By Spencer Hunt
Enquirer Columbus Bureau

COLUMBUS - Ohio schools and universities would lose more than $1 billion in state funding over the next two years under a budget plan House Republicans advanced Friday.

Lawmakers looking to roll back the cost of Gov. Bob Taft's proposed $49.2 billion budget would cut $785 million from public schools and $347 million from higher education. Even as debate on the cuts began, lawmakers acknowleged their plan for balancing state finances is still far from complete.

Newly released budget documents, for example, showed a total $1.3 billion in spending cuts. Lawmakers who said they'd found $1.8 billion in cuts Thursday were unable to explain the difference.

"Some of what we're doing is still not in there," said Rep. Charles Calvert, R-Medina, chairman of the House Finance Committee.

While education officials gathered to fight the proposed cuts, legislative leaders continued talking behind closed doors about options that would fill a remaining $1.2 billion deficit in the budget over the next two years.

Lawmakers appear to have abandoned a plan to cut local government funding by as much as $1.4 billion. Alarmed local officials warned of police and fire department layoffs and of the shutdown of 176 public libraries.

The new idea is a temporary 1-cent sales tax increase linked to a vote on slot machines at Ohio racetracks. This plan also created some big unanswered questions.

That plan, according to Rep. Jim Trakas, R-Independence, would impose a two-year temporary 1-cent sales tax increase on top of the state's 5-cent rate. Ohioans would then vote in November to either keep the sales tax or replace it with video slot casinos at Ohio's seven horse tracks.

A 1-cent sales tax increase would bring in $1.2 billion in new revenues each fiscal year. Estimates for how much money video slots would generate vary wildly - anywhere from $400 million to $900 million a year.

House Republicans have proposed video slots at least twice over the past two years, only to see the idea crumble under the weight of Gov. Bob Taft's threatened veto.

Taft would veto video slots if lawmakers include them in the budget, spokesman Orest Holubec said Friday.

"The governor has shown a willingness on the penny sales tax if it's tied to some meaningful tax reform, but we haven't heard anything like that yet," Holubec said.

"It's hard to comment on every rumor that comes out (of the House,)" he added. "From the rumors we've heard, their plan doesn't get us there."

Holubec said the governor also opposes the proposed cuts to elementary, secondary and higher education.

Urban school officials fear they will lose millions under a plan that would change the way schools are funded based on their attendance. Lawmakers want to eliminate attendance estimates based on a three-year average and replace them with a one-year figure.

While it's not clear how much that change would save, budget documents show a $298 million reduction in base cost funding in the fiscal year that starts July 1.

"Gov. Taft's proposal includes a 7 percent increase for schools and he's going to continue to fight for that," Holubec said.

Education officials said the cuts would have dire consequences.

Greg Hand, spokesman for the University of Cincinnati, said more funding cuts would mean cutting classes and teachers.

"The state pays for opening up a classroom, getting it lighted and getting a professor in front of it to teach," Hand said. "If (state funding) is cut, you either cut classes, cut faculty, cut instructional equipment - all the things that are needed to provide the education that students need to ultimately succeed in the world."

William Phillis, director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, said lawmakers are ignoring an Ohio Supreme Court order to insure all schools are adequately funded.

"They're just thumbing their nose at the court," Phillis said.

Despite the unanswered questions, GOP lawmakers still hope to forge a budget consensus and pass it on to the Senate next week.

Shelley Davis contributed to this report.

E-mail shunt@enquirer.com