The fight over raising the state’s gas tax has been hard fought between the Ohio Legislature and Gov. Mike DeWine.
Despite that, DeWine says the fight over the transportation budget isn’t foretelling of a fight over the general budget, which has big money for Ohioans with addiction and mental health issues, low-income families and children.
DeWine says he and lawmakers were surprised by the extent of the state’s transportation woes.
“This was tough because I don’t think people realized how bad of a situation we were in," DeWine says. "It took a while. It took a while for everybody to understand that situation. Our biggest disagreement was not whether we fixed the problem. Our biggest disagreement was how far down the road were we going to fix it for."
However, there is already early disagreement. DeWine’s budget is $700 million more than lawmakers are being advised to spend. It also doesn't contain tax cuts, which Ohio lawmakers have included in budgets in recent years.
