Ohio Budget Panel Appears Stalled

Members of Ohio’s Budget Planning and Management Commission are in disagreement over how to proceed after two meetings. The next meeting scheduled for Tuesday, July 20 is supposed to focus on Medicaid. Commission co-chair Rep. Vernon Sykes (D-Akron) wants to bring in the non-partisan Legislative Service Commission, or another outside group to talk about Medicaid, stressing that the commission needs to move on from examining the current budget and start to develop a menu of potential solutions to the up to $8 billion shortfall in the 2012-13 budget. Co-chair Senator Shannon Jones, (R-Springboro) would like the state Medicaid director to give the commission an overview of the program and discuss how it is managing and preparing for the impending budget shortfall. The dispute highlights the difficulty in trying to probe difficult budget solutions during a contentious statewide election season, in which the governor is running for re-election and control of the House appears to be up for grabs. It took a year for the commission to schedule its first meeting.