Ohio Municipal League
175 South Third Street
Suite 510
Columbus, Ohio 43215

614-221-4349 Office
614-221-4390 Fax

email:
Legislative Inquiries
John Mahoney
General Inquiries
info@omunileague.org

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Six Per Cent Cut to LGF's Imminent!

It is now clear to us that the Ohio Senate, in its consideration of HB 405, will be pressed hard by many of its members to cut the Local Government Fund, the Local Government Revenue Assistance Fund and the Local Government and Library Fund by 6% or more. This will reduce state aid to municipalities, townships, counties and libraries by about $117 million over the next eighteen months. At 10%, that figure would rise to $195 million over the remainder of the state's biennium. Such figures were not included in either the Governor's (March 1) or the House's proposals to balance the state budget. For that, we are very appreciative to the House and the Governor. In fact, Governor Taft wrote to the League (March 1) in response to our concerns about the LGF freeze adopted earlier, "Please be assured that I would oppose any efforts by the legislature to impose further reductions in the revenues we share with local governments and libraries."

Because the LGF, the largest of the funds, is distributed on the basis of need, this kind of cut will hurt most those communities which need the assistance the most. Many of those same communities are also the communities which are hurting most from the slowing of the economy and the increasing costs of meeting security needs within the community. However, this cut in local government funds will hurt every community to some degree.

In order to fight against these cuts, we need two things from you: First, we need as many municipal officials as possible to call or write their local State Senator(s), The Senate President and members of the Senate Finance Committee to oppose additional reductions in municipal assistance. Our budgets are already on the decline, local government funds are already frozen and the Governor has proposed to cut local government funds by $10 million through his budget adjustment proposal. Additionally, in Ohio, it is the job of local government to provide the vast majority of emergency and security needs in people's everyday lives. And those costs are going up at the same time as municipal, county and township budgets are stagnating or going down.

The Senate will hold hearings in the Finance Committee on HB 405 on Wednesday and Thursday of this week and hope to vote on a Senate version of the bill by next week. We need your calls and letters now!

President of the Senate is Senator Richard Finan. Members of the Senate Finance Committee include: Senators James Carnes, Chair, Bill Harris, Vice-Chair, Jay Hottinger, Jeff Jacobson, Robert Spada, Ron Amstutz, Doug White, Eric Fingerhut, Bob Hagan, Mark Mallory, C.J. Prentiss. All can be reached at the

Ohio Senate
Statehouse
Columbus, OH 43215.

We would like to have copies of letters you send and/or comments about any phone conversations you have with your Senator.

Second, we need as much information as possible from you about the impact upon your community a 6%-10% cut in local government funds would impose, the increased security and emergency costs (what kind of expenditures and how much) your municipality has experienced since the September 11 tragedy and a picture of what kind of shape your budget is in now and what you expect your budget to look like in 2002. This is not a usual survey simply because the answers to the above questions are going to be very diverse. What we want is a brief portrait of the problems you currently face and how a 6%-10% cut in local government funds will compound the problems you have now. That is also just the kind of information you should convey to your Senators about these proposed cuts.