Program Directory

 
The State of Ohio - The State Fiscal Crisis
 
 
Once again, Ohio is locked in a budget crisis - this time involving minority lawmakers who have enough votes to block a proposal because the majority can't agree on the plan. A group of Republican senators developed a 26 point budget balancing plan, taking back two-thirds of the 4.2% income tax cut that the House passed. With all these items, this might be called a compromise that featured something for everyone. But in the Senate, where Republicans dominate Democrats two to one, there wasn't enough for 17 Senators to support it.

The budget debate has shown there are many ideas among lawmakers about how to deal with this fiscal crisis. State Senators Kevin Coughlin, a Republican from Cuyahoga Falls, and Dale Miller, a Democrat from Cleveland, talk about what they wanted to see in a budget fix bill.

A man who killed a woman and scattered her body parts has been denied clemency for a second time. The Ohio Parole Board ruled unanimously against mercy for 50-year-old Kenneth Biros, who killed 22-year-old Tami Engstrom near Warren in 1991 after he offered to drive her home from a bar. If Biros is put to death as scheduled, he could be the first inmate in the nation to die through a dose of a single drug, as the state changes its lethal injection procedure. The director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, Terry Collins, talks about the new method of execution that goes into effect November 30.
November 20, 2009