Governor Strickland’s State of the State address acknowledged the real fears that many face in this recession, and the sacrifices that will have to be made. He reiterated that at flat funding, Ohio would face a $7.3 billion deficit in the 2010-11 budget, which, by CCS’ estimate exceeds $8 billion.

He also announced several initiatives to strengthen the economy and improve the longterm outlook for the state. Education remained a high priority - education will be a comprehensive P through 16 system, the Department of Education will oversee early childhood development programs, we will have universal all-day kindergarten and an improved school funding formula with the state taking on an increased portion of education funding to 55 and then 59%. He also described ways to increase accessibility of health care to an additional 110,000 Ohioans.

However, these initiatives require additional funding, and yet his executive budget, will not increase taxes and is $3.2 billion below 2009 planning levels. Rather than increasing tax revenues, his budget relies on revenues from existing resources, one-time cash transfers, increases in agency fees, fines, and penalties, and an anticipated $3.4 billion from the federal economic recovery package. The budget has spending reductions including 10-20% program cuts to services at a time when families are having a harder time getting by. Hopefully painful cuts to vital services won’t be part of a temporary solution to a permanent problem. Even if these sources are enough for the 2010-11 budget, they won’t solve the structural deficit, our habit of spending more than we collect in revenues.

To see the text of the address, go to http://www.governor.ohio.gov/GovernorsOffice/StateoftheState/StateoftheState2009/tabid/984/Default.aspx