As States Cut Aid, Localities Learn To Do Less With Less

You can get accustomed to hard times, and over the last few years Ohio’s towns and cities learned to scrape by. Faced with the long-term decay of Rust Belt manufacturing and the financial travails of homeowners, banks and businesses of all sorts, they watched their tax revenues shrink and did their best to adjust. They deferred road maintenance. They laid off employees and delayed new hires. They reorganized departments, merged positions, and generally looked for any means of saving a few dollars.  

Then, this past summer, the state decided to step in. Only not with a helping hand.

“Local governments need to change the way they do business,” Republican Governor John Kasich announced. And in the budget that took effect July 1, he and the GOP-controlled legislature made sure that if towns, cities and counties hadn’t already changed their ways during the Great Recession, they would have no choice from here on out.

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