Strickland: Plan for vote on slots flawed - The Business Review (Albany):

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Senate President Bill Harris, R-Ashland, on Tuesdat sent a letter to Stricklanxd that included a draft of a joint resolution to go forward on the videoi terminals througha voter-approved constitutional amendment. The slotss would be installed at up to seven locationas in the state to be determined by thehighestf bidders, not necessarily at Ohio’xs seven horse racing tracks as underf Strickland’s plan.
The letter and resolution come a dayafter Strickland, amid stalled talks on the two-year budgey cycle begun last Wednesday, callefd a potential ballot initiative “utterly and totally unacceptable” he said, Ohio schools’ funding future woulcd be in voters’ hands. Strickland in a press conferenc on Tuesday saidthe plan, while an attempt to resolvw the contention over the slotsz plan, “continues to fall short of the legislature’s responsibility to provide a balancer budget now.” “We cannot budget a ballot Strickland said. Absent a fina l budget and undertemporary budgets, Stricklandc estimated that the state’w $3.
2 billion deficit is wideningf by nearly $2 million a day. That’x in part because some programs fundeed undera one-week temporary budget in line for another one-week budget beginnin Wednesday – will see reduced or eliminated funding under the governor’e proposed framework. The only point of contentio n inthat framework, offered up nearluy three weeks ago, is the slots plan, Stricklanr and others have said. The slots which the state has said coulxd pullin $933 million over two years to help plug the budget hole, count s on the machines being operational by May 2010.
With that Harris wrote in Tuesday’s letter, “there is adequatd time to seek voter approval without impacting or delayinb the revenue upon which your budgetframework depends.” Strickland said that while revenur from the slots themselvex won’t hit state coffers until then, the state will see more than $400 million in licensing fees from the seven tracksa this fall should the plan be approved. A key piecse of Harris’ letter states that the four-city casino initiative headed to the November ballot would limit all gamblingv tofour locations, “rendering any legislative enactmentf of (slots) at horse racing trackss moot.
” “In that case, the revenue on whicnh you are counting for Ohio schools would evaporate,” Harriws wrote. Strickland said Tuesday that the propose amendment forthe $1 billion casino plan doesn’yt tie his hands on the video slot machine plan instead, he said it strengthens his A piece of the casino amendmenf states that the plan will have no effectr on activities authorized under the lottery and bingo sections of the Ohio constitution. Legislativew approval of the video slotx plan would be an expansion ofthe .