Gov. Mike DeWine is standing behind the numbers used to create his budget, as Republican House Speaker Larry Householder suggests he’s leaning toward more conservative numbers from the legislature’s economic analysts.
Researchers for the Legislative Budget Office (LBO) say they think the state will have half a billion dollars less in tax revenue for the two-year budget that starts in July than DeWine’s budget office has projected. The LBO is suggesting lawmakers cut the spending increase in DeWine’s budget by 25 percent.
But DeWine is confident in his spending plan.
“I said when we introduced this budget that this is really an investment in the future of the state of Ohio. So I would certainly not like to see any of these programs that are really about the future and really about making Ohio move forward, we don’t want to see those cut," DeWine said.
The LBO says when projections for revenue at the end of the current fiscal year are added in, their numbers are more than $700 million less than those from the DeWine administration.
