Speaker 1: By Billy Cunningham the Great America. Once again, there's lots
Speaker 1: of doings in Columbus. Many times we in Cincinnati think
Speaker 1: Columbus is not part of our state, and many times
Speaker 1: people in Comings didn't think they're not part of Kentucky.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, everything happening in Columbus is extremely germane to
Speaker 1: what's happening in Cincinnati. Going on. You and I now
Speaker 1: is the Speaker of the House, the Honorable Matt Huffman,
Speaker 1: who has more controlled than Columbus and maybe even the governor,
Speaker 1: maybe more than Justice. Show leaders and Speaker Matt Huffman,
Speaker 1: welcome again to the Bill Cunningham Show. And first of all,
Speaker 1: can we deal with the funding of the stadium issue?
Speaker 1: The lawmakers, you're only in charge of the House. The
Speaker 1: Senate has had different ideas about using unclaimed funds or bonds.
Speaker 1: As we sit here this Monday afternoon, what's the status
Speaker 1: of funding the Bengals and the Browns, etc.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the Senate came up with a different way
Speaker 2: of doing that than the Governor. Of course, wanted to
Speaker 2: raise the tax on a few things. In order to
Speaker 2: get there, we wanted to use your traditional way, which
Speaker 2: was bonds which we be in the House, which we
Speaker 2: could prove would be paid back plus over a billion
Speaker 2: dollars to the state, the state essentially acting as the
Speaker 2: bank and using our triple A credit rating higher than
Speaker 2: the United States government. By the way, the Senates there
Speaker 2: is about four billion dollars sitting in the unclaimed funds
Speaker 2: that's been accumulating since about nineteen oh nine. There have
Speaker 2: been attempts or questions about doing something similar to this
Speaker 2: for other things, but essentially the Senate's idea is to
Speaker 2: take declare a statute of limitations of ten years, set
Speaker 2: that money aside, and make it available for not just
Speaker 2: sports stadiums, but other cultural construction. I think there are
Speaker 2: there's a few problems with that. I think that needs
Speaker 2: to be defined better. I do think that we need
Speaker 2: to say, look, if the state's going to put this
Speaker 2: money in, there needs to be a return on the dollar.
Speaker 2: That's again why I argue the Houses plan, where we
Speaker 2: know that the state is getting its money back plus
Speaker 2: a billion dollars, but we don't know that, and so
Speaker 2: there definitely needs to be some work on the language
Speaker 2: and the kinds of facilities that this can be used,
Speaker 2: because lots of folks say we love the Cincinnati Bengals,
Speaker 2: but I love the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra a lot more
Speaker 2: or and there may be other building facilities. The other
Speaker 2: thing we need to keep in mind here is we
Speaker 2: do a capital budget every two years, and a lot
Speaker 2: of these things are funded, certainly not to the extent
Speaker 2: that we're talking about with the kinds of dollars. So
Speaker 2: we're going to work with the Senate and see what
Speaker 2: we can get done.
Speaker 1: Of course, you were a President of the Senate before
Speaker 1: your Speaker of the House, so you're saying that the
Speaker 1: idea of unclaimed funds is like a horse race, and
Speaker 1: they're in the first position at this point, and not
Speaker 1: raising taxes otherwise, even though that's monies of the American people.
Speaker 1: I think probably most of us unwittingly have money in
Speaker 1: that fund without knowing about it. But nonetheless, is the
Speaker 1: unclaimed funds kind of in the lead at this point.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I try to tell my House members,
Speaker 2: because the Senate puts their version of the budget out,
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean now that's where we're at, and it's
Speaker 2: the document we're working from. And being in both of
Speaker 2: those positions, you're in advantage when you're in the Senate
Speaker 2: because you got four months to work on the governor's
Speaker 2: budget instead of only two months, which is much what
Speaker 2: the House has. I think that, you know, the other
Speaker 2: part is that folks have had a couple of months
Speaker 2: to hack around on the idea of the bond and
Speaker 2: all of that. And you know, even though we issue
Speaker 2: we just did in our transportation budget six hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars worth of bonds for the Brent Spence Bridge, and
Speaker 2: we're doing this three or four billion dollars every two years.
Speaker 2: Bond's kind of got a bad name in the last
Speaker 2: couple of months. It is easy to argue I think that, well,
Speaker 2: these are unclaimed funds. We're not raising taxes, we're not
Speaker 2: loaning money hoping to get paid back. But it's still
Speaker 2: money that belongs to the state government. So I don't
Speaker 2: think we can be cavalier about it. And the other
Speaker 2: part is, well, who's going to get this money? Because
Speaker 2: if there aren't real parameters on it, this one point
Speaker 2: seven billion dollars is going to go out the door
Speaker 2: pretty quickly, and that's what I'm concerned about. I think
Speaker 2: that there needs to be a return on the dollar
Speaker 2: and I you know, one of the popular things that
Speaker 2: people like to say is well, I kind of say,
Speaker 2: it never gets your money back with sports datium. Well
Speaker 2: that's true in some cases, it's it's not true in others.
Speaker 2: And what we need to say is, well, how much
Speaker 2: money it is. How is that money going to come
Speaker 2: back to the you know, to the taxpayers in the
Speaker 2: state of Ohio. So I don't I don't think there's
Speaker 2: anybody who's in the front. I do think that with
Speaker 2: the exception of the other two branches, so to speak,
Speaker 2: between this speaker and the two chambers, I don't think
Speaker 2: the two chambers want to raise taxes. So it's those
Speaker 2: are the two things we're talking about.
Speaker 1: So that as the three percent or two percent tax
Speaker 1: on gambling on internet gambling, is that off the board
Speaker 1: at this point? That because that does raise in a
Speaker 1: sense fees. I don't know if it's taxes because you
Speaker 1: voluntarily agree to gamble or not. And so is the
Speaker 1: three Is that is that over with?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well people people say that too. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, we can raise the price or raise the
Speaker 2: excise on gas and you can decide whether to buy
Speaker 2: gas or not. Well, most people can't they got to
Speaker 2: they got to drive for work or or some other reasons.
Speaker 2: Same thing with tax on alcohol, cigarettes, things like that.
Speaker 2: You all always have to look at the tax policy.
Speaker 2: You raise the price on tobacco, people are going to
Speaker 2: go to Kentucky and Cincinnati and bron tax isn't It's
Speaker 2: the same thing with taxes on gambling. I will tell
Speaker 2: you that the sixty five member House Republican Caucus is
Speaker 2: not interested in raising taxes, and so that we just
Speaker 2: we're not going to go for the governor's proposal. He
Speaker 2: and I've had a few set down meetings about that,
Speaker 2: and we also think that it won't raise the tax
Speaker 2: because the people will always avoid paying attacks when they can.
Speaker 2: And uh, you know all those folks who for years
Speaker 2: went over to Indiana and bought their liquor there and
Speaker 2: brought it back to their lake house and Ohio, you know,
Speaker 2: at least in western Ohio, go to Grand Lake Saint
Speaker 2: Mary's and see how many Ohio there are in a
Speaker 2: guy's bourbon bottle there. Right.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of told by those in Columbus that
Speaker 1: you're the man. And if the man is saying no
Speaker 1: tax on the gambling, the brown the Browns bond issue
Speaker 1: is not good. I hear the man saying, okay, the
Speaker 1: unplayed funds with the statu of limitations is the least
Speaker 1: painful way. Am I right or wrong about that?
Speaker 2: I think that's a fair way to look at. Let me,
Speaker 2: by the way, just dissuade you. If there is somebody
Speaker 2: who quote unquote is the man, and it's always the
Speaker 2: governor of the state of Ohio. But the important part
Speaker 2: about our constitutional republic is that whoever the man is
Speaker 2: doesn't have complete control over what happens. Especially when it
Speaker 2: comes to raising taxes. You've got to have both houses
Speaker 2: sign off. And even though it's controlled by Republicans, not
Speaker 2: all those people think the same thing. And through my
Speaker 2: caucus we've got a different different sets of opinions about that.
Speaker 2: I think I got to say this, Ohio is one
Speaker 2: of the highest taxed states in the country. It is
Speaker 2: the highest tax state in the country that is controlled
Speaker 2: by a Republican government, by both chambers and government. It's
Speaker 2: not a question of whether we have enough money, it's
Speaker 2: how we're spending it, making sure that there's an appropriate
Speaker 2: regular flow that to pay for ongoing services. And I'll
Speaker 2: say one more thing, bill in case you want to
Speaker 2: talk about real estate tax and becoming potential initiative of
Speaker 2: Ohio has over six thousand local taxing districts, more than
Speaker 2: any other state in the Union, more than very liberal California,
Speaker 2: which by the way, is four times bigger than us
Speaker 2: population wise, So there isn't And we have ten billion
Speaker 2: dollars in our any Day Fund, which is good because
Speaker 2: it'll rain someday. But we also have three or four
Speaker 2: billion dollars that, as we say, is slashing around in
Speaker 2: checking accounts, which means it doesn't get spent by agencies.
Speaker 2: It's reappropriated two years later. And so it's all of
Speaker 2: that money that you know, when we go to talk
Speaker 2: about black taxes for income tax, those things are all there.
Speaker 2: I do think, you know, the way you put it,
Speaker 2: this unclaim funds thing is the least painful way because
Speaker 2: we're not raising taxes. But don't I think we have
Speaker 2: to have the appropriate parameters on there. So it's not
Speaker 2: just well, you know, these guys want this and those
Speaker 2: guys want that. I mean, I think we have to
Speaker 2: show an investment of turn those kinds of things before
Speaker 2: the dollars go out. So but this this local Uh,
Speaker 2: we have a lot of local governments and people like that.
Speaker 2: You know, people like to have you know, a start
Speaker 2: name in Cincinnati villages. And you know the folks in
Speaker 2: Chevy that love having their own government, right than folks
Speaker 2: and Anderson and all that kind stuff. They don't want
Speaker 2: to have one city in Hamilton County, right, No, But
Speaker 2: that all costs money.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this question. I saw an article,
Speaker 1: maybe it was in the Dispatch, that if you give
Speaker 1: us an opportunity to eliminate real estate taxes, we're going
Speaker 1: to do it. And then I read the flip side
Speaker 1: of that. Sounds a great idea, get rid of all
Speaker 1: taxes and just live out of the ether. But I'm
Speaker 1: told that if we vote on this thing, it's likely
Speaker 1: to pass unless the electorate is informed. Assuming all the
Speaker 1: real estate taxes in the state of Ohio go away,
Speaker 1: where does the money come from to run schools and
Speaker 1: police and fire locally? Where does up money come from?
Speaker 1: If we voted down, which is I think is likely,
Speaker 1: it's going to be no more real estate taxes. Even
Speaker 1: rich people like Rocky Boyman. Tell me, give me a
Speaker 1: chance to get rid of real estate taxes, I'll do it.
Speaker 1: But the problem is, Okay, how do you fund your schools,
Speaker 1: which is in crisis anyway. So, assuming the real estate
Speaker 1: thing is on the ballot in November or next May,
Speaker 1: and assuming it passes, how much of a financial crisis
Speaker 1: crisis would that be for schools, police, and fire.
Speaker 2: Well it's extraordinary, I guess that's the headline. But it's
Speaker 2: going to affect people and entities in different ways. Municipal
Speaker 2: corporation cities and villages not as much because they have
Speaker 2: a municipal income tax. They only get a little bit
Speaker 2: of the real estate tax. Schools are going to be
Speaker 2: tremendously affected. Will have to restructure how local government works
Speaker 2: in state of Ohio, and people will say, well, we
Speaker 2: can't possibly do that. You remember, in Florida, which is
Speaker 2: fifty percent bigger than us, they only have sixty six
Speaker 2: school districts one county. We have over six hundred. Now,
Speaker 2: having fewer school districts doesn't mean you have to have
Speaker 2: fewer high schools and all of that. But again it's
Speaker 2: a we're Ohioans and we don't like the people live
Speaker 2: over the ridge telling us what to do, and we
Speaker 2: even like to argue with whoever. Let's start down right right.
Speaker 2: But I don't see that elimination of real estate tax
Speaker 2: will cause the state government to say, Okay, well we're
Speaker 2: going to raise the income tax and we're going to
Speaker 2: raise the sales tax to make up for all of
Speaker 2: those taxes. It's you know, there will be a massive
Speaker 2: restruction and bill. That's why we're trying to do some
Speaker 2: of the things that we're doing right now. You know,
Speaker 2: in Hamilton County they are the example of what I
Speaker 2: think a local library district should be. There's one in
Speaker 2: the whole county. Well, in Ashtabula County they have nine
Speaker 2: local library districts. One of the districts up in Summit
Speaker 2: County they only have five hundred people who live there
Speaker 2: because they all want to run their own library. Well,
Speaker 2: all of that means you got an administrator and all
Speaker 2: the employees and all of those kinds of things. And
Speaker 2: if you want to have all that level of local control,
Speaker 2: you have to pay for it. So we're going to
Speaker 2: do some things the House is working on and to
Speaker 2: do something, as we say, big and bold regarding property tax.
Speaker 2: And we did that in our budget with the stuff
Speaker 2: that we did with the schools. So we need to
Speaker 2: do something to control this, to look at these folks
Speaker 2: who want to put this on it, to look at
Speaker 2: Rocky Boyman or whoever it is, and say, look, we
Speaker 2: changed a lot of this in the budget in June,
Speaker 2: so take a look at that before. And because if
Speaker 2: we don't, if we simply Thummer knows that the public
Speaker 2: can say we're public schools and you know we don't
Speaker 2: want to we don't want to do that, well it's
Speaker 2: heading for catastrophe, no question.
Speaker 1: Because you either pay sales tax, income tax, or real
Speaker 1: estate tax, and real estate tax is completely dominated in
Speaker 1: Hamilton County. You may be aware of this. We have
Speaker 1: like twelve special levies that we'll always vote yes on,
Speaker 1: the Zoo, Senior Citizens, Disabled, whoever it is, which is
Speaker 1: now growing in library. And if that all goes away,
Speaker 1: that means the funding for all those organizations go away.
Speaker 1: A lot of rich guys who have little or no
Speaker 1: income because they live on dividends, etc. Have big mansions.
Speaker 1: They are going to pay no tax and then they
Speaker 1: can go to buy their sales taxes through the internet
Speaker 1: and pay no sales tax. And the people have got
Speaker 1: to be informed. And you know, Speaker Huffman, we get
Speaker 1: the government. We deserve. And if we vote to eliminate
Speaker 1: real estate taxes for you, that will be a crisis.
Speaker 2: Am I right, it will be. But here's a little
Speaker 2: I guess anecdote. And you know, and I think your
Speaker 2: listeners know, I've been a school choice guy since they
Speaker 2: started in the legislature seventeen years ago. I've been punted
Speaker 2: around pretty good by the public school lobby. They sued me,
Speaker 2: They had a process, server sued me, served me personally
Speaker 2: in the Senate President's office. I think, in an attempt
Speaker 2: to intimidate me. You know that that's not good usual practice,
Speaker 2: even though you can do it as a lawyer. You
Speaker 2: know what they were trying to do there. And so
Speaker 2: we we put in the House's budget this thirty percent AREO.
Speaker 2: You can carry over thirty percent of your funds, but
Speaker 2: the rest is going to immediate property reduction in January
Speaker 2: of twenty six. And of course, at the time, you know,
Speaker 2: this was two months ago, that was you know, here's
Speaker 2: Howfman again. He hates children and I like, but of
Speaker 2: course I don't. I have several of my own eleven grandchildren.
Speaker 2: But anyway, within the past month or so, I've had
Speaker 2: my localcho some of my local superintendents show up at
Speaker 2: my law office here in Lima, and you know, they're
Speaker 2: suggesting that we have to have maybe restrictions according to inflation.
Speaker 2: They see some other things that maybe we should get
Speaker 2: rid of, emergency level me and so they see what
Speaker 2: I've been trying to talk about for the last five
Speaker 2: years is you can't just keep raising taxes and expect
Speaker 2: the public to take it. And so we have at
Speaker 2: least some reasonable people within the public school sector who
Speaker 2: are talking about that. It's and it's I think it's
Speaker 2: because of this thing is laying out there, and also
Speaker 2: because of the valuations. We have many school districts sitting
Speaker 2: on one hundred, one hundred and fifty or two hundred
Speaker 2: percent of their of their operating expenses, which in some
Speaker 2: cases that's not much money. If you're at a small
Speaker 2: rural school district in western Ohio, it's not a lot
Speaker 2: necessarily a lot of cash. But you know in City
Speaker 2: of Columbus, which spent about eight hundred million dollars plus
Speaker 2: in their school district, and they're not hesitant to spend
Speaker 2: money on new employees and things like that. I could
Speaker 2: give you a rundown on that, but they carried over
Speaker 2: four hundred million dollars, almost fifty percent of their of
Speaker 2: their operating and of course when we say why didn't
Speaker 2: you give some tax relief to the people who are
Speaker 2: paying that, Well, because it's our money. That's why one
Speaker 2: of the superintendents testified. They said, well, we use the
Speaker 2: carryover money and we made eight million dollars to investment income.
Speaker 2: And she said that in a meeting and a committee meeting,
Speaker 2: and of course one of the one of the state
Speaker 2: reps said, well, don't you think it would be people
Speaker 2: are paying those taxes would rather see that investment income
Speaker 2: in their checkbook at your checkbook? Oh yeah, I didn't
Speaker 2: think of it that way. Well, of course they would.
Speaker 2: And so let's fund the schools, make sure that they
Speaker 2: have the money that they need reasonably to run their operations,
Speaker 2: do all of those things, but they don't have to
Speaker 2: have money sitting in their checking account which could go
Speaker 2: for property tax. Really, if that's why the House did
Speaker 2: what they did. The Senate did a different version of it.
Speaker 2: They said fifty percent set of thirty percent. We're going
Speaker 2: to try to work that out, but there needs to
Speaker 2: be other local reform otherwise this thing is going to
Speaker 2: gain legs and it will be a crew come to
Speaker 2: Jesus meeting in January of twenty seven.
Speaker 1: Matt Hoffman, thank you, you're about two weeks away. I
Speaker 1: see the three percent tax on gambling that's gone. It
Speaker 1: appears that the bonding of for Cleveland Browns that appears
Speaker 1: not to be in a good shape. There's a big
Speaker 1: article in the inquir this morning about Hamlet County given
Speaker 1: the option by the Senate to levy cigarettes cigarette tax,
Speaker 1: and you're telling me that you don't care much for
Speaker 1: that one either. And it appears like the unclaimed funds
Speaker 1: may be in the lead at this point, but you
Speaker 1: got ten more days of tough negotiations. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: Can you give me a thirty second answer on the
Speaker 1: corners offices? Can you give it? Is it possible to
Speaker 1: give me a thirty thirty second answer on the Hamlin
Speaker 1: County corner? Last me some Marco and others. Well, is
Speaker 1: that going to be kept? Or are you going to
Speaker 1: eliminate corners offices and let the county commissioners.
Speaker 2: Appoint Well, you know, as I'm this is part a
Speaker 2: little bit part of a general discussion. Is when we
Speaker 2: start talking about local government reform. The question is how
Speaker 2: many elected officials do we need? And I understand and
Speaker 2: you made a good argument. In fact, I met with
Speaker 2: your coroner. She's outstanding, a very very impressive person, and
Speaker 2: I would say that it's probably an issue that several
Speaker 2: notches down in terms of House priorities. If this is
Speaker 2: something that the Senate is going to insist on, we
Speaker 2: probably will. But I would pose to Bill Cunningham, your listeners,
Speaker 2: and everybody else where do we go to shrink local
Speaker 2: government and therefore the cost to the taxpayer. Who's willing
Speaker 2: to step up and say, well, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: know how many municipal corporations there in Hamilton County, but
Speaker 2: how many do we need? And I'm sure the answer
Speaker 2: from the least the city officials will be everyone.
Speaker 1: Every thirty nine of them. We need thirty nine of them,
Speaker 1: all of them, we need every one of them. Cut nothing,
Speaker 1: increase everything, and that's that's why we're where we are. Well,
Speaker 1: Speaker Huffam, we got to run, but thanks for coming on,
Speaker 1: and maybe when everything is finally concluded about two weeks,
Speaker 1: will do it again. When it's done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well thanks again, Bill, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Matt Huffman, thank you very much. Let's continue with more.
Speaker 1: Matt Hoffman the Speaker of the House, he was President
Speaker 1: of the Senate. Despite his Protestations and Columbus, he is
Speaker 1: the man. Bill Cunningham News Radio seven hundred WLW