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Ohio House turns down Senate amendments
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
As expected, the Ohio House declined to accept Senate amendments to the state’s $61 billion-plus biennial budget Wednesday, sending legislation to a conference committee for final negotiations.
The vote against concurrence was a unanimous 94-0. The conference committee, controlled by Republicans and including three members from each chamber, will begin its work today.
The two-year spending plan must by finalized by lawmakers and signed by Gov. John Kasich before July 1, the start of the new state fiscal year.
A comparison document compiled by the state’s Legislative Service Commission includes 478 pages of “areas of disagreement” between the House and Senate versions of the budget.
Much attention during coming behind-closed-door conference-committee negotiations likely will focus on tax reform, Medicaid and other big-ticket issues.
On tax reform, the House moved a 7 percent across-the-board income-tax cut, while the Senate opted for a 50 percent reduction for small-business income. Senate President Keith Faber of Celina, R-12th, told reporters late last week that tax reform discussions were continuing, and he hoped to include some version of both provisions in the final bill.
Lawmakers do not appear to be ready to move on Gov. John Kasich’s proposed Medicaid expansion, saying they planned to address the issue in separate legislation in coming months.
Kasich is floating a new proposal to increase taxes on oil and gas produced via horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, offering to dedicate a portion of the proceeds to eastern Ohio counties. He said this week that he remains confident Ohio’s severance-tax rate would be increased, though lawmakers have made no indication of a change in their opposition.
“I just don’t have any doubt about it; it’s just a matter of what year,” Kasich said. “Maybe it will be this year, maybe it will be another year, but it’s going to happen.”
Wednesday’s concurrence vote in the House came with objections after two members, one from each side of the aisle, used the occasion to espouse their opinions on specific issues.
State Rep. Bob Hagan of Youngstown, D-58th, urged conference committee members to consider increasing tax rates on oil and gas, with the proceeds directed to local governments and schools rather than to fund a state income-tax cut.
“There’s an opportunity for us to invest in Ohio,” Hagan said. “Why would we ignore that opportunity? ... We’ve lost dollars for police and fire, social services. Agencies are collapsing. We have school issues that are underfunded.”
State Rep. Ron Young of LeRoy, R-63rd, urged conferees to push for a deadline for action on Medicaid reform but voiced opposition to a proposed expansion to cover more needy Ohioans.
The expansion, Young said, would benefit healthy young men and women without dependent children.
“I think we should be encouraging healthy young adults to get jobs, not giving them another welfare program,” he said.