Ohio House unveils amended $71.5B biennial budget

April 15, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

COLUMBUS

The Ohio House unveiled an amended $71.5 billion biennial budget Tuesday, removing most tax-reform measures included in the two-year spending plan proposed by Gov. John Kasich and increasing formula funding for public schools.

The House budget includes $1.2 billion in tax cuts over the next two fiscal years, with an across-the-board 6.3 percent rate reduction and a permanent 75 percent deduction for small businesses. The latter was enacted on a temporary basis in previous legislation.

“I think this is a huge step in the right direction, not only for Ohio but for all Ohioans and most importantly for those small businesses in Ohio,” House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger of Clarksville, R-91st, told reporters shortly before the chamber’s Finance Committee accepted the amended budget for consideration.

House Republicans stripped away most of the governor’s budget, including tax increases on cigarettes and other tobacco products and oil and gas produced via horizontal hydraulic fracturing.

The House version of the budget instead would create a “2020 Tax Policy Study Commission” to develop longer-term reforms. Rosenberger said the new panel would help to align the administration, lawmakers, businesses and others on tax policy.

“We’re not at difference with the governor. We are in a position to say we want to help continue to work on this and craft this,” Rosenberger said.

Elsewhere in the budget, the House increased funding for primary and secondary schools, ensuring level state formula funding and fewer districts facing potential cuts to overall funding.

The chamber apparently has left in the spending authority the governor needs to continue the Medicaid expansion he implemented two years ago.

The House did add Medicaid reforms in the budget, including increased cost disclosures, requiring a report of health care provided to needy residents and directing state officials to seek waivers from the federal government to allow health savings accounts and work requirements for those seeking subsidized care.

The amendments are not the final word on the biennial budget. The House Finance Committee has scheduled hearings through the end of the week and likely will offer further changes before bringing the bill up for a floor vote, likely next Wednesday.

After the House vote, the Senate will take up the legislation, and a conference committee of the two chambers likely will have to haggle over a final bill before final passage in late June.

Kasich will have line-item veto authority over the bill before adding his signature in advance of the new fiscal year, which starts July 1.