Ohio: Franklin County

They just call them fees instead of taxes. One of the most harmful is the proposed hospital franchise fee, which would cost Ohio's cash-strapped hospitals $127 million, $333 million or $411 million, depending on whose plan and estimates one adopts.

The basic arithmetic is this: The state would impose the fee on hospitals and apply the revenue generated to the state's share of Medicaid. That money, combined with similar assessments on other health-care providers, would draw about $2 billion in matching funds from the federal government for the state's Medicaid program.

In return, the governor proposed to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates to hospitals so that they recoup some of the franchise fees they pay.

House Speaker Armond Budish, a Beachwood Democrat who is more receptive to gamb-ling, has said he backs a referendum on the issue.

Yesterday, fans rallied for a proposal that would allow 14,000 video slot machines at the state's seven racetracks. Two of the tracks are in Franklin County: Scioto Downs south of Columbus and Beulah Park in Grove City.

The Ohio State Racing Commission, which endorses the proposal, estimates that it could provide as much as $625 million a year for public education by 2013.

The state is confronting a budget shortfall that could reach $3 billion in 2010-11. Backers of the slots-at-racetracks plan say gambling revenue won't fix the state budget but would provide a more attractive alternative to large tax increases or broad cuts in state services.

Back home in Marion County, Ohio, are three of Mary Ellen Withrow's four daughters, most of her seven grandchildren, and the roots of a small-town girl who made good.

"You never get over home," she said. "It's in you."

But Mary Ellen and Norman, her husband for 60 years, have moved on. Their daughters, including the one in California, like coming to Washington to see the sights, soak up the culture and shop, and even one daughter's invitation to move into a farmhouse in Waldo was not enough to coax a move back.

"I said, 'What are we going to do, go back to Waldo and watch the grass grow?'  " Norman said.

The central figure in the scandal that drove former Attorney General Marc Dann from office last year pleaded not guilty this morning to 10 criminal charges against him.

Anthony Gutierrez, who was Dann's general-services director, is the first player in the Dann administration to face criminal charges stemming from the Democrat's 17 months in office.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien's office accuses Gutierrez of using state computers and time to file phony statements to the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation for his private construction business. Gutierrez also is accused of using Dann's campaign account to cover living expenses at a Dublin-area condo he shared with Dann and the former attorney general's spokesman.