Ohio General Assembly tries to fix a problem that isn't

The Ohio General Assembly seems to be meddling in an area where it isn't needed: residency rules for municipal employees.
Some cities find it necessary to require their employees to maintain residency within the city. There are sound arguments for and against such a policy, which is exactly why it would be wrong for the General Assembly to dictate one way or the other.
Legislatures, however, are not always ruled by what's right or wrong. Often whether a bill becomes law comes down to the power and convictions held by one man.
In the case of municipal residency, there have been four attempts, including one likely to expire with this session of the General Assembly at year's end, to prohibit communities from enforcing residency rules on their employees.
None stood much of a chance, in no small part due to the opposition of Senate President Richard Finan, a former mayor. But term limits have ended Finan's legislative career, and that is likely to encourage backers of a ban to mount an aggressive campaign.
Rep. Larry Flowers, a former fire chief and a Republican from Canal Winchester, sponsored this session's bill to ban residency requirements and is prepared to reintroduce it.
Dueling dictates
Flowers said he understands that communities must have the power to decide how to run their governments, but that they shouldn't dictate where their employees must live.
We would argue that the legislature shouldn't dictate hiring policies to cities and villages.
Mayors argue that residency laws give cities a better chance to maintain a healthy middle-class population if city employees are also city residents.
Other proponents simply suggest that if a city is good enough for a person to work in, it should be good enough to live in.
Proponents say that residency laws deprive cities of the opportunity to hire and retain the best job candidates. That has become more of a likelihood in recent decades as the percentage of two income families has increased. If every subdivision strictly enforced its own residency requirements, thousands of couples would have to make Solomonic decisions about where to live and work.
But every community should be able to judge for itself how to balance economics, the talent pool and the demands of its taxpayers and voters in deciding whether residency requirements work for or against a community's best interests.
That's why the General Assembly -- with or without Dick Finan -- should reject a statewide ban on residency requirements.