Chrissie Thompson

cthompson@enquirer.com

COLUMBUS – Taxpayers are likely to contribute around $500,000 to Cincinnati's effort to host Major League Baseball's 2015 All-Star game, an official with Gov. John Kasich's administration said Monday.

Uses for the money could include paying extra police officers and fire fighters during the All-Star festivities, beefing up transportation options for visitors or beautifying sidewalks, city spokesman Rocky Merz said.

The Ohio House had designated $500,000 in TourismOhio money for the All-Star game, but the Senate had removed that money last month. A panel of lawmakers from both chambers again nixed the plan Monday, with majority Republicans citing an aversion to increasing state spending.

Kasich's administration is now seeking to find about $500,000 from the Development Services Agency's budget to share with the region, said Tim Keen, director of the Office of Budget Management.

"The administration recognizes the importance of that event," Keen said of the game.

State lawmakers were meeting Monday to reconcile competing versions of a budget-like bill. The final version passed 4-2, with majority Republicans voting "yes" and minority Democrats voting "no."

The changes to the spending bill included a tweak to a tax cut for business owners. Under Kasich's signature 2014 tax cut, those business owners must pay taxes on only half of their first $250,000 in income. In 2014 only, under the final version of the budget update bill, that deduction would extend to up to 75 percent of their first $250,000 in income. The state's tax revenue is projected to pay for that tax cut, Keen said.

The budget update also would accelerate a tax cut for all income-tax payers. The average Hamilton County taxpayer earns about $50,000 and is currently on pace to pay about $1,250 in state income taxes this year. That is scheduled to decrease to $1,235 next year, thanks to a tax cut set in motion in last year's two-year state budget. The bill would put that tax cut in effect this year instead, with an extra $10 savings due to new personal exemptions.

The business tax cut saves most business owners a few hundred dollars -- not enough to hire new workers, said Rep. Denise Driehaus, D-Clifton Heights.

"In the meantime, we've raised sales taxes. We've cut money to the Local Government Fund," she said of past budget changes. "It's a matter of whether we think there should be tax cuts and tax breaks or investments in the state."

Paying for some of those state programs wouldn't help the state's economy as much as a tax cut, said Sen. Bill Coley, R-Liberty Township. "Our unemployment rate is below the national average, and that's benefiting everybody," Coley said.

The four Republicans on the panel rejected amendments from the Democrats that were intended to make Ohio's 2013 expansion of Medicaid permanent instead of temporary, cover a $20 million shortfall in addiction-services funding, provide more correctional officers for Ohio's prisoners and send $300,000 to the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati.

The Legislature is starting what is likely to be its last week of session until after the Nov. 4 election. The spending bill is likely to pass the House and Senate by midweek and then head to Kasich's desk. Since the bill involves appropriations of taxpayer money, Kasich has line-item veto authority.

As passed by the panel Monday, the spending plan also would:

— Allocate $47.5 million to mental-health and drug-addiction services ranging from detox programs to drug courts to drug-use prevention to housing for people with mental illnesses. Ohio's acceptance of federal money to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act allows the state to use money, which was given to the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services under 2013's two-year state budget, to pay for areas such as housing, which is not covered under Medicaid.

— Require the state to evaluate Job and Family Services caseworkers on how well they help welfare and food stamp recipients get a job that pays well enough that they will no longer need state money. Democrats said the provision's goals were admirable, but that the GOP was implementing the provision without enough discussion from the public.

— Remove a legal technicality that some had feared could prevent police officers from freely using the drug naloxone to save someone who was overdosing on heroin or opiates.

— Allow counties, townships and school districts to challenge property tax values deemed too low. The Senate's version of the bill had prohibited such complaints. Some feared school districts would need to seek higher property tax rates if their tax revenue fell as a result of not being able to challenge low property valuations.

— Increase the Earned Income Tax Credit the state created last year for low-income Ohioans, from 5 percent of the federal credit to 10 percent. About 475,000 Ohioans qualify for the credit.