COLUMBUS — The Ohio Senate on Thursday will vote on its take of a $69 billion, two-year state budget that would cut income taxes across the board by 8 percent and yet again overhaul what high school seniors must do to graduate.
Still up in the air, however, is reform of academic distress commissions that has allowed the state to date to take over three academically failing school districts. Toledo Public Schools could join the club in two years if current law doesn’t change and the district does not improve its report card grade of F.
It will ultimately fall to a conference committee next week to fashion a compromise between the House and Senate versions that could pass both chambers and get Gov. Mike DeWine’s signature by June 30.
“I don’t think we’re that far apart…,” Senate President Larry Obhof (R., Medina) said. “I think the basic structure is the same. You see significant investments in children’s services, in early childhood education.”
The Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday night unanimously put its stamp on the spending and taxing plan and forwarded it to the full chamber.
Beginning with the class of 2023, the budget would again change what it takes to graduate from high school, reducing the number of state tests and providing alternatives to tests to get across the finish line.
“We want to make sure that a diploma from an Ohio high school means something, but recognizing that the traditional path to diploma is not easy for everyone,” said Sen. Matt Dolan (R., Chagrin Falls), committee chairman. “It mixes in traditional classwork with pathways to graduation that deal with real life skills that both the local and the state participate in.”
He said work continues on the academic distress commission reforms. The committee removed House language that would have eliminated them outright, a move that would force the issue onto the conference committee’s table.
“Right now, there are children in three Ohio school districts whose academic futures are in jeopardy because of school takeovers,” said Sen. Teresa Fedor (D., Toledo), ranking Democrat on the Senate Education Committee.
“Lawmakers, educators, and families widely recognize that we need a different, community-centered approach to help struggling school districts,” she said. “The longer we wait to implement a solution, the more children we leave behind.”
The budget also punts — at least for now — on reforming the state’s school report card system that determines which districts face potential state takeover. It creates a committee to study the issue and recommend reforms by Dec. 15.
Both chambers offer initial funding for the governor’s proposed H2Ohio water quality initiative for Lake Erie and other Ohio waterways. The House proposed $86 million for one year and the Senate $172 million for two years while both chambers continue to talk about how to fund it over at least the next decade.
Both plans would declare that a body of water does not have legal standing to sue, rendering impotent the Lake Erie Bill of Rights that Toledo voters approved in February.
The plan also incorporates a bill passed by the Senate last week that would divide the state into five watersheds with a focus in each on improving water quality.
The Senate balked at the House plan to reduce the amount of income tax forgiveness on small business income. The House would have forgiven taxes on the first $100,000 while the Senate restored that to the $250,000 in current law.
But both plans would eliminate the existing 3 percent cap on taxes on business income above $250,000.
“Their across-the-board income tax (for individuals) was 6.6 (percent),” Mr. Obhof said. “Ours was 8 (percent), so a lot of the big picture things are not that far apart in my opinion.”
Both plans eliminate income taxes altogether on those earning less than $22,250 a year.
While the process is cutting it close to the deadline, comparatively speaking this is not a tough budget. The state is flush with cash, and the conference committee will hear estimates next week from the DeWine administration that expected budget surpluses will be even bigger than originally projected.
The state’s “rainy day” budgetary reserves have reached a record $2.8 billion but even that is short of the constitutional cap of 8.5 percent of annual revenues, a rising target this cycle.
Both plans would spend about the same amount of money on K-12 schools, each including the $550 million proposed by Mr. DeWine for counseling, mentoring, mental health, after-school programs, and other student “wrap-around” services not directly tied to the classroom.
The House added $250 million more to that over the biennium, but the Senate would instead redirect those additional funds to help school districts with growing enrollments and an expansion of vouchers for students to leave traditional public schools.
The committee rejected along party lines a Democratic attempt to remove the extra voucher money. Still Democrats supported sending the budget to the Senate floor.
The committee restored a provision that it removed last week. Back in the budget is $150,000 a year for lead abatement by Toledo’s Historic South Initiative, a neighborhood revitalization effort in the Old South End.
The bill also moves back Ohio’s presidential primary election next year by one week to March 17. Lawmakers had advanced the date four years ago to help then Gov. John Kasich in his Republican presidential bid. Ohio was the only state he won.
First Published June 20, 2019, 1:22 a.m.
