Gov. Ted Strickland sliced Ohio's school voucher program from his budget because he sees the concept as "inherently undemocratic," he said.

The first Democrat to run Ohio in 16 years expressed that concern, his distaste for companies that turn public dollars into charter school profits and his discomfort with next week's scheduled execution of a death row inmate during an interview Friday with The Associated Press.

"To me, vouchers are inherently undemocratic because they allow public dollars to be used in ways and in settings where the public has little or no oversight," Strickland said.

"Those who are paying those tax dollars have no ability to vote for a Board of Education or to make determinations regarding curriculum, or discipline or admission policies or a whole range of things," he said.

Strickland announced during his State of the State speech Wednesday that his budget would eliminate the year-old EdChoice voucher program, which is the second largest in the country and provides scholarships to 2,829 students in underperforming school districts to attend private schools. Strickland would retain a separate voucher program in Cleveland.

The governor also said he questions the expense because he's seen little evidence that voucher students do better. Interest was lukewarm in the first year for the 14,000 available slots.

"He called it 'wastefulness and giveaways' (in his speech). That's absurd," said Mike Pecchia, president of the Youngstown Christian School where vouchers supported 45 of 130 new students this year. "We do it way cheaper than anybody else does and we do it better."

Strickland said he also wants to see charter schools privately run schools that receive public money prove their effectiveness as an education option, which is why his budget proposes a moratorium on expanding them and a ban on for-profit companies running them.

"Ohio's implementation of the charter school movement has been a dismal, dismal failure," he said. "Some states have done it rather well with apparently positive results. In Ohio, it's been a story of mismanagement, fiscal and educational failure, and it's turned into a for-profit operation for certain individuals."

During a teleconference with Ohio reporters and editors earlier in the day, Strickland said his priorities during budget negotiations will be his recommendations for primary and secondary schools, his proposal for cutting college tuition, and his strategy for providing subsidized health care to 20,000 uninsured children.

He said he plans to appeal directly to citizens to embrace the sacrifices contained in his $53 billion, two-year spending blueprint which includes $748 million in state agency cuts.

"I expect a pushback. We're going to push back as well," he said.

In the AP interview, which took place just after Strickland had denied clemency to death row inmate Kenneth Biros, the former prison psychologist and counselor said he doesn't look forward to presiding over Biros' lethal injection Tuesday.

He said he has no intention of placing a moratorium on capital punishment in Ohio.

"I'm not comfortable with it. I hope never to be comfortable with it," he said. "But it is the law and I have assumed this responsibility as governor. It's one of the things that I thought through before I chose to seek this office. In fact, it was probably the final hurdle that I finally got over in my decision to run for governor."

He said he is open to new information on the matter, but for now is satisfied that Ohio has a fair and impartial system.