COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Police and sheriffs are fightingfor greater access to a small slice of
Ohio casino tax revenue that isintended for law enforcement training and has so far gone mainly to
theState Highway Patrol.Groups representing local law enforcementargue the money has been unfairly
distributed, and they supported aproposed amendment to change control of that segment, which was
budgetedfor about $850,000 annually in the two-year state spending plan. Butlawmakers kept the current
disbursement setup pending a report that wascalled for in a previously passed casino law.The new
budgetsigned by Gov. John Kasich requires Attorney General Mike DeWine toconsult with state and local
law enforcement and produce a report on howto best distribute the money. Those recommendations now are
due tolegislative leaders by Sept. 1, three months earlier than the deadlinelisted in the casino law.The
report is required to include arecommendation for how some of the money could be shared with local
lawenforcement starting in the 2015 fiscal year. That doesn’t satisfypolice who say the fight will
continue because a recommendation won’tguarantee a fairer distribution of the cash."It’s an issue
offairness, quite frankly, that everyone should be able to use this money,not just one agency,"
said Mike Weinman, the director of governmentaffairs for the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio. He said
the patrol’sofficers amount to less than 5 percent of the sworn law enforcement inOhio.By law, Ohio
casinos pay a tax of about one-third of theirrevenue, and 2 percent of the tax money is set aside for
law enforcementtraining. Most of that funding supports the Ohio Peace Officer TrainingAcademy, which
offers instruction for a variety of law enforcementstaff. The remaining 15 percent goes to a fund for
training efforts bythe Office of Criminal Justice Services in the state Department ofPublic Safety, with
no specific direction about whom those effortsshould benefit.More than $523,000 has been deposited into
thatfund since the first of Ohio’s four casinos opened in May 2012. Amongthe expenditures that most
bothered the local law enforcement groups wasmore than $192,000 the patrol spent to rent the Mid-Ohio
Sports CarCourse in Lexington to train troopers to drive the patrol’s new fleet ofDodge Chargers.The
Department of Public Safety, which includesthe patrol, defended how the money was spent and said it
needed accessto a venue better than what it had available to train troopers forhigh-speed pursuits.
Spokesman Joe Andrews said local law enforcementwill have more access to future rounds of driver
training and leadershipcourses funded by the casino taxes."It’s not just for thehighway
patrol," Andrews said. "Almost all of these things brought otherlaw enforcement agencies in to
be trained also."The FOP, theOhio Association of Chiefs of Police and the Buckeye State
Sheriffs’Association argue that the intent of the law was that all lawenforcement agencies have a shot
at the money for seminars and othertypes of training. Those groups unsuccessfully pushed an amendment
thatwould have put the money in a fund under the umbrella of DeWine’soffice, with disbursements
controlled by a commission that considerstraining reimbursement requests and includes police, sheriffs
and thepatrol’s superintendent.Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.