showed rural areas are disproportionately poor, uneducated and pay high relative costs for crime and disability because of the loss of good jobs, local businesses and opioid abuse. But there鈥檚 an idea being floated to establish a special state fund for those rural counties.
Under the plan, a two year, $110 million dollar equalization fund would be established to help counties that lack local revenues to meet basic needs. Center for Community Solutions researcher John Begala, says many people in rural communities often have to go elsewhere to spend dollars, leaving their hometowns without a sales tax base to deal with local needs.
鈥淲hat worked for 100 years is just simply out of whack and we need to revisit the entire revenue sharing system of state and local government in Ohio.鈥�
The fund could be tapped to fight the opioid crisis, develop economic programs that increase sales tax revenue or to cover general county expenses. Republican former lawmaker Gene Krebs, who鈥檚 now running for state senate, says the fund would expire after a decade.
