· February 10, 2013

IO Week In Review – February 10, 2013 Edition

Feel out of the loop? Here is your chance to catch up on what we’re watching this week. School Funding The Kasich administration released the much anticipated district-by-district school funding amounts this week and our own Stephen Dyer’s reaction was less than enthusiastic.

However, reality has proven otherwise. Looking at Kasich’s own district-by-district runs released yesterday, poor districts actually fare worse than wealthy. According to administration figures, for every dollar going to a kid in the property richest school districts, just 25 cents goes to the property poorest districts.

Severance Tax  On Monday, the Governor’s recommended operating budget was released. Included in the many tax changes were changes made to how the state wants to levy the severance tax that oil and gas developers pay. We commented that the administration was once again failing to put up a fight against big oil interests and allowing them to walk away with millions in tax savings. Turnpike Plan Hearings started this week on plans to borrow against future Turnpike tolls but it seems that promises originally made by the administration failed to make it into the legislation. Promises made to spend 90% of the revenue in northern Ohio and protect workers from lay-offs were no where to be found. Earlier in the week Jenny Brodie weighed in and asked where exactly is the new Turnpike money going if it isn’t going to projects in northern Ohio? Budget Review Ron Sylvester put together a recap of Governor Kasich’s budget that was released on Monday and asked whether middle and low income Ohioans were being short changed by policy included in it. Tax Reform We highlighted a new Policy Matters Ohio report that showed that the tax proposals in the Governor’s budget will overwhelmingly favor wealthy Ohioans. The analysis showed that Ohioans in the top 1 percent of incomes would receive an annual tax cut of $10,369 while those in the bottom fifth would see a net tax increase of $63 School Levies Intern Joey Crushham reviewed and previewed the most recent batch of school levies that voters weighed in on during last weeks special election. His analysis showed that half of school levies failed last week. Don’t forget to ‘Like’ us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute analysis and commentary.