Gov. Strickland Speaks on Gloomy Budget Outlook
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Gov. Ted Strickland said Friday that Ohio faces challenges in the next two fiscal years as his administration prepares its next biennium budget.
Citing an overly optimistic revenue forecast from his predecessor, Bob Taft, Strickland indicated that the Taft administration's projection that revenue growth would support a 3 percent increase in state spending in fiscal 2008, cannot be sustained. Instead, Strickland indicated that the numbers actually showed that the state would be bringing in $1 billion to $1.5 billion less to spend than Taft's estimates. With inflation, the state could see a 0.6 percent decline in its purchasing power in the next budget year.
"Given our budget and circumstances," he said, "there is simply no room for waste in state government, inefficiency and (only) good ideas if better ideas exist."
Because of the gloomy forecast, Strickland called upon business leaders to help advise him on the "disconnect" between state work-force development programs and Ohio's economic development efforts. He pledged to hold state agencies more accountable in their spending and to make sure their economic development efforts don't work at cross purposes. Link
Citing an overly optimistic revenue forecast from his predecessor, Bob Taft, Strickland indicated that the Taft administration's projection that revenue growth would support a 3 percent increase in state spending in fiscal 2008, cannot be sustained. Instead, Strickland indicated that the numbers actually showed that the state would be bringing in $1 billion to $1.5 billion less to spend than Taft's estimates. With inflation, the state could see a 0.6 percent decline in its purchasing power in the next budget year.
"Given our budget and circumstances," he said, "there is simply no room for waste in state government, inefficiency and (only) good ideas if better ideas exist."
Because of the gloomy forecast, Strickland called upon business leaders to help advise him on the "disconnect" between state work-force development programs and Ohio's economic development efforts. He pledged to hold state agencies more accountable in their spending and to make sure their economic development efforts don't work at cross purposes. Link
