COLUMBUS, Ohio—The Ohio Senate’s latest two-year state budget plan, unveiled Wednesday, includes a sweeping package of higher education reforms designed to tamp down perceived liberal bias on college campuses.
The Senate Finance Committee, which voted along party-lines to advance the massive legislation on Wednesday, added in – with slight alternations – Senate Bill 83. That bill, which passed the Senate last month but has yet to move in the House, would, among other things, outlaw the ability of college faculty and staff to strike, ban mandated diversity training, and require annual faculty performance evaluations and post-tenure reviews that include examining whether students believe they show “bias” in their teaching.
The Finance Committee also inserted millions of dollars in funding to create “independent academic units” at Ohio State University and the University of Toledo with their own bylaws, hiring and tenure authority. Proponents of the idea say the centers would encourage political diversity on campus, though critics see it as another attempt by GOP lawmakers to bring more conservative views to Ohio universities.
Lawmakers pass a state budget every two years to approve state government spending. However, as with the governor’s and the Ohio House’s budget proposals before it, the Senate’s $85.8 billion budget bill includes many proposed policy changes that have little to do with state spending.
The Senate’s budget plan is significantly more conservative than the budget plans put forward by Gov. Mike DeWine and the Ohio House. The full Senate is likely to pass their version of the budget on Thursday; after that, House and Senate negotiators will likely convene to hammer out a final compromise bill to send to DeWine’s desk by June 30, the end of the state’s fiscal year.
Overall, the Senate’s budget reflects the sunny financial position the state’s in right now, as tax revenues so far this fiscal year are more than $840 million higher than anticipated, and state officials have a large chunk of one-time federal coronavirus relief money left to spend.
Here’s more on what’s new in the latest version of the Republican-dominated Senate’s budget plan:
Commercial activities tax
The revised Senate budget plan, if approved, would create major small-business exemptions to the state’s commercial activity tax. That tax, usually called by its acronym “CAT,” is currently assessed on almost all companies with gross receipts of over $150,000 in the state.
Under the Senate proposal, businesses would pay no CAT on their first $3 million of gross receipts next year; the year after that, the exemption would grow to the first $6 million in gross receipts. If the change passes, an estimated 90% of Ohio-based businesses that currently pay CAT – 145,000 of 163,000 – would no longer have to pay any amount of the tax, according to a Senate Finance Committee handout.
This plan replaces the Senate’s previous proposal to cut the state’s CAT rate by 25%.
Ban on local tobacco laws
The Senate also inserted language that would prohibit local governments from passing any tobacco rules that are stricter than state rules. DeWine vetoed a similar measure late last year.
If passed, that would overrule existing bans on flavored tobacco in at least three cities -- Toledo, Columbus and the Columbus suburb of Bexley.
The Senate’s budget proposal also seeks a statewide ban on selling or distributing flavored vaping liquid, with the exception of menthol-flavored products and those for which a marketing order has been issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
While DeWine has sought such a ban for years and included it in his budget plan this year, the Senate’s proposal wouldn’t change much. Juul, the market leader in e-cigarettes, has whittled down its product lines to just “Virginia Tobacco” and menthol flavors. In addition, federal regulators banned the sale of e-cigarette flavors besides tobacco and menthol in 2020, although the policy still allowed for the sale of other flavors in disposable e-cigarettes.
The Senate Finance Committee voted last week to cut funding nearly in half for programs to help Ohioans quit smoking and vaping, but it reversed itself Wednesday and restored the funding.
Affordable housing
The Senate reversed itself and restored three DeWine proposals to spur construction of more affordable housing in Ohio that it previously cut, including offering $100 million in low-income housing tax credits (though the House proposed $500 million), income-tax deductions for homeownership savings accounts, and $50 million in tax credits for single-family affordable housing.
Police officer minimum age
A newly added Senate budget item would allow many police departments around the state to lower their minimum age to become officers from 21 to 18. Lawmakers previously introduced twin bills seeking the change, but neither have passed so far.
Proponents, including representatives of cities and townships, say such a change would help address a widespread hiring shortage and note that many city police departments already hire people younger than 21. But critics – including many law-enforcement officials – say teenagers don’t have the emotional or mental capacity to handle such a job.
Assistance programs
The Senate’s initial budget plan called for rolling back funding for programs to feed, house, and cover health-care costs for some of the state’s poorest citizens. Their latest revisions largely preserve those measures, though it also would, among other things, require a photo ID and phone number for most Ohioans to receive food stamps and provide more money to food banks than its initial plan would have.
School vouchers
Under the latest Senate budget bill, any private charter school or private school participating in the Cleveland Scholarship Program would be allowed to charge tuition to students from lower-income families beyond what their voucher scholarship pays. Right now, such schools have to waive that tuition for those students.
The revised budget plan keeps the Senate’s earlier proposal to significantly expand Ohio’s school voucher program by allowing any Ohio student to become eligible. However, students in families making more than 450% of the federal poverty line – equal to $135,000 in annual income for a family of four – would only be eligible for a partial voucher scholarship based on their family income.
Right now, income limits for Ohio’s voucher program are 250% of the federal poverty line, or $75,000 per year for a family of four.
JobsOhio
JobsOhio, the state’s economic development non-profit, has been funded through a 25-year lease of state liquor revenue since 2013. During that time, JobsOhio has played a role in luring major economic development projects to the state -- such as the enormous Intel computer-chip plant being built outside Columbus -- but has also come under fire from good-government groups for being exempted from state open-meetings and public-records law.
The Senate’s latest budget version would allow the liquor agreement to be extended by an additional 15 years at any time, if both JobsOhio and the state legislature agree.
The Senate’s final version of the budget also preserves a number of major changes that it previously made, including measures to slash state income tax rates, strip the State Board of Education of most of its powers and give them instead to the governor’s administration, create a two-week sales tax holiday next August, and slash funding for childcare.
The Senate also removed a number of House-added provisions, including increasing minimum salaries for Ohio teachers and providing funding for a variety of Northeast Ohio projects.
Jeremy Pelzer covers state politics and policy for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
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