of control over
the entire riverfront. That was stupid to give them control
in the first place. It also opens up other events
(09:32):
like Beyonce or maybe Taylor Swift to come back. And
it opens up the ability of this new commission in
Hamilton County to say, Okay, we're going to use pay
Corpse Stadium more. All that's good stuff will see what happens. Secondly,
my friends in public education say you're screwing public education
by this forty percent carryover. Can you maybe, in one
paragraph explain why you're not screwing public education to put
(09:56):
those fears to rest.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Well, first of all, public education is being funded an
additional seven hundred million dollars through this budget. I had
a reporter asked me last week. He said, what would
you say to the people who are set with you
for cutting funding to public education? And I said, I
would tell them that they have been misinformed and they
should be upset with anyone, including news outlets, that are
(10:22):
telling them that in fact, public education is being cut.
So here's what we're trying to do. There's a lot
of we've got real problems with backating property tax. There
are a lot of folks who are eliminated completely that
may be on the ballot next year. And essentially what
we've done is say, look, there are a lot of
(10:46):
public school districts, not all of them, who are carrying over,
who are getting tax money both from the state and
local property and not spending it. They're spending a lot.
You look at the amount of money, for example, that
the Columbus Public schools are spending per child. They had
a forty six percent carryover about four hundred million dollars
(11:10):
that they didn't spend, And there are a lot of
other school districts just like that. Of course, Columbus Public
is way above average in terms of how much it's spent.
There are other school districts like Bluffton in the Great
Town of Bluffton, Ohio and Island County they only spend
twelve thousand dollars per kid. The average statewide is sixteen thousand,
three hundred. Go check your local school districts, see how
(11:32):
much they're spending.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
For twenty three thousand, the Cincinnai twenty three thousand.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Well there you go. Now, I don't know what the
carryover for Cincinnati is, but if it's more than forty percent,
we're simply saying the school districts, like I know, Columbus
Orange School District, several others around the state. Look, all
we're asking is at least return the money that you're
(11:58):
not spending. We're not saying go back and get rid
of you know, building wellness managers, which one of the
school districts recently, someone told me they hired all the
other you know things that school it appears that public
school districts spend money on, but no other, no other
governmental entity is spending the kinds of things that they're doing.
(12:19):
And all we're saying is, can you keep spending as
much money as as your local school board wants to
do that, but if you have extra money that you're
not using, at least return that to the taxpayer. And
so we have school districts that are sixty eighty one hundred,
one hundred and fifty percent carryovers, and in fact, the
recommendation by school business officials is carry over at least
(12:42):
twenty five percent. Now they're not going to put that
in their talking points that they're going to send to
Bill cunning In. So we have to do something about
property taxes, because what are these schools going to do
If this goes on the ballot next year and pass it.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
It's going to pay it happens, it's going to pass.
I had one of your cohorts on who said, look,
it's either property tax, income tax, or sales tax. And
people hate all of them. The least hate full, I guess,
is sales tax. You pay a little bit, but one
of your Cohorts said to me, the property taxes eliminated,
that means the sales tax in each county would have
(13:18):
to be about twenty percent and income taxes would double
a triple. And you haven't had to confront this yet.
But as the main guy in Columbus, what do you
do if property taxes are voted down? In other words,
you can't use them. They don't exist anymore. What's the
sales tax and income tax look like?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Well, I don't think that there's going to suddenly be
a push to double income tax and sales tax. What
we have are talent, and I've mentioned this last time
was one thousands of local taxing entities, and you know,
people are willing to pay that apparently, but we may
not be able to afford six hundred plus school districts
(14:01):
and several hundred cities, townships and villages and all of
the things that we pay for right now. And I
think that if this passes next year, we're going to
have to look at a restructuring of local government and
how we do it. Now. Everybody wants to have their
own local school, everybody wants their own police and fire department.
(14:22):
You have to figure out how to pay for that.
But if this thing passes next year, then what we're
talking about in this budget is peanuts. People will be saying,
where do I sign up for that plan that we
had last year. I think that there is substantial property textually,
if not just in the carryovers situation, but there's a
(14:43):
whole number of other things. We're eliminating emergency leveles, renewal
levees with increases, substitute levees, combined levees, all things that
most of the public don't know about. They just end
up saying, well, I'm for the kids, so I'm going
to go to the.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
School, and they always pass.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, you're not.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
You're in Allen County. In Hamlton County, we have mentally
retarded my I use that term because it's in the statute.
We have senior citizen levee, we have a zoo levee,
we have the library level, we have the engine level.
We got all these levees. We have eleven special levees
that always win. Matt Heffan, and no point does anyone
ever vote against any of them. Because you got poor,
hungred kids have to be fed, and the property tax
(15:22):
is completely out of control, especially in Hamlin County, and
you give us a shot to vote that down, we're going.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
To do it. Yeah. Look there's the other, you know,
sort of improvement center. This. If the school district has
more than a one hundred percent general fund carryover, they're
prohibited from going to the ballot. The school district can't
increase tax revenues, which is some of the things that happen.
They shift the purpose of the inside melage without they
(15:50):
have to do it with the public meeting. And these
are all sort of strange words to most people, right,
but this is how suddenly your taxes go up. You
didn't vote for it, there wasn't a public meeting. Oh
my gosh, how did that happen? So, you know, the
other thing will happen. And it may not happen in
the Cincinnati Public schools, but in many places, people are
(16:11):
going to show up at their school board and say, hey,
wait a minute. You suddenly have this operating extra operating
money and you put it into the permanent improvement fund,
and now I don't get a tax cut because of that. Well,
well we're going to build a new building. Well I
would have liked to remodel my bathroom with that extra
(16:32):
tax money. So there really needs to be a local
involvement in what these taxes are. And you know, I'm
just as guilty as there I think. You know, my
local school ever comes up, I vote for it in
the park and all of those things. But you know,
there are a lot of people, of course paying these
taxes that don't get to vote, and there are a
(16:53):
lot of people who don't pay the taxes who do
get to vote. And the question really needs to be
what is it that we can do to make sure
I think the current question is what do we do
to ensure the public that next year's potential ballot initiative
isn't necessary, that we've made the changes in this budget,
and if folks aren't convinced, then we are looking at
(17:17):
local government armageddon next year.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
It will be armageddon. But nonetheless, I like the Tony Benders,
rich and famous, my producer. He likes the two point
seventy five percent cap on high income Americans so they
pay less money in state taxes, which I like to
a little bit. But Matt Huffman, we're going to have
on the governor Tuesday or Wednesday. He's got till midnight
tonight to veto line out in veto, it can be overruled.
(17:40):
But you told me off the air. Depends what the
issue is. You're not sure yet what's going to be vetoed,
what's not. Then you get back together. The pow wow
happens Tuesday and Wednesday, override the veto and the way
we go. But Speaker of the House, Matt Huffman, once again,
thanks for setting the record strait, especially about the Browns
and Bengals. And you continue to have a great day,
and thank you, mister speaker.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
All right, thanks Bill, God bless thank you, very.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
God bless all. Let's continue with more. There you have it.
So until there's a deal, is there a deal with
the Bengals. Watching the media, we got a deal. In reality,
there's no deal. Bill Cunningham, News Radio seven hundred WLW
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