Week in Review 6-30-25

Week in Review > Week in Review 6-30-25

Posted by Buckeye Association of School Administrators on June 30th, 2025

BALLOT ISSUES

A proposed constitutional amendment to abolish all property taxes in Ohio will wait another year to get on the ballot, the group announced Thursday. The Committee to Abolish Ohio’s Property Taxes said in a release that despite the reception and enthusiasm the effort has received so far, it has decided to continue collecting signatures in order to place the amendment before voters next year, regardless of the number of signatures they may collect before the Wednesday, July 2, deadline in order to qualify for the November 2025 ballot.

FY26-27 PROPOSED BUDGET

The Legislature completed its work on the proposed FY26-27 budget this week, sending the nearly 6,000-page budget bill, HB96 (Stewart) on to the governor for his consideration. In the wee hours of Wednesday, Republican budget negotiators agreed to a biennial spending plan that will institute a flat rate income tax, corral $1.7 billion in unclaimed funds for projects including a new Cleveland Browns stadium, and order property tax cuts in school districts with carryover balances exceeding 40 percent, adopting the conference committee report on a party-line vote. Other provisions in the final budget version include the following:

– The Senate’s approach to school funding, which does resemble more closely the Cupp-Patterson model education advocates have rallied around the past several years. But the final budget does not update formula cost inputs. A Senate proposal for performance-based funding was moved outside the formula.

– Expanded state support for private school students with adoption of the House-passed proposal for educational savings accounts for students at non-chartered private schools.

– Maintenance of contingency language that will terminate Medicaid expansion coverage should the federal matching rate drop, and overall spending reductions in the Medicaid program that were added in the Senate version. Also included were new audit provisions related to aged, blind and disabled (ABD) enrollees’ eligibility.

– Elimination of the Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee, instead directing the Legislative Service Commission to assist standing committees of the House and Senate that deal with Medicaid on program oversight. Also abolished is the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee (CIIC), duties of which would be transferred to the attorney general’s office.

– Alignment of language from the marijuana legalization initiative giving dispensary host communities 36 percent of marijuana tax revenues but delaying distribution of any of that money, pending a deal on overall marijuana policy.

– Claiming of $1.7 billion worth of older unclaimed funds accounts, and appropriation of $1 billion of it — $600 million for the Browns, and $400 million that could be available for other sports and cultural facilities projects. The remaining $700 million remains in the escheatment fund created to collect the unclaimed funds money. Unclaimed funds monies that pass the threshold of sitting with the state for more than 10 years will automatically roll into the sports and cultural facilities fund on an ongoing basis including interest.

– Transition of the 19-member State Board of Education to an all-appointed body with five members respectively representing urban, suburban and rural school districts, charter schools and chartered private schools. Current elected board members will see their seats eliminated as their terms end, or earlier if they leave for other reasons. The first three appointees to leave or have their terms end also will have their seats eliminated.

– Revamp of the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) Board of Trustees to lower the number of elected members and add appointees. Rather than five contributing members of STRS and two retirees, the board will have two of the former and one of the latter. Meanwhile, the chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) or their designee will gain a seat, and the number of appointed investment experts will double. The state treasurer and governor will have two appointees apiece instead of one. The House speaker and Senate president will have one appointment apiece, rather than one shared appointee as in current law.

– In higher education, reduction of the pool of public college and university funding made contingent on SB1 (Cirino) compliance from $100 million to $75 million.

The conference committee report was accepted by both the House and Senate later on Wednesday with Republican votes only, sending it on to the governor who has until the start of FY26 on July 1 to consider any possible line-item vetoes. The House accepted the report on a vote of 59-38, picking up “no” votes from Republicans Reps. Tim Barhorst (R-Ft. Loramie), Levi Dean (R-Xenia), Ron Ferguson (R-Wintersville), Scott Oelslager (R-North Canton) and Michelle Teska (R-Centerville). The Senate accepted the conference committee report by a vote of 23-10 with Sen. Louis Blessing (R-Cincinnati) joining the Democrats in opposition.

EDUCATION

Ohio’s EdChoice scholarship violates the state constitution’s mandate for lawmakers to provide a “common” school system and its prohibition on giving control of education funding to religious sects, a Franklin County judge ruled Tuesday at the height of budget negotiations. However, in recognition of the seismic effects of such a decision on broader school funding questions and the certainty of appeals, Judge Jaiza Page stayed her ruling. A coalition of school districts and some resident families sued the state in 2022 to challenge EdChoice, arguing it violates the requirement in the Ohio Constitution for a “thorough and efficient system of common schools” and the prohibition on giving control of education funding to religious sects. They also argued it contributed to segregation of schools and violates equal protection guarantees.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY/STATEHOUSE

Rep. Dani Isaacsohn (D-Cincinnati) was officially elected House minority leader on Tuesday. During a brief session where no bills were considered, the House voted 94-3 to approve House Democrats’ new leadership team. Joining Isaacsohn in leadership are Rep. Phil Robinson (D-Solon) as assistant minority leader, Rep. Beryl Brown Piccolantonio (D-Gahanna) as minority whip and Rep. Desiree Tims (D-Dayton) as assistant minority whip. Those voting against the House Democrats’ leadership team were Reps. Beth Lear (R-Galena), Ron Ferguson (R-Wintersville) and Michelle Teska (R-Centerville). Rep. Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) announced she was stepping down as House minority leader earlier this month.

In addition to acting on the HB96 conference committee report, the Senate unanimously passed the following bills on Wednesday:

– HB80 (Stewart), the Industrial Commission FY26-27 budget.

– HB51 (Klopfenstein-King), designating a portion of U.S. Route 33 in Auglaize County as the “Lt. James A. Kirkendall Memorial Highway.”

– SB182 (Patton), designating a portion of State Route 10 in Cleveland as “John E. Gallagher Way.”

– SB212 (Timken), creating the “Play Golf Ohio” license plate.

House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said Wednesday he found “curious” the timing of a Franklin County Common Pleas Court ruling that determined the EdChoice school voucher program is unconstitutional just before legislative conferees agreed to a final budget package that included public and private school funding questions addressed in the decision. But he credited the judge for staying her own ruling immediately given how many students rely on the program. “The concept of lawfare by many of these folks has played out yesterday, clearly,” Huffman said, comparing the EdChoice litigation to a nascent lawsuit challenging the budget bill’s use of unclaimed funds for stadium projects.

On the same day both chambers of the General Assembly agreed to the conference report on HB96 (Stewart), which includes $600 million for the economic development project in Brook Park associated with the Cleveland Browns, two former elected officials have promised to challenge the move’s legality in court. Former state Rep. Jeffrey Crossman (D-Parma) and former Attorney General Marc Dann, both now private attorneys, announced Wednesday they had a draft class action lawsuit ready to file in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, pending HB96 being signed into law, if the state funding for the Brook Park project is not vetoed. The suit is on behalf of three Cuyahoga County residents and all others with funds held in the Unclaimed Funds Trust (UFT), from which HB96 will draw funds for the Brook Park project.

Ohio Athletic Commission (OAC) Executive Director Chuck Haskell blamed a changeover in directors, the COVID pandemic, and a lack of the latest software for a failure to file any rule updates for the commission since at least 2019. The Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR) had summoned Haskell to testify during its meeting Wednesday, with members calling the failure to file required rule updates and changes serious and concerning. JCARR Chair Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Concord), who made the “special request” for leaders of the commission to appear before the committee to explain why they have gone six consecutive years without filing their five-year rule updates, told Haskell that he hopes the director is aware of the severity of a lack of actions, which he said could lead to possible litigation against the commission. “This is not a minor thing.”

After proponents on SB118 (Lang) earlier this month told the Senate Local Government Committee that housing providers statewide are increasingly burdened by policies that are neither fair nor sustainable, opponents on Tuesday told the committee that provisions in the bill would increase utility costs for municipal water customers statewide. Tyler Converse, president of the Association of Ohio Drinking Water Agencies (AODWA), said Ohio’s public utilities are already under enormous financial pressure due to issues including aging and failing infrastructure and ever more stringent and onerous laws and regulations. While such pressures have already caused utility rate increases to outpace inflation, Converse said SB118 would burden all users of municipal utility systems, as opposed to property owners where renters may accumulate delinquent bills.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Backers of an effort to repeal higher education reform bill SB1 (Cirino) confirmed Thursday afternoon that it has fallen short. The law will take effect on Friday, June 27. The referendum effort was launched by a group of Youngstown State University professors. On Thursday, they said that despite their best efforts, they had only collected about 194,981 signatures, short of the 248,092 valid signatures needed in order to put the referendum on the November ballot.

Muskingum University President Susan S. Hasseler announced earlier this month she will retire at the conclusion of the 2025-2026 school year. Hasseler became the 21st president of Muskingum in 2016, and her retirement will close “a decade of transformative leadership marked by institutional growth, innovation, and a steadfast commitment to student access and success,” per a release from the university.

The main topic of Thursday’s JMOC hearing was Ohio’s experience with a single pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) under Medicaid, a change instituted alongside the overall managed care reforms of the DeWine administration. Sean Eckard, pharmacy director for ODM, said based on an analysis by actuarial firm Milliman, ODM estimates savings of $140 million in the program’s first two years. Sen. Beth Liston (D-Dublin) asked about the duration of ODM’s contract with single PBM vendor Gainwell Technologies, and at what point the department would anticipate re-bidding the contract. Eckard said the contract can be renewed in two-year intervals through FY29, at which point he would expect re-procurement.

PENSIONS

On their way to making elected members of the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) Board of Trustees a minority of the body, lawmakers also gave the appointing authorities for other board seats greater leeway to swap their selections. The change in the final version of HB96 (Stewart) specifies that appointed STRS board members serve at the pleasure of their appointing authority. Gov. Mike DeWine had argued that was already the case when he tried to sack then-trustee Wade Steen, but the 10th District disagreed, arguing that the law granted Steen a fixed, four-year term. DeWine was dropped as a party to the lawsuit and was unable to appeal, and his appointee to the seat to replace Steen, Brian Perera, did not file one himself. Steen left the board last fall. He is still the target of litigation by Attorney General Dave Yost, who has alleged Steen and current STRS Board Chair Rudy Fichtenbaum breached their fiduciary duty to the system. Both have denied the accusation strongly.

REDISTRICTING/REAPPORTIONMENT

Following the passage of Ohio’s operating budget for FY26-27 and a summer break, lawmakers will return later this year facing a Nov. 30 deadline to draw a new congressional map. House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said this spring that the House and Senate could work on the issue during July and August as Sept. 1 marks the first day either chamber could consider new maps. Huffman told Hannah News in June that redistricting this year would be “substantially different” from 2020 because legislators already have relevant data. Meanwhile, Kelly Dufour of national voter advocacy group Common Cause called the partisan makeup of Ohio’s Legislature one of three forces working against voters in Ohio ahead of the redistricting process, in addition to the state’s existing electoral maps and the work of Secretary of State Frank LaRose. Dufour said Thursday that Ohio’s forthcoming mapmaking process will be a complicated process, though she demurred on speculating what legal challenges may emerge. Dufour said that following voter ID requirements implemented in Ohio in recent years, more than 34,000 voters had to vote provisionally in 2024, up significantly from 2020. Dufour specifically drew attention to SB153 (Gavarone-Brenner), which requires verification of an elector’s citizenship before the elector may vote and modifies procedures regarding voter registration, voter roll maintenance, absentee voting and election petitions.

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION

The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) recently announced that a study of workers’ compensation rates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia showed Ohio had the fifth-lowest premium rates that were in effect as of Jan. 1, 2024. The study was conducted by the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services. Ohio had been ranked fifth-lowest in another 2022 study, but the new one found Ohio’s premium index rate had gone down even more, from 83 cents per $100 of payroll in 2022 to 68 cents in 2024. That contrasted from 2008, when Ohio was ranked third-highest for premiums nationwide. Including Ohio, only four states are the exclusive provider for workers’ compensation coverage in their state. Ohio ranked second in that group behind North Dakota, which had the lowest overall rates.