Ohio gambling expansion stays alive

John McCarthy

Tuesday, June 10, 2003 | 9:45 a.m.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Gov. Bob Taft, who opposes casino gambling in Ohio, keeps giving the Legislature reasons to ask voters to put electronic slot machines at racetracks, Senate President Doug White says.

Last week Taft's budget director announced that the current budget would be out of balance by $200 million at the end of this month unless agencies curbed spending and the administration dipped into pots of available money.

Then lawmakers said they were told a projected deficit for the two years beginning July 1 would be "shocking" when budget director Tom Johnson testifies before a House-Senate committee on Wednesday. The committee will resolve differences in the $49.3 billion budget bill.

"The numbers he's giving us and threatening to give us puts a whole lot more steam in VLTs (video lottery terminals) than before," White, a Manchester Republican, said Monday.

The Senate State and Local Government Committee planned hearings on the resolution today and Wednesday, and it is expected to be ready for a vote by the full Senate on Thursday.

That would send it to the House, but the debate will begin in the House-Senate committee charged with resolving budget differences between the two chambers. That committee begins its work on Wednesday.

Both Taft and Speaker Larry Householder oppose the resolution as currently proposed, but for different reasons.

Under the resolution, voters would be asked to change the Ohio Constitution to install video lottery terminals -- electronic slot machines -- at Ohio's seven racetracks. Estimates of what the slots would raise for the state vary from $400 million to $900 million a year.

Taft opposes the idea because he is against casino gambling and the slots would not provide a stable revenue source, spokesman Orest Holubec said.

Householder, a Glenford Republican, wants the issue tied to a temporary, 1-cent increase in the 5 cents-per-dollar state sales tax. Under the House plan, voters would be asked to approve the slots and end the tax increase July 1, 2004. If voters rejected the slots, the tax increase would expire July 1, 2005.

The Senate took the idea out of the budget and made it a stand-alone resolution -- not tied to the sales tax increase -- which would last the full two years under that plan.

Householder will make the difference a part of the negotiations of the joint committee, spokesman Dwight Crum said Monday. The speaker set up the original plan to help bail the state out of a deficit created by a sour economy, Crum said.

"We're concerned the Senate plan is gambling for the sake of gambling. Our plan was to solve a problem," Crum said.

Since 1990, voters twice have rejected, by wide margins, full-service casinos on Ohio's rivers or on Lake Erie.

Sen. Eric Fingerhut, a Cleveland Democrat who is co-sponsoring the resolution, said the issue might do better this time because the proceeds are tied to education. He is helping to draft an accompanying bill that would spell out where the state's share of profits would go.

Fingerhut proposed, and majority Republicans accepted in principle, that a certain percentage of profits from the slots go toward scholarships for Ohio's brightest high school seniors to attend Ohio colleges.

"I don't believe gambling money should be used for the day-to-day function of government," Fingerhut said. "I do believe it can be used for additional programs we would not be able to have otherwise."

To get the issue on the Nov. 3 ballot, the Legislature must pass the resolution and forward it to Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell by Aug. 6. Under Ohio law, governors are not required to add their approval to statewide initiatives the Legislature proposes.