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A SERVICE OF OHIO'S PUBLIC BROADCASTING STATIONS
A SERVICE OF OHIO'S PUBLIC BROADCASTING STATIONS
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After more than two weeks of wrangling over whether Ohio should take a chance on plugging a budget hole with revenue from slot machines, the state finally has a two year budget because of a deal between Gov. Ted Strickland and Republican lawmakers on the slots issue.
The slots plan hopes to generate $933 million dollars a year. While that's drawn the most attention, there were $2.5 billion worth of cuts. But some entities got less of a cut than they were expecting. And the governor's school curriculum and funding reform plan was approved. And some programs were totally eliminated.
Advocates had the full weekend to think about the impact of the slots proposal and the billions in spending cuts. And anti-gambling forces had also been strategizing, trying to decide what tactic to take to try to stop the deployment of the slot machines to the racetracks. Slots opponents have not filed any suits yet - they say they're discussing the appropriate venue, and may file more than one suit in more than one court.
Ohio also saw its second execution of the year this year, as 45 year old John Fautenberry was put to death Tuesday for the murder of Joseph Daron, a Hamilton County man who picked up Fautenberry hitchhiking near I275 and I71 in 1991.
Last fall Ohioans overwhelmingly approved a law that legislators had passed to crack down on the quick-loan industry. While many payday lenders closed after voters upheld the law, around 900 of the 16-hundred stores that had been operating in Ohio are still open for business. Critics now say they're circumventing the law by charging fees for credit checks and for cashing money orders that are almost as high as the interest charges that sparked legislators to pass the law. Here to talk about the issue are Ted Saunders, the CEO of CheckSmart, a national chain of payday lending stores, and Bill Faith of the Coalition on Housing and Homelessness in Ohio, one of the leading fighters for the payday lending law approved by voters last fall.
The slots plan hopes to generate $933 million dollars a year. While that's drawn the most attention, there were $2.5 billion worth of cuts. But some entities got less of a cut than they were expecting. And the governor's school curriculum and funding reform plan was approved. And some programs were totally eliminated.
Advocates had the full weekend to think about the impact of the slots proposal and the billions in spending cuts. And anti-gambling forces had also been strategizing, trying to decide what tactic to take to try to stop the deployment of the slot machines to the racetracks. Slots opponents have not filed any suits yet - they say they're discussing the appropriate venue, and may file more than one suit in more than one court.
Ohio also saw its second execution of the year this year, as 45 year old John Fautenberry was put to death Tuesday for the murder of Joseph Daron, a Hamilton County man who picked up Fautenberry hitchhiking near I275 and I71 in 1991.
Last fall Ohioans overwhelmingly approved a law that legislators had passed to crack down on the quick-loan industry. While many payday lenders closed after voters upheld the law, around 900 of the 16-hundred stores that had been operating in Ohio are still open for business. Critics now say they're circumventing the law by charging fees for credit checks and for cashing money orders that are almost as high as the interest charges that sparked legislators to pass the law. Here to talk about the issue are Ted Saunders, the CEO of CheckSmart, a national chain of payday lending stores, and Bill Faith of the Coalition on Housing and Homelessness in Ohio, one of the leading fighters for the payday lending law approved by voters last fall.
July 17, 2009