Are funding troubles brewing in Ohio?

Chris Tessone / January 19, 2012

In case you missed it, Terry Ryan wrote a great post yesterday on the potential implications of Ohio's funding crisis for education in the state:

Ohio’s newspapers ran headlines today warning, “Money crunch pushes Downtown roadwork way back,” “Local highway projects face delays,” and “Last phase of I-75/I-475 project stalls.” The financial problems facing Ohio is scaling back big time infrastructure projects that have been in planning for years. According to the Columbus Dispatch the Ohio Department of Transportation “proposes pushing back 34 projects that had been planned to start by 2017 to dates as far off as 2036.

Jerry Wray, director of the Ohio Department of Transportation, captured the problem when he told the Cincinnati Enquirer:

"Unfortunately, this is Ohio’s new reality. For too long, previous administrations have added more and more to the list of projects knowing that there were more projects than funds available. Their poor planning has put us in the position of making the tough decisions and delivering the bad news to many communities throughout the state that there is simply not enough money to fund their projects."

In reading about the woes facing Ohio’s highway improvement efforts I couldn’t help but wonder if education in Ohio doesn’t face problems of similar scale.

It's worth a read.

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