By Billy Cunningham. The Great America. Of course, Reds Baseball kicks off about five point forty tonight. The Reds are unbeatable and right now they're game and a half out of first. They have a winning record for the first time in about a year. That's good stuff. But the last few days we've been dealing with what's going to happen to the Bengal funding, the Browns funding, and also more. The governor was with us yesterday. Mike Dwine have on Adam Byrd, We've had on a Senator Blessing or Scott
Sloan dead. Now we're going to go to the top. The guy in charge of the House of Representatives and Columbus is Representative Matt Huffman. He's got deep connections to Cincinnati, went to UC law school. He is also was a good friend of Leonard Rush before Leonard passed away. I have deep connections to Lineman Senior. Spoke to the boys up there, boughtom some QBI Burgers, and right now we're
gonna get the answers. Some say he's the most powerful man in state government because when the governor does something he didn't like, he can overrule the Governor's veto and the Speaker of the House, Matt Huffman. Welcome again to the Bill Cunningham Show and Speaker. First of all, let's talk. Time is always limited. Some in Cincinnati were concerned that you were giving significant money to the Cleveland Browns and not to the Cincinnati Bengals. The Governor yesterday and also
Adam Burgh laid out the differences. Can you tell from the Speaker's office the differential between the Browns deal and the Bengals deal? Will one be funded and one not funded?
Well, the Browns actually came to me two years ago with a request for cash for the stadium. I said, no, I didn't think that was appropriate. I said, come back with a plan where the taxpayers will be held harmless. And the plan basically that they have laid out. This is a three point six billion dollar economic development plan.
But the plan is they have it laid out with new taxes subtracting what would have already been there, and the cost of the bond is actually over twenty five years, about a one point three billion dollar money maker for the now. Everybody needs to go and look at the information and be convinced to that themselfs. So that's a lot different than putting up money, which is as I
understand it. And I did meet with the Bengals and Commissioner Dridhouse a few months ago or weeks ago, and basically they're talking about a three hundred and fifty million dollars cash upfront money, which is similar to what the Browns were trying to do a couple of years ago. And I don't support that. I don't think the public
supports it. I do support, you know, it's something similar that if the Bengals and the City of Cincinnati and the county and you know, can can come together with a similar kind of plan, we ought to consider doing that where the taxpayers are held harmless or in the case of the Browns, they can actually make money.
So, mister speaker, you're saying, as we said here about two twelve pm on Wednesday afternoon, April the sixteenth, you don't have in your hands a written deal between the Bengals and the county where the state would fill in a piece, unlike the Browns deal that Jimmy Haslim and his family. I understand it's putting up fifty million bucks
off of the side. Anyway, just as a security deposit fifty million, and right now there's no revenue coming out of that one to two hundred acres in southern Calliahoo County. And but when this deal is done, the taxpayer will make one point three billion according to the plan, and that the plan. There's no plan for you to think about at this point. Am I correct in saying that from Cincinnati?
Right? I mean I met with them. I think it's all people, smart, people of goodwill, and I think they're trying to come up with something. I think, you know, to the again the extent that the state can help participate in that. I mean, it's a different kind of plan. This is this is of the three point six billion, two point four billion of it is private money. The state money is six hundred million through the sale of bonds and paid back over twenty five years. So it's
a completely different thing. So, you know, I think if the folks in southwestern Ohio can get invented, but it doesn't just happen in a meeting. Everybody has to sort of say here's what we're willing to do and piece it all over. And I think if they're willing to do that, I'm certainly willing to sit down and talk with them. I'm sure Governor of the Wine is too.
The governor said yesterday that on air that well, indition to those two, we have the Guardians, we have the Reds, we have minor league baseball, we have some horse racing track, we have Ohio State University. He made it look as if, well, if we raised taxes, will be able to do it. He said yesterday that he supported raising He called them fees, someone might call them taxes on gaming, on marijuana, and on cigarettes. Do you support an increase in fee slash taxes on any of those three items?
I do not. We took those out of the Governor's proposed budget. Increase, especially on the sports gambling, would pretty much end the sports gambling and income to the state as far as I'm concerned. We lost actually a lot of folks participating that when we went from ten percent to twenty percent, some of the smaller book level B book making places did not happen. If we go to forty percent, the public finds its way around that and our revenue would start to drop. And don't forget El
Door Speedway in Dark County. It's also a larger sports facility too.
As far as marijuana, I was told by those in the business that the governor's plan to increase from ten percent to twenty percent would drive the marijuana consumer, of which I'm not one, into the dark market. And this year there's going to be about a billion dollars in total revenues in marijuana that's out of the pockets of
drug dealers, which I like greatly. I don't think marijuana is a real healthy pursuit for someone, but nonetheless, I'd rather have the state and legitimate thousands of employees work than kill the business. Is there a sense that, you know, pigs get fed and hogs get slaughtered, and that if the governor has his way and he goes from ten to twenty percent, marijuana suddenly gets slaughtered, the drug dealers make more money and the state doesn't get its cut.
Yeah, I think. You know, Ronald Reagan said, the more you tax something, the less you get of it, and the higher the rate. And that's what's happened. That's why we took the House, took all of the taxes, all three that you mentioned, out of the budget, and people will avoid paying the tax where they can. And you know, there are probably some people in Cincinnati, Ohio who go
to Kentucky to buy their at tobacco, right yep. But other people will find other places to buy to buy marijuana or tobacco, and at some point the tax is so high that these other whether it's a black market, but it's even things more benign. I mean with sports gambling, you can have buddies all over the country and they throw their five thousand bucks in for the year and they all bet based on what whoever's got the best line in their state. So it's not something where you
can control it. It's not a closed market.
So if these stadiums moneies, the governor's plan is to have the stadium moneys come out of the out of the gaming, and out of marijuana and cigarettes. To the man in charge of the legislature, that is not going to happen, not.
Through raising taxes. Now, if somebody looked at us and said, let's dedicate a portion of the current gambling revenue, which is up to close to a billion dollars a year, we have some other suggestions about additional gambling in our budget that the Senate is going to review when it goes over. Now, I don't think it can be just about sports stadiums. There's other cultural facilities. You've got, you know, a symphony orchestra hall in Columbus River Bend. There may
be a whole additional other things. But I do think that there has to be significant local buy in. I think if you can design a plan like the Browns have, where the state taxpayers are not only held harmless, but we make money off of the deal. And you know, the reason we're making money is we're acting like the bank. We have great credit rating and we're making money from them using our credit rating. It's cheaper for them to
going into the private market. This is an Ohio business, right, Yeah, And so we're making money because we're the prepoel who are issuing the bonds. And that's and of course the taxes that are created as a result of the.
Effort, mister Speaker is time of the essence. The Bengals won a deal by June thirtieth. Of course, the state budget it's a two year by a him, it's two years June thirtieth, we're ten weeks out. I have a sense the Bengals and the county aren't close. I have a sense that they're still going back and forth because each party doesn't trust the other. The Brown family doesn't trust the county and the county doesn't trust the Browns, so they got a third party involved. They're going back
and forth, back and forth. Is time of the essence must have been a deal by June thirtieth. Do you have the state participate?
Well, yeah, I mean to have the state participate as part of this budget. But I guess if there's a plan, you know, as we'd like to say, I'd love to see the plan, right, but I don't know what that is. I'm it's you know, it took the Browns two or three years to get to the point where they are now, with people like me saying no, I'm not going to
give you six hundred million dollars for a stadium. So if the Bengals are that far along, and and by the way, other folks have shown up and said I want you gave money to Browns, and I told them the same thing. You know, if you can develop a plan where the taxpayers are held harmless or make money, you know I would participate or and I'd support that.
The issue of the county corner. I speak to doctor Somarco, I think some fabulous person. And there was a part of your bill that eliminated the county corner's offices in the various counties. Can you address yourself to that? And that just begins the process of not electing the sheriff, not electing the honor the treasure coming out the old patronage system. Where do you stand on eliminading county corners.
So in December there was a lot of press to push the increase in local elected pay, and those things, unfortunately sometimes happened in the dead of night, you know, the last session of the year. And when that came to us, a lot of folks are saying, how about some local government reform. There's actually the statute says some of our local officials only have to be in office one out of ninety days, believe it or not. And so some would say, how about we have some local reform.
And one of those was the concern that in many counties there is no doctor who's running for corner, or sometimes a doctor runs for corner. They're paid as a coroner, but all the work is done by someone a pathologist who's hired from another county. So there were a number of things that we actually wanted in terms of local government reforms. Some got in, some didn't. And you know, I certainly think the other jobs that you mentioned does
all need to be elected as well as judges. You might ask, really, why does a coroner need to be elected in the first place. Why isn't this someone that the county commissioners would hire. So I don't think it's that big of a deal from the standpoint of the House. It was just one of the few surviving local government reforms that were part of our tax pay or our local pay official package.
I have a text here from a noted county official who says the following to me. County officials have the ability now to appoint corners and counties that don't have a corner, and that's according to the High Revice Code. So if you're in a large county like Ohio maybe you know, or like Hamilton County Franklin, KYO, would you split off from those counties that don't have a corner and let the current law stand, which is you're can
elect the corner. But then each county still has the ability to appoint corners from other counties that that can serve as more or less the acting corner. You know what I'm saying. Are you saying, how do you stand on that issue?
Well, I'm aware of what the law is. The point is that someone gets appointed because they don't run. In one county, we actually have a chiropractor who is the county corner because they ran, they're qualified to do that. I think under the new rule they wouldn't be qualified. But the point is whether they're elected or appointed. Because no one will run, you now have a county corner who's getting paid to be the county corner, who may or may not be actually doing the job of the
county corner. Right, So do we want someone where nobody runs? Somebody gets appointed, they get paid. But we got to go to Cincinnati every time we got to do an autopsy because that's where the pathologist is. So there should be at some point we look at some of these local elected offices and say, really, you only have to show up one out of ninety days. It didn't be
one out of thirty or something like that. So really all this is, and you know, obviously in many counties there's a long time elected, serving coroner who does a wonderful job who probably would get hired by the commissioners under the current law. So could you have That's really what it is.
Are you saying this is going to stay in and that what's going to happen? Like doctor LASMI so Marco as a world class facility built and she runs unopposed, and she wants to keep the elective system. And as a voter every now and then, I like to say, you know what, I like to vote for this. There might be an issue in the future where you throw the bombs out or keep the bums in. What do you say to those counties that are happy with the president system and don't want.
To change, Well, I think I think they should call Senator Bill Blessing is a really smart guy and asking what he thinks about it. But the point is that, you know, under that thinking, we could have a lot of more elected officials at the county level, not just the ones that we have now. And but yeah, I mean I think in some counties with you know, obviously
they have somebody's elected that is important to them. It's one of these things that's probably and what I think is an extraordinarily ambitious budget bill that we just passed not a big issue that I'm willing to die on the hill for. And we'll see what the Senate says.
Is it going to change? Because the way it works, you and the House put your deal. The governor sends you a thick proposal, you go through it, you pass something. Then you give it to the Senate, they go through it, they pass something. Then you have a committee together, get together, and you talk to the governor. All that's going to be done next seven or eight weeks. And one thing about electing the corners, that the corners beholding the people,
not the appointing commissioner. And when I have on doctor some markers, you'll say for now, and then I get pressure to do certain things. And I can tell individuals I'm not appointed by some person. I work for the state of Ohio. And that's the way it ought to be, and that sometimes sometimes that the system works. Is this a problem looking for a solution or is this a solution looking for a problem.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a fair argument. I don't know that. And there are some odd things in the code about the coroner's the only person in the county who can arrest the sheriff. It kind of reminds me of old Star Trek episode and I'm a doctor, one guy who can remove the Captain Kirk, right, But I just I think what it is is again, in many counties they don't have a doctor who's even doing this. So why are we appointing someone who's not doing any
work because we can. And of course that doesn't mean because they're pointed that's doing a lot of work, right, But it is an issue.
And lastly, I'll encourage you to talk to doctor Somarco and others before you change the law to see how it applies on the ground. And lastly, you have about a minute remaining. There's an our article in the inquire about one hundred million dollar cut on public education. CPS is concerned, Love when schools are concerned, Derek Park, schools are concerned. You're the guy in charge of the budget. Is there going to be a cut to public education?
The number one, Every school district in the state of Ohio received an increase in funding from the state. That's first. Secondly, there are many school districts that have in excess of twenty five percent operating fund that they are carrying over from year to year. Some of them are forty, some of them are fifty, some of them are one hundred percent. And what we actually said is, look, you can carry
over thirty percent of your operating funds. The rest will be applied to a tax, real estate property tax cut to the folks who are in your district, those real estate tax payers. And to me, it's the number one issue that people have talked to us about is skyrocketing real estate taxes. Correct, now, those are And the simple issue is that money, if it's not being used, should be in the hands of the taxpayers, and they're checking account,
not the school districts checking account. Now, wats of folks say, well, see we're going to build a build, Okay, well, then put all that out of your operating fund, which, by the way, the employees won't like because they like to collectively bargain for that money. But put it all the way,
make a plan so the public understands. But you know, the City of Columbus school district, for example, they're carrying over four hundred million dollars forty six percent of their I mean, And we had somebody come down testify from one of the districts and she said, look, you know we've taken this extra money and we've invested it, and
we've made eight million dollars for the school district. Well don't you think the people who gave you the money they'd like to make the eight million dollars instead of you making the eight million dollars. So that's all it is. Now, if collectively people can add up numbers and say one hundred million dollars, look at every school district. My guess is the City of Cincinnati school district isn't carrying over
more than thirty percent. Vivit. They are, and look and see, and most of the high tax districts like this are the ones that are growing. We're property values. So the school districts in Butler County evaluations have shot up, lots more money coming in. The state has made record increases under the Cuff Patterson Plan the last two budgets and five hundred and fifty million dollars to school districts this year. So it's not going down. These these operating carryovers are
going to continue to go up. All we're saying is let's let the people who are paying the taxes of some of their money back, at least temporarily, while we try to figure out the property tax system.
Are you willing to meet with doctor Samarco to get her perspective on why this idea might not be a good one about getting rid of the.
Corner, I'd be I'd be delighted.
I'll send you, I'll send you her number to your staff, and let's see if you can work it out. You'll be impressed with her. Well, Speaker, Matt Hoffman, thank you, and made Leonard Russia rest in peace. I bought many a QBI Burger when they an elder in the state football game. And I'm glad you're more or less of Cincinnatian. But keep us in mind whatever you do. Just think it's Cincinnati the most important city in the state of Ohio, wouldn't you agree?
Absolutely?
Speaker, thank you very much. We'll do it again. God bless you.
Thank you. We'll keep you aye. Bye.
All right, let's continue with more. Bill Cunningham News Radio seven hundred WLW