By JULIE CARR SMYTH and STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
PLAIN DEALER BUREAU

COLUMBUS - An unusually feisty Gov. Bob Taft pressed lawmakers yesterday to approve his plans for funding schools and joining a multistate lottery, though both ideas face resistance inside and outside the General Assembly.

Taft’s proposal to increase spending on education relies, in part, on Ohio joining Powerball or another multistate game.

The Senate’s top leader endorsed the idea, but a coalition of churches plans to rally against it at the Statehouse today.

The governor outlined his spending plans for schools and other state services in a two-year, $44.9 billion budget, which he called "the tightest budget in a decade." The budget must be finalized by July 1.

The plan dedicates more than half of all new state spending over the next two years to education. In total, Taft would allocate $17.5 billion, or 39 percent of all state spending, to education at all levels, and $14.6 billion, or 32.5 percent, for skyrocketing Medicaid health-care program costs.

To keep his pledge for no new taxes in the face of a slowing economy, the governor proposed freezing state money for local governments; increasing fees for some government services such as registering your car or getting a professional license; and eliminating state money for several programs, including the Civilian Conservation Corps and the online state library system.

As Taft outlined the bleak budget to a room full of lobbyists and state workers, Scott Pullins, who heads an anti-tax group, quipped, "I’m the only guy in the room happy."

For primary and secondary education, Taft continued to lobby for support of his plan to increase student accountability and state money to schools. All told, he proposes $5.8 billion in primary and secondary funding the first year, up 5.2 percent, and $6.2 billion the second year, up 6.1 percent.

For the first time, Taft publicly criticized a rival $1.3 billion school-funding plan being promoted by Senate Republicans.

"It is important to point out that, unlike the joint committee’s proposal, my plan is part of a balanced budget, based on careful estimates of available revenues during the next two years," Taft said. "Nothing short of this should be accepted."

His education plan included a 15 percent increase for Ohio- Reads, Taft’s volunteer reading tutor program. The increase would bring funding for the program to $34.5 million each year.

Despite a constitutional challenge, Taft’s budget also would expand the Cleveland-based school voucher program, which provides state money for students to attend private and religious schools in kindergarten through seventh grade. His budget would allow students to move to the next grade level, fulfilling the state’s commitment to implement a program for kindergarten through eighth grade.

The modest increases Taft proposed for higher education prompted an unusual public rebuke from Roderick G.W. Chu, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents.

Taft proposed $5.5 billion for higher education over two years, an amount Chu called a "cut ... in real dollars."

In states where governors make higher education a priority, "a carefully targeted research, development and commercialization can transform a state into leadership in the new economy," Chu said.

Taft recommended keeping the state’s 6 percent cap on annual tuition increases at all state-funded four-year universities except Ohio State University.

Taft said Ohio State, where annual tuition is $4,356, ranks ninth among Ohio’s 13 public universities. OSU officials want to raise tuition 9 percent.

The governor’s budget also proposed freezing tuition at two-year community colleges and university branch campuses and increasing college grants for low-income families.

The Ohio Municipal League took issue yesterday with the plan to freeze local government funding.

"So we cut police officers and trash pickup and pothole repairs to fix our schools? That doesn’t seem like a fair strategy to me," said John Mahoney, the league’s deputy director.

Taft emphasized that cuts are being shared across the board and said that skyrocketing Medicaid costs and court-ordered changes in school funding left Ohio with few options.

Medicaid, expected to increase more than 7 percent in each of the two years, now consumes more than one-third of the state’s budget.

The administration has signaled plans to change the formula Ohio uses to calculate state payments to nursing homes, payments responsible for much of the Medicaid increase. Taft has hinted that the state would reduce the amount it pays for nursing home care. He offered no details, and the powerful nursing home lobby is already vowing to fight any reductions.

The Ohio House, which is first to consider the budget document, begins its work today.

Speaker Larry Householder was reserving judgment on the governor’s proposals yesterday, but Senate President Richard Finan, a suburban Cincinnati Republican, supports a multistate lottery and believes the concept could earn Senate support.

"I’ve said all along, once you’ve made the decision to go into the lottery business you need to be businesspeople about it," Finan said.

The lottery earmarks a portion of its profits to education. Competition from riverboat casinos and lotteries offering mega-jackpots has depressed lottery sales in Ohio.

"I don’t think it’s right to balance the budget on the backs of the poor," said Tom Smith of the Ohio Council of Churches, which opposes lottery games because members believe they disproportionately attract low-income players.

Despite such criticism, Republican Sen. Louis Blessing, a lottery advocate, said he wants to expand the lottery by allowing video lottery terminals at Ohio’s seven horse-racing tracks.

E-mail: jsmyth@plaind.com