April 17, 2025 • 12 mins
Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman breaks down the deal for the indoor stadium, and says this good for Ohio, that the state will make over $1Billion in profit
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the story we brought up a couple of days
ago the Browns Stadium. The proposal for the new brown Stadium,
the Haslam Sports Group wants a two point four billion
dollar dome stadium. This is in brook Park, It's about
fifteen miles from the current stadium downtown. They're asking for
six hundred million dollars in public funds. It's covered by
(00:21):
state issued bonds. They say it's an economic engine for
not only the Cleveland area, but for the state of Ohio.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
With you know, with the dome, you'll have year round events.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You've got the you'll have the auto ramas and the
monster trucks and concerts and other things, and maybe maybe
even someday.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hosts a Super Bowl. I don't think the Browns would
ever be playing in that, but you never know.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
The problem is Cleveland doesn't want the team leaving downtown.
The city is fighting legally under the Model Law, which
is sort of a different argument. But the reason we
want to jump on the Legacy Retirement Group dot Com
phone line with Ohio how Speaker Matt Huffman is to
talk about the public funds that are being used for this.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Matt, good morning, I'm glad you reached out. How you been.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Oh, I'm great, how you doing this morning?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Doing doing great?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So, as a taxpayer in state of Ohio, I don't
want my money going to fund a stadium in Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, well, so this is this is a three point
six billion dollar economic development project. The stadium portion of
it is two point four billion, and the so the
of the whole thing, the Ohio State of Ohio would
be about one six of it. So the bonds themselves
(01:37):
are of course going to be sold six hundred million dollars,
sold over and paid back over twenty five years. The
taxes created in this one hundred and seventy six acre
parcel to the state of Ohio, this isn't local, just
to the state are two point nine billion dollars. Would
have had six hundred million at the current stadium over
(01:58):
that time. Since net new taxes of two point three
billion dollars, the cost of the bond, the six hundred
million plus the interest and they got to pay the
guys who are selling it is a little bit under
a billion, but let's call it a billion. So the
new the state of Ohio is actually making one point
three billion dollars. So it's a good deal for the state.
(02:24):
You know, a couple of years ago, the Browns came
to me and said, hey, we'd like this money from
the State of Ohio to help. And I said, I'm
not in favor of just giving hundreds of millions of
dollars away for these things. Find out find a way
for the State of Ohio to hold the taxpayers, for
you to hold the taxpayers harmless or make money. And
(02:45):
that's actually what we're doing in this situation. So we
issue a lot of bonds, we spend a lot of money.
Usually we're not making money on the deal. You can
think of a lot of examples of that. But in
the situation like this, this is we're making money essentially
because we're acting as the bank and we have the
ability to do that because of our bond rating. So
(03:08):
if you're just saying I don't care even if we
make money off of the deal, I don't want to
do it, well, then I guess I don't have an argument.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I'm all from making money.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Speaking with OHIOHO speaker Matt Huffman, but I mean there's
been study after studying that that said that, you know,
these stadium deals do not deliver the economic boost that
they promise. I mean, it's just a it's just a
shift of entertainment dollars. So you spend money on Browns
games or concerts or whatever, but you don't go to
other local venues. You you know, you forego other restaurants
(03:37):
or movies or concerts, local bars and theaters. There's really
no net gain. There's just a shift in economic spending.
Entertainment is spending.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yeah, well, I think you can say these studies show that,
but not every study is studying the same thing. And
you know, a restaurant's economic model is ten football games
a year versus anyone baseball games or basketball games. It's
not such a great economic model for that restaurant. So
(04:08):
in this particular situation, I mean, and there's there's two
independent financial institutions who have verified these and said, essentially,
the Browns numbers on the the net new taxes are conservatives.
So if we have even if the Browns are off
by thirty or forty percent, the taxpayers are still held harmless.
(04:30):
So and you know, if you want to compare it
to other stadiums and things like that, most of the
public dollars Indianapolis, Las Vegas, other places like that in
those situations are much much more than they are in
this situation. So, you know, I don't think you can
simply say, well, some economists say these things don't make
(04:51):
the money. They say it will look at the numbers,
and you know, if you simply don't believe the numbers,
you know, again, there's there's not much I can do
about that.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
What about and I think Attorney General Dave Yost alluded
to this the opportunity cost too. You know, the every
dollar you spend argument on stadiums is then not going
to be spent on things that we could argue are
more important like schools, roads, healthcare, affordable housing.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
In Ohio.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, well I think there probably most people don't understand
the breadth and width of the amount of money that
we spend, especially on bonding. And we're well below our
constitutional limit on the amount of money that we can
issue in bonds. So for example, probably most people don't
realize because it's not as interesting that the state of
(05:39):
Ohio just issued six hundred million dollars in new bonds
for the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati. We had already
issued about one hundred and fifteen million dollars and we're
in for about three hundred million dollars. Okay, so close
to a billion dollars. Ultimately we'll spend about two billion
dollars if the numbers hold in terms of.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
What the.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
So as you go through, you know, I don't I
certainly if this was an issue of we somehow had
the sacrifice or some other project. If we weren't spending
which we spent about twelve or thirteen billion dollars on
schools over the last couple of decades just on school building,
we're somehow sacrificing some other item, that would be a
(06:24):
completely different discussion. But I don't think the Attorney General
anybody else can say, well, we're not spending enough money
on filling the blank. We we're spending a lot of
money in a stateable eye on a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
It's Matt Huffman, Ohio's Speaker of the House. I'm glad
you brought up Cincinnati because you know they've got their
handout too, so and you're working on the state budget,
and the Bengals now want money too for the pay
course stadium improvements. They're looking for I think something like
three hundred, three hundred and fifty million in upgrades. Their
lease ends next year. They've hinted, not so subtly, that
(06:55):
they could walk if their needs aren't met either. So
they're looking at the braw deal as some sort of
favoritism and they're going, hey, what about us?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
So you know, I guess when when when.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Do we hold the the billionaire owners of these sports
franchises kind of accountable for, you know, funding their own success.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I mean, you let the Hasls pay for it.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yeah, well that's what I told them two years ago
when they came to me and said, could we have
six hundred million dollars for a stadium? And I said no,
if you come up with some creative way or inventive
way to hold the taxpayers harmless, then I would consider that,
and I would suggest other members of the General Assembly
they do that. And that's what they've done with this project.
So again, if we're not making money off of it,
(07:45):
or at least holding the taxpayers harmless, then we shouldn't
do this. In the case of the Bengals, I met
with them and one of the commissioners down there a
few weeks ago, and essentially what they're saying, Gee, did
this for the Browns? Give US three hundred and fifty
million dollars. My answer to that was the same as
it was to the Browns two years ago. No, I'm
(08:06):
not in favor of doing that.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Good.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Well, I think that's the right answer, and if we
can get this worked out where you know, as a taxpayer,
I'm not feeling because I can't. I can't even afford
to go to these games, man. I mean, the average
Browns tickets about one hundred and fifteen bucks. My family
of four, you know, there's there's four hundred and fifty
bucks just to get in the just to get in
the venue doesn't include parking, snacks or you know, hats
or hoodies for the kids.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
So it's a you know, it's a seven hundred dollars bill,
you know.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And it's just it's just too much if people, the
average guy in gal priced out of go into some
of these games. I want to switch gears, Matt, real
quick while I've got you and I think this is
something that you and I agree on. It's the property
tax relief proposal, and it's kind of wonky. I'll kind
of set it up and I'll let you kind of
clarify it here in a remaining a couple of minutes here.
It's essentially the deal is that the taxpayers will get
(08:54):
a break on property tax. That money will come from
public schools, who consistently carry over more than thirty percent
of their budget from year to year. So the surplus
comes from the tax player. It pays anyway, So why
shouldn't we get a bit of a break on our.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Property tax and it'll come from the schools. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
So this is the money in the general operating fund
of every school district. And what's happened in the last
five years is an enormous increase in the amount of
money going into general funds, both from the step of
the state through the Fair School Funding Plan, but more intensely,
I think from local property values have gone up in
(09:37):
an extraordinary way and people feel that, especially places like
Delaware County, Butler County, Warren County, places like that. And
what's happened is schools really have more money than they
can spend. The City of Columbus has carried over about
four hundred million dollars, which is close to fifty percent
of its budget.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That's incredible. So the school becomes a piggybank.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Now, I mean, do the schools have any kind of
budgetary I mean, they should not have They should not
have that much money left over. And yet we get,
you know, we hear about school levies and the it's
my understanding Ohio's public schools are flush with cash.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Many of them are, many of them are not. In
what we're simply saying is, look, every entity, business or
otherwise needs to have some carryover cash. You know, an
accountant will tell you, you know, carry over twenty to twenty
five percent. And that's actually a good school practice. Is
the twenty five percent number? We made it thirty percent.
(10:39):
But as these real estate tax dollars and state dollars
flow into these accounts, they, of course schools can say, hey,
we're going to use that money to build a school.
That's fine, But these are money in the operating accounts
which schools simply can't spend. An interesting testimony. I didn't
see it, but someone told me about it. One of
the suburban Columbus district. Somebody comes in and says, hey,
(11:02):
we've been able to invest these dollars and make eight
million dollars for the school district. And of course the
obvious question is shouldn't that money be in the checking
accounts or be invested by the people who paid it
so they can make the eight million dollars of the
school district. Right. So yeah, I mean we essentially as
we looked at this, and over the last couple months,
(11:25):
one of the couple of reporters have looked at me
and said, where did this idea come from? This got
studied for over a year and nobody brought that up.
And the answer is it came from me, I said,
And I've been talking about it for four years, all
these extra dollars accumulating in the school districts, but nobody's
ever reported on what I've been saying about it over
(11:45):
the last four years. And when I say me, I
guess you know. There was a discussion with my leadership
team in fifteen or twenty other people, and then we
brought it to our cockets and there was a general
round of applause when we brought it up. And that's
why we brought it forward to the House Republican confer
So the story we brought up a couple of days
ago the Browns Stadium. The proposal for the new brown Stadium,
the Haslam Sports Group wants a two point four billion
dollar dome stadium. This is in brook Park, It's about
fifteen miles from the current stadium downtown. They're asking for
six hundred million dollars in public funds. It's covered by
(00:21):
state issued bonds. They say it's an economic engine for
not only the Cleveland area, but for the state of Ohio.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
With you know, with the dome, you'll have year round events.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You've got the you'll have the auto ramas and the
monster trucks and concerts and other things, and maybe maybe
even someday.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hosts a Super Bowl. I don't think the Browns would
ever be playing in that, but you never know.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
The problem is Cleveland doesn't want the team leaving downtown.
The city is fighting legally under the Model Law, which
is sort of a different argument. But the reason we
want to jump on the Legacy Retirement Group dot Com
phone line with Ohio how Speaker Matt Huffman is to
talk about the public funds that are being used for this.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Matt, good morning, I'm glad you reached out. How you been.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Oh, I'm great, how you doing this morning?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Doing doing great?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So, as a taxpayer in state of Ohio, I don't
want my money going to fund a stadium in Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, well, so this is this is a three point
six billion dollar economic development project. The stadium portion of
it is two point four billion, and the so the
of the whole thing, the Ohio State of Ohio would
be about one six of it. So the bonds themselves
(01:37):
are of course going to be sold six hundred million dollars,
sold over and paid back over twenty five years. The
taxes created in this one hundred and seventy six acre
parcel to the state of Ohio, this isn't local, just
to the state are two point nine billion dollars. Would
have had six hundred million at the current stadium over
(01:58):
that time. Since net new taxes of two point three
billion dollars, the cost of the bond, the six hundred
million plus the interest and they got to pay the
guys who are selling it is a little bit under
a billion, but let's call it a billion. So the
new the state of Ohio is actually making one point
three billion dollars. So it's a good deal for the state.
(02:24):
You know, a couple of years ago, the Browns came
to me and said, hey, we'd like this money from
the State of Ohio to help. And I said, I'm
not in favor of just giving hundreds of millions of
dollars away for these things. Find out find a way
for the State of Ohio to hold the taxpayers, for
you to hold the taxpayers harmless or make money. And
(02:45):
that's actually what we're doing in this situation. So we
issue a lot of bonds, we spend a lot of money.
Usually we're not making money on the deal. You can
think of a lot of examples of that. But in
the situation like this, this is we're making money essentially
because we're acting as the bank and we have the
ability to do that because of our bond rating. So
(03:08):
if you're just saying I don't care even if we
make money off of the deal, I don't want to
do it, well, then I guess I don't have an argument.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I'm all from making money.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Speaking with OHIOHO speaker Matt Huffman, but I mean there's
been study after studying that that said that, you know,
these stadium deals do not deliver the economic boost that
they promise. I mean, it's just a it's just a
shift of entertainment dollars. So you spend money on Browns
games or concerts or whatever, but you don't go to
other local venues. You you know, you forego other restaurants
(03:37):
or movies or concerts, local bars and theaters. There's really
no net gain. There's just a shift in economic spending.
Entertainment is spending.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yeah, well, I think you can say these studies show that,
but not every study is studying the same thing. And
you know, a restaurant's economic model is ten football games
a year versus anyone baseball games or basketball games. It's
not such a great economic model for that restaurant. So
(04:08):
in this particular situation, I mean, and there's there's two
independent financial institutions who have verified these and said, essentially,
the Browns numbers on the the net new taxes are conservatives.
So if we have even if the Browns are off
by thirty or forty percent, the taxpayers are still held harmless.
(04:30):
So and you know, if you want to compare it
to other stadiums and things like that, most of the
public dollars Indianapolis, Las Vegas, other places like that in
those situations are much much more than they are in
this situation. So, you know, I don't think you can
simply say, well, some economists say these things don't make
(04:51):
the money. They say it will look at the numbers,
and you know, if you simply don't believe the numbers,
you know, again, there's there's not much I can do
about that.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
What about and I think Attorney General Dave Yost alluded
to this the opportunity cost too. You know, the every
dollar you spend argument on stadiums is then not going
to be spent on things that we could argue are
more important like schools, roads, healthcare, affordable housing.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
In Ohio.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, well I think there probably most people don't understand
the breadth and width of the amount of money that
we spend, especially on bonding. And we're well below our
constitutional limit on the amount of money that we can
issue in bonds. So for example, probably most people don't
realize because it's not as interesting that the state of
(05:39):
Ohio just issued six hundred million dollars in new bonds
for the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati. We had already
issued about one hundred and fifteen million dollars and we're
in for about three hundred million dollars. Okay, so close
to a billion dollars. Ultimately we'll spend about two billion
dollars if the numbers hold in terms of.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
What the.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
So as you go through, you know, I don't I
certainly if this was an issue of we somehow had
the sacrifice or some other project. If we weren't spending
which we spent about twelve or thirteen billion dollars on
schools over the last couple of decades just on school building,
we're somehow sacrificing some other item, that would be a
(06:24):
completely different discussion. But I don't think the Attorney General
anybody else can say, well, we're not spending enough money
on filling the blank. We we're spending a lot of
money in a stateable eye on a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
It's Matt Huffman, Ohio's Speaker of the House. I'm glad
you brought up Cincinnati because you know they've got their
handout too, so and you're working on the state budget,
and the Bengals now want money too for the pay
course stadium improvements. They're looking for I think something like
three hundred, three hundred and fifty million in upgrades. Their
lease ends next year. They've hinted, not so subtly, that
(06:55):
they could walk if their needs aren't met either. So
they're looking at the braw deal as some sort of
favoritism and they're going, hey, what about us?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
So you know, I guess when when when.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Do we hold the the billionaire owners of these sports
franchises kind of accountable for, you know, funding their own success.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I mean, you let the Hasls pay for it.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yeah, well that's what I told them two years ago
when they came to me and said, could we have
six hundred million dollars for a stadium? And I said no,
if you come up with some creative way or inventive
way to hold the taxpayers harmless, then I would consider that,
and I would suggest other members of the General Assembly
they do that. And that's what they've done with this project.
So again, if we're not making money off of it,
(07:45):
or at least holding the taxpayers harmless, then we shouldn't
do this. In the case of the Bengals, I met
with them and one of the commissioners down there a
few weeks ago, and essentially what they're saying, Gee, did
this for the Browns? Give US three hundred and fifty
million dollars. My answer to that was the same as
it was to the Browns two years ago. No, I'm
(08:06):
not in favor of doing that.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Good.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Well, I think that's the right answer, and if we
can get this worked out where you know, as a taxpayer,
I'm not feeling because I can't. I can't even afford
to go to these games, man. I mean, the average
Browns tickets about one hundred and fifteen bucks. My family
of four, you know, there's there's four hundred and fifty
bucks just to get in the just to get in
the venue doesn't include parking, snacks or you know, hats
or hoodies for the kids.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
So it's a you know, it's a seven hundred dollars bill,
you know.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And it's just it's just too much if people, the
average guy in gal priced out of go into some
of these games. I want to switch gears, Matt, real
quick while I've got you and I think this is
something that you and I agree on. It's the property
tax relief proposal, and it's kind of wonky. I'll kind
of set it up and I'll let you kind of
clarify it here in a remaining a couple of minutes here.
It's essentially the deal is that the taxpayers will get
(08:54):
a break on property tax. That money will come from
public schools, who consistently carry over more than thirty percent
of their budget from year to year. So the surplus
comes from the tax player. It pays anyway, So why
shouldn't we get a bit of a break on our.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Property tax and it'll come from the schools. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
So this is the money in the general operating fund
of every school district. And what's happened in the last
five years is an enormous increase in the amount of
money going into general funds, both from the step of
the state through the Fair School Funding Plan, but more intensely,
I think from local property values have gone up in
(09:37):
an extraordinary way and people feel that, especially places like
Delaware County, Butler County, Warren County, places like that. And
what's happened is schools really have more money than they
can spend. The City of Columbus has carried over about
four hundred million dollars, which is close to fifty percent
of its budget.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That's incredible. So the school becomes a piggybank.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Now, I mean, do the schools have any kind of
budgetary I mean, they should not have They should not
have that much money left over. And yet we get,
you know, we hear about school levies and the it's
my understanding Ohio's public schools are flush with cash.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Many of them are, many of them are not. In
what we're simply saying is, look, every entity, business or
otherwise needs to have some carryover cash. You know, an
accountant will tell you, you know, carry over twenty to twenty
five percent. And that's actually a good school practice. Is
the twenty five percent number? We made it thirty percent.
(10:39):
But as these real estate tax dollars and state dollars
flow into these accounts, they, of course schools can say, hey,
we're going to use that money to build a school.
That's fine, But these are money in the operating accounts
which schools simply can't spend. An interesting testimony. I didn't
see it, but someone told me about it. One of
the suburban Columbus district. Somebody comes in and says, hey,
(11:02):
we've been able to invest these dollars and make eight
million dollars for the school district. And of course the
obvious question is shouldn't that money be in the checking
accounts or be invested by the people who paid it
so they can make the eight million dollars of the
school district. Right. So yeah, I mean we essentially as
we looked at this, and over the last couple months,
(11:25):
one of the couple of reporters have looked at me
and said, where did this idea come from? This got
studied for over a year and nobody brought that up.
And the answer is it came from me, I said,
And I've been talking about it for four years, all
these extra dollars accumulating in the school districts, but nobody's
ever reported on what I've been saying about it over
(11:45):
the last four years. And when I say me, I
guess you know. There was a discussion with my leadership
team in fifteen or twenty other people, and then we
brought it to our cockets and there was a general
round of applause when we brought it up. And that's
why we brought it forward to the House Republican confer
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