Budget cuts are on the way for higher education in Ohio, including Bowling Green, unless the state government can find a way to fill a hole in the yearly budget.

As of now, approximately $2 million will be cut from the University’s budget according to University liaison Larry Weiss.

The root of the problem is the $720 million shortfall in the current budget, as predicted by Governor Bob Taft, who pointed to the budget problems in his State of the State Address on Jan. 22. “If last year’s budget gap felt like a gale force wind, this year’s budget crisis will feel like the ‘Perfect Storm’,” Taft said in the address.

The governor proposed an increase of several taxes, including cigarettes and alcohol. He suggested raising taxes on cigarettes from 55 cents to $1 and doubling taxes on alcohol.

But the Ohio House of Representatives passed their own version of a budget fix Wednesday and forwarded it to the Senate without the alcohol and cigarette tax increase.

Another section of that bill stated the state government is prohibited from cutting funding in primary and secondary schools. That is why higher education may be affected more by budget cuts, said Weiss, associate vice president of University Relations and Governmental Affairs.

Without the estimated $159 million the governor hoped to get from the increased cigarette and alcohol taxes and the education budget cut missing primary and secondary schools, higher education could likely be a target for more budget cuts, Weiss said.

“Higher education is in the middle,” Weiss said. “We’re held hostage between government and state legislature.”

Weiss said that the news got worse on yesterday when the bill went before the Ohio Senate Finance Committee and the committee may approve the same draft of the bill the House agreed on.

The Senate Finance Committee will complete the final draft of their bill today and will send it to the floor of the Ohio Senate, who tentatively will vote next Wednesday.

“The legislature has to realize the problem that we need something to fill this hole,” Weiss said. “There needs to be some revenue enhancements.”

One revenue idea that has been circulating through the House and Senate is a temporary sales tax increase.

The increase would start April 15 and continue until June 30 when the budget must be balanced. The sales tax base right now is 5 percent, it could change to 6 percent.

All items with a sales tax would be taxed 6 cents to each dollar by the state government.

In Wood County the sales tax is 6.5 percent, but if the sales tax increase were made affective the tax would be 7.5 percent. This tax increase has not been added to the bill yet by the House or the Senate, but the Finance Committee is considering it.

The $2 million-plus cut at Bowling Green would have to be taken from the current budget by the end of this academic school year Weiss said he is unsure how it will all work out considering the University is already eight months into this years budget.

“It is such a short period of time, we are well into the second semester,” Weiss said.

The Ohio Board of Regents stated in a document, which was circulated to universities and colleges, the consequences of budget cuts in higher education.

The document stated that to make these cuts on spending, higher education institutions will have to reduce personnel positions, eliminate low enrollment programs, increase class sizes and take other steps to reduce their spending.

The fate of higher education budget cuts are still unknown, but one thing is for sure, the state budget must be balanced by June 30, so money must be found somewhere.