Confronting county leader on claims about unclaimed funds for Browns: I-Team
CLEVELAND (WJW) — The FOX 8 I-Team is now taking hard questions to a local leader after his latest claims about unclaimed funds to help the Browns build a dome. Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronanye calls it picking your pocket.
Monday, the I-Team questioned the county executive.
State lawmakers may help the Browns build a dome in Brook Park with $600 million from the Unclaimed Funds Account. The Browns would pay back that money.
Watch: Residents called 911 for hours about crowds filling streets — where was Cleveland police?
Chris Ronayne believes giving that money to the Browns would be unfair to taxpayers. But, the I-Team discovered state lawmakers have often raided that fund for big money to balance the budget.
And, while the Browns would pay back that money from unclaimed funds, state lawmakers have not paid back money taken out of the same account. Sometimes, hundreds of millions of dollars at once.
We asked Ronayne questions about lawmakers not paying the money back, yet he's opposed to money from the same fund for the Browns which would be paid back.
He kept resorting to telling citizens to check and see if they have any money in the account and talking about how the Browns plan for a dome would hurt downtown Cleveland.
Chris Ronayne also said, 'We have said, over and over, again, this proposal by the Cleveland Browns is, too, risky.'
The I-Team also found, back in 2018, Cuyahoga County leaders took $7 million out of a local unclaimed funds account. So, we asked if county leaders ever paid that back. Ronayne reminded us, that happened before he took office.
'You'd have to look further,' he said. 'You'd have to look back on what prior administrations did.'Last week, Browns Chief Operating Officer Dave Jenkins said, 'I think we've been pretty clear since the outset that it's going to take a public-private partnership to enable this project.'
The Browns argue they'd put more than a billion dollars into the dome, and, again, pay back any state funds.
State leaders are kicking around three plans to help the Browns with public money. That includes using unclaimed funds. Senate leaders promise, even if the Browns get unclaimed funds, when you go on-line to apply for your money, you'll also get yours.
'I think the State of Ohio has to find a different solution than unclaimed funds,' Ronayne added.
When we asked state officials about lawmakers repaying the unclaimed funds, we received this response from a spokesperson with the Office of Budget and Management:
Any payment from a state fund, including the General Revenue Fund, to Unclaimed Funds would require an authorizing appropriation from the General Assembly. Such appropriations have generally not occurred. For example, the budget bills mentioned (last week) that directed transfers from Unclaimed Funds to the state GRF (general fund) did not include appropriations from the GRF (general fund) to make payments back to Unclaimed Funds.
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