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State budget fix delayed until Monday
The latest budget fix hit a snag this week when some lawmakers objected to major reforms to how billions of dollars of public construction contracts are awarded.
Some Senate Republicans want the construction reforms folded into the budget correction bill, along with other a laundry list of other proposals. But the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus and others are concerned that the reforms are too big and too important to adopt without thorough consideration.
Contractors and labor unions want to preserve the current contracting system but university officials want more freedom in how they may award multi-million dollar deals.
Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee, Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut, Inter-University Council of Ohio President Bruce Johnson and others will testify before the Senate Finance Committee on Monday, Dec. 7, in an effort to convince lawmakers that contracting reform would save millions of taxpayers dollars and allow projects to be completed more quickly.
The state faces an $851 million budget hole created after a ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court essentially put a halt to plans to put video slot machines at racetracks to generate new revenue for the state. Without a budget fix, cuts would have to be made to K-12 education.
Gov. Ted Strickland proposed and the House passed a plan to delay the last phase of a 21 percent across the board income tax rate cut. But Senate Republicans cast that plan as a tax hike and are reluctant to vote for it.
The construction overhaul proposal is based on a report from a panel commissioned by Strickland that said the changes could save money and get contracts completed sooner. The changes would allow the hiring of construction managers earlier in the process and expand their roles and change how risks involved in projects are shared, among other things.
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