Ohio Budget Plan Screws Over Taxpayers, Boosts Pay Raises for Officials

Cleveland.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio—The Ohio House passed a 5,000-plus-word state budget plan earlier this month that includes not only more than $60 billion in state spending over the next two years, but hundreds of major policy changes on a wide variety of issues.

A lot of those changes were dropped in at the last minute without warning by the House Republican majority. They include measures to raise state vehicle registration and renewal fees, boost pay raises for elected officials, and no longer have voters elect county coroners.

These proposals, along with 159 other changes, were then passed by the House a day later, before the public could weigh in or even before lawmakers themselves had time to fully read what they were voting on.

That tactic is nothing new in the Ohio Statehouse.

Every new state budget in recent memory has been passed by the Ohio legislature with a litany of last-minute changes negotiated behind closed doors and adopted without any significant time for public debate or input.

As with past budgets, these budget amendments were adopted en masse, without revealing which lawmaker was behind each proposed change.

House members from both parties defend the way they passed their budget plan. They assert that their 2025 budget process was more open and inclusive than in past sessions and that they are under the gun to meet the state’s June 30 budget deadline.

And the House alterations, at least, can now get public input in the Ohio Senate, where budget talks are set to continue for the next few weeks.

But the Senate (where, like the House, Republicans have a supermajority) will likely make its own round of eleventh-hour revisions.

After that, even more changes are expected to be made by a House-Senate conference committee, in which a handful of lawmakers meet behind closed doors at the very end of the budget process to hammer out a final budget plan to send to Gov. Mike DeWine.

In other words, Ohioans should prepare for more budget blindsides in the coming weeks.

On Tuesday, April 8, the day before the full House passed the budget, Ohio House Finance Committee Chair Brian Stewart, a Pickaway County Republican, unveiled an amendment with a slew of policy proposals that hadn’t previously been raised in budget talks — at least, not publicly.

Some of the proposals were renewed attempts to approve measures that failed to pass in the last legislative session, such as:

• Boosting pay raises by 5% for a range of public officials, including Ohio Supreme Court justices, other state and municipal court judges, as well as county and township officials.
• Requiring pornographic websites to verify that users in Ohio are at least 18 years old before they can access the site

Other measures were made out of whole cloth, including:

• Allowing Ohioans to order fireworks online
• Replacing the Ohio Elections Commission, which hears complaints against candidates for public office and ensures they submit campaign finance reports correctly and on time.
• Seeking federal permission to stop allowing Ohioans to use SNAP benefits, sometimes known as food stamps, to purchase “sugar-sweetened” drinks

One of the proposals that drew the most attention would have county coroners be appointed by their respective county commissioners, rather than elected by voters as they are now.

David Corey, executive director of the Ohio State Coroners Association, said in an interview that it was “extremely disappointing” that the Finance Committee slipped in the coroner proposal without debate or public testimony.

“That’s not really the best way to have this massive of a policy change,” he said.

Newsflash, Corey: none of those behind-closed-doors policies are a good way for change. No disclosure, no transparency, no public debate. It’s more like a goddamned oligarchy than a representative body.

I voted for Mike DeWine. It’s a decision that I’m starting to regret.