Morning News and Stuff

City Hall will be hosting a meeting on the streetcar project at 6 p.m. today to figure out what the project’s options are now that it has a $17.4 million budget gap. The meeting was

called by Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls

after City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. explained in a memo that the project has a budget gap because construction bids came in $26 million to $43 million over budget.

State Sen. Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican who chairs the the Senate Public Utilities Committee, says he wants to

“modify,” not repeal, Ohio’s Clean Energy Law

to have more clear-cut compliance standards. Environmentalists say they’re concerned Seitz will use the review as a front to water the law down, especially since electricity giant FirstEnergy is pushing against the law’s energy efficiency standards. CityBeat wrote more about the conflict between environmentalists and FirstEnergy

here

.

It’s one issue Ohio’s leading liberal and conservative think tanks apparently agree on:

Ohio is not the “economic miracle”

often touted by Gov. John Kasich. In the past year, job numbers for the state have been particularly weak, with public sector losses nearly making up for very weak private sector gains. The right-leaning Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions says a complicated tax system is largely to blame for the stagnant job growth, while the left-leaning Policy Matters Ohio is mostly focusing on governments’ budget austerity.

A student allegedly

shot himself

in front of classmates at LaSalle High School today. Police say he is currently at a hospital, and there are currently no reports of anyone else being shot. As of 10:30 a.m., the situation was still developing.

After misleading media reports sent the public into a furor, Mayor Mark Mallory agreed to

rescind salary raises

that were part of his office’s deficit-reducing budget plan. The plan gave the mayor’s top aides raises to make up for an increased workload following staff reductions. Even with the raises, the plan reduced the deficit by $33,000 during the mayor’s remaining time in office — a fact originally omitted by The Cincinnati Enquirer .

Music Hall’s facelift is

not happening just yet

, even though approvals from City Council and the Music Hall Revitalization Company have already paved the way for Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) to begin renovations. As project manager, 3CDC will take four to six months to develop a budget, review designs and go over the legal and financial work necessary to start the project.

Hamilton County is currently tracking to be

$1.5 million over budget

this year — a budget hole the Board of Commissioners hopes to plug by using the rainy day fund.

One section of the Ohio House budget bill would allow charter schools to

enroll out-of-state students

and charge them tuition. The policy could involve online schools, which were previously found to have poor results in a

CityBeat report

. The relaxed rules potentially add more controversy to a budget plan that’s already mired in criticism for defunding Planned Parenthood and forgoing the Medicaid expansion, which CityBeat covered in further detail

here

.

Ohio gas prices are

starting 9 cents down

this week.

Bad news: The largest HIV vaccine study was

shut down

after patients contracted the AIDS virus more often than those who didn’t take it.