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