By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
State Sen. Randy Gardner (R-Bowling Green) is waiting on action for the Ohio House to act on the 47 items Gov. John Kasich vetoed in the $133-billion two-year state budget Friday.
“I’m not going to spend an awful lot of time on any particular item until we find out if the House is going to take action, because if the House decides not to vote the Senate doesn’t have any action to take.”
State Rep. Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) confirmed the House will convene Thursday to discuss overriding the vetoes. (Gavarone was not available today for an interview. A separate story on her reaction to the budget and vetoes will be published later.)
It takes a three-fifths majority to override the governor’s veto.
The earliest the Senate would convene would be July 12, he said, and even then it could be as late as August or September. In fact, he said, a measure could be overridden any time during the legislative session, which lasts until August, 2018.
Some decisions, though, have to be made sooner. Any override of the governor’s veto of a measure that would have frozen expansion of the state’s Medicaid program, would have to be made before the middle of next year.
In the case of the Medicaid expansion freeze, he has concerns about a number of issues. Those include whether provisions making exceptions to the freeze for the drug addicted and mentality ill would be retained. “I wouldn’t even consider voting until I have answers to those kind of questions.”
One issue he said he’s “definitely interested in” is the governor’s veto of a provision to freeze Medicaid rates for hospitals. This was done at the behest of hospital administrators and agreed on by both the House and the Senate. The idea was to freeze rates as a way of forestalling cuts to those rates.
“I think hospitals have managed the last couple years in a budget conscience way,” he said. To freeze rates would be “a positive thing for holding down state budget costs. Why they would need to be cut below that?”
Still overriding the veto may have ramifications, Gardner said. The administration has the ability to make other changes that could negatively affect hospitals. He’d need a clearer picture before casting a vote.
“The question on almost every veto override is: What are the ramifications of doing so? Are there other things the administration might consider in the aftermath of a veto override? There are other things the administration can do that would also be problematic.”
Gardner said he would have liked to have been able to provide more funding for higher education. “The challenge this year was that when the governor introduced the budget, higher education had a small increase. By the time the budget came to the Senate, there was a little over billion less to balance the budget,” he said. “We had to make some difficult decisions.”
The budget ended up with no increases in state support for universities and froze tuition and general fees.
Next year, it allows those institutions that adopt the Ohio Tuition Guarantee program, to raise tuition for first year students by 6 percent. Kasich vetoed a provision allowing for an 8-percent increase. The guarantee means that incoming students will pay the same tuition for four years. The hike would not affect the tuition and general fees for other students.
The budget calls for $3 million more for the Ohio College Opportunity Grants, which help low-income students. The Senate had wanted an $11 million increase, Gardner said.
“I was glad we protected higher education from any reductions in aid,” Gardner said. “While that was a positive, I would have liked to do more.
“Higher education is a key part of the economic engine,” he continued. “I don’t think we provided enough support for that engine.”
However, looking back over the past two budgets funding has been increased, he said. This came at a time when many other states were cutting funding.
Gardner said he also helped make sure that most of the school districts got more state support. Many would have lost some funding under the House version of the budget. He said he authored a change of how the formula is calculated that meant many more schools would get increases.
He also authored a new provision that will enable more schools to get state help for construction projects.
Currently some districts, including Bowling Green, forego the state construction program because the requirements would mean the district would end up spending more money than they want to meet state requirements.
The new program would allow districts to get matching funds for some smaller scale projects.
Gardner noted two other measures aimed at addressing opioid abuse.
One provides reimbursement to counties for drugs to treat mental health conditions that are administered to inmates.
Another provides more money for county coroners to do autopsies on victims of drug overdoses.
If the dealer who supplied the drugs is known, they could face murder or accessory to murder charges, and the autopsies would provide important evidence needed to get a conviction.
