Week in Review 10-14-24

Week in Review > Week in Review 10-14-24

Posted by Buckeye Association of School Administrators on October 11th, 2024

FY24-25 BUDGET

Ohio’s Office of Budget and Management (OBM) Monday called the $500+ million overage in tax revenue for the month of September “likely due to an overprediction of the revenue loss from the first-ever expanded sales tax holiday held from July 30-Aug. 8.” OBM went on to say that, “This overage will be temporary because the future transfer in to the GRF [General Revenue Fund] from the Sales Tax Holiday Fund will be less than anticipated.” Specifically, the state finished September with $2.1 billion, $547.1 million or 36 percent over the updated estimate for the month. The estimated revenue for September had been $1.5 billion.

ECONOMY

Social Security benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments for more than 72.5 million Americans will increase 2.5 percent in 2025, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced Thursday. On average, Social Security retirement benefits will increase by about $50 per month starting in January. Over the last decade the COLA increase has averaged about 2.6 percent, the SSA noted. The COLA was 3.2 percent in 2024.

EDUCATION

The Ohio Supreme Court declined Monday to order Columbus City Schools to provide transportation to families who’ve requested mediation over the district’s withdrawal of busing services for some school choice students, rejecting Attorney General Dave Yost’s emergency motion. Yost recently sued the district over its decision to deem large numbers of charter and private school students “impractical” to transport. More recently, he filed the emergency motion for families in mediation, arguing the law clearly obligates the district to provide transportation during the mediation process.

Judge Jaiza Page has too many pages of summary judgment motions to weigh for a November trial date to remain feasible, she wrote in a memo to parties in Ohio’s voucher litigation explaining why she delayed the proceedings. She said she intends to address those motions before year’s end. Vouchers Hurt Ohio, the school district coalition suing over the constitutionality of vouchers, last week announced Page’s verbal decision to delay that she made during a pre-trial video conference involving districts, the state and two groups of families who use EdChoice vouchers and have intervened to act as defendants alongside the state.

ELECTIONS

Lawful permanent residents of the U.S. are barred from contributing to Ohio issue campaigns after the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a motion from the state to stay a lower court ruling that found provisions of special session HB1 (Seitz) violated the U.S. Constitution. In a 2-1 decision in OAPWL v. Yost, the appeals court called U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson’s decision blocking provisions of HB1 “flawed” as it pertains to lawful permanent residents (LPRs), also known as green card holders, who were included in the law’s definition of “foreign national.”

GENERAL ASSEMBLY/STATEHOUSE

Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said Monday he foresees a quick Senate concurrence vote post-election on legislation requiring single-sex bathrooms that the House approved shortly before the summer break. Speaking to reporters outside the symposium for public university trustees, Huffman said he’s confident the Senate has the votes to concur with House amendments to SB104 (Cirino), which originally focused on the College Credit Plus program but was amended to include language of HB183 (Bird-Lear). That latter bill prohibits public and private K-12 schools from allowing a “member of the female biological sex to use a student restroom, locker room, changing room or shower room that has been designated by the school for the exclusive use of the male biological sex.” Likewise, it bans a “member of the male biological sex” from using such facilities “designated by the school for the exclusive use of the female biological sex.” “We’ll probably take that up in the Senate fairly quickly, probably before Thanksgiving,” he said. Huffman said some of his priorities are awaiting action in the House, including SB83 (Cirino), an overhaul of higher education policy. He also said he’d like to see lawmakers pass marijuana law changes, saying he’s talked to industry representatives about their needs.

The Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board (CSRAB) received 18 applications from those interested in succeeding retiring Laura Battocletti as executive director. Among those who submitted applications are Stephen Friday, CSRAB’s assistant deputy director of security and safety; former CSRAB communications director Luke Stedke; Ohio Senate Strategic Initiatives Director Averel Meden; former state Rep. Scott Ryan; and Megan Wycuff, executive director at the Ohio Channel. According to CSRAB, other applicants include Adam Maxwell, Casey McCarty, James Eisinger, Eli Faes, Eric Bell, George Hinkle, Douglas Hammon, Lisa Peterson, Marvis McGowan, Monica Crimmins, Prashant Gokhale, Ronald Lodwick, and Shawn Kenney.

Twenty-three state agencies are achieving their regulatory reduction goals under 134-SB9 (McColley-Roegner) and four are failing to do so, according to the co-chairs and executive director of the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR). This is the second of three regulatory reduction reports required by regulatory reduction measure SB9. The first set of reports was due in September 2023. JCARR Executive Director Ian Dollenmayer told Hannah News that the four agencies that are failing to meet their 20 percent reduction are the Ohio Department of Development, Ohio Department of Insurance, Ohio Lottery Commission and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

The original sponsors of Ohio’s longstanding bond program for local infrastructure projects are back nearly 40 years later to ask voters to reauthorize borrowing for the program for another decade. Speaker Pro Tem Scott Oelslager (R-North Canton) and Rep. Dan Troy (D-Willowick) want Ohioans to vote in May to renew bonding authority for the State Capital Improvement Program (SCIP), which is administered by the Ohio Public Works Commission (OPWC). They’re proposing a resolution that would ask voters to amend the Ohio Constitution to increase annual bonding authority from $200 million to $250 million per year, for a total or $2.5 billion over a decade.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) echoed Sen. Jerry Cirino’s (R-Kirtland) call for intellectual diversity on campuses at Monday’s second annual Trustee Symposium for public universities but told attendees he thinks cost is a larger challenge. Cirino, who chairs the Senate Workforce and Higher Education Committee and who has advocated for substantial higher education policy changes via SB83, welcomed dozens of trustees to the Statehouse Atrium for the symposium. Huffman, Cirino and Sen. Robert McColley (R-Napoleon), who is widely expected to become the next Senate president, all emphasized the importance of trustees’ role in higher education governance in their speeches to the symposium. “You are the boards of directors of your companies, if you will, and you need to be involved in setting the tone and the strategy for the university, to make sure that we’re delivering the goods to our students and our taxpayers,” Cirino said.

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) Task Force on Higher Education Thursday released a report on state strategies for enhancing the value of degrees, reflecting two years of work by legislators and legislative staff from 32 states. The announcement included a livestreamed press event. NCSL Federal Affairs Advisor Austin Reid said the report had three elements of trends on affordability and student outcomes as well as a history and present developments in state and federal policy; proper roles for state and federal policymakers in higher education; and the task force’s “signature message” on a state strategy to enhance the value of degrees.

NATURAL RESOURCES

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) will join the national celebration of Earth Science Week from Sunday, Oct. 13 to Saturday, Oct 19 with a series of special programming held across the state. Under the theme, “Earth Science Everywhere,” Earth Science Week 2024 will emphasize the ways geoscience influences STEM disciplines and the humanities. Information about Earth Science Week nationally can be found at https://tinyurl.com/mryef7se. Complete information about ODNR’s celebration of Earth Science Week can be found at https://tinyurl.com/4rsxm64r. The “Explore Further” menu on the website lists activities for educators, students or members of the public who are unable to make the in-person events.

Great news for leaf peepers: The best of Ohio’s vibrant reds, yellows and oranges that come with the changing of seasons will be upon the state in the coming weeks. “We are still seeing a lot of green out there but also seeing more colorful splashes of fall color throughout the state,” said Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Fall Color Forester David Parrott. “Cooler temperatures will really help the color transformation continue. We should be seeing the best fall color in the next few weeks.”

One of Ohio’s most notable wildlife success stories continued in 2024 as the state’s wild turkey poult index came in above its 10-year average for the fourth straight year. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) relies on public reports of wild turkeys and their young (poults) to estimate nest success and poult survival each year to calculate the state’s wild turkey poult index. The ODNR Division of Wildlife count from July and August 2024 found the state’s average to be 2.9 poults per hen, slightly above the 10-year average.

PENSIONS

Investment expert Jim Voytko reiterated Thursday his assessment that Ohio’s public pension funds are well managed and often perform better than their peers across the U.S., but he dug deeper into their portfolios to highlight the significant difference in their approaches to asset allocation. Voytko, president emeritus of consulting firm RVK, gave his periodic update to the Ohio Retirement Study Council (ORSC), which contracts with Voytko to review the investment performance of the Ohio systems. “The Ohio funds are very professionally managed, their results say so. They perform well versus other public pension plans,” he said, using U.S. public pension funds with assets over $1 billion as the peer group for comparison.