Week in Review 8-18-25

Week in Review > Week in Review 8-18-25

Posted by Buckeye Association of School Administrators on August 18th, 2025

BALLOT ISSUES

A group behind a proposed constitutional amendment to enshrine LGBTQ rights and other protections into the Ohio Constitution had their newly filed petition language certified by Attorney General Dave Yost Friday after the Ohio Ballot Board had split their previous proposal into two separate issues. Ohio Equal Rights had sought to collect signatures on one issue, but on a party-line vote, the Ballot Board last month separated out language that would repeal Ohio’s 2004 gay marriage ban into its own separate issue. The petitioners must now collect signatures from registered voters equal to at least 10 percent of the vote cast in the most recent gubernatorial election for each issue. Those signatures must come from voters in at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, and for each of those counties the number must equal at least 5 percent of the vote cast in the most recent gubernatorial election.

Saying there is no hope for state lawmakers to address the property tax issue, Butler County Commissioner Don Dixon told Hannah News that he and other local officials have tried to go through the legislative procedure in order get a handle on skyrocketing property taxes, and have worked with local lawmakers including Sen. George Lang (R-West Chester) and Rep. Thomas Hall (R-Middletown). But now fed up with inaction, he said they are discussing moving forward with their own constitutional amendment.

The issue is currently stalled in the Legislature as lawmakers are on their summer recess. Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed several proposals approved by legislators as part of the biennial budget HB96 (Stewart) and has convened his own property tax study group led by former Rep. Bill Seitz and Pat Tiberi, CEO of the Ohio Business Roundtable. The House has overridden one of those vetoes, and the Senate plans to take up that veto override in the fall.

FY26-27 BUDGET

We Are Ohio, the group behind the 129-SB5 referendum that overturned collective bargaining legislation, said it has begun running digital ads on Facebook and Instagram encouraging Ohioans to oppose overrides of vetoes made by Gov. Mike DeWine to biennial budget HB96 (Stewart). The ads encourage Ohioans to contact Ohio senators and oppose overriding the vetoes.

IT’S IN THE FY26-27 BUDGET

No longer will individuals ages 18-20 be able to get their driver’s licenses without any driver’s education, thanks to a provision added by lawmakers in biennial budget HB96 (Stewart). The provision was added by the House to the bill, removed by the Senate, and re-added to the final version by the conference committee. It requires all individuals under the age of 21, instead of 18, to complete a full driver’s education course and 50 hours of practice driving with an eligible adult in order to obtain an initial driver’s license. Additionally, the language modified the abbreviated driver training course for adults to apply to individuals 21 and older, rather than 18 and older.

EDUCATION

Perrysburg Schools Superintendent Thomas Hosler is the next CEO of the Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA), following the departure of Kathy McFarland to lead a national group. Hosler has been superintendent in Perrysburg since 2007. He also was a finalist to become state superintendent in 2022 and has been active in the Fair School Funding Workgroup, which has advocated the past several years for adoption of the K-12 formula developed by local school leaders, former Speaker Bob Cupp and former Rep. John Patterson. McFarland led OSBA for about two years, following the retirement of Rick Lewis in 2023; she had been deputy executive director of OSBA before that.

At a recent Business Advisory Council Townhall hosted by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce and the Ohio Association for Career Technical Education (Ohio ACTE), numerous business advisory councils were presented with excellence awards. All Ohio school districts and educational service centers (ESC) are required to have business advisory councils (BAC) to bring together education and business leaders.

ELECTIONS 2026

Former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will seek to return to the Senate next year nearly two years after he was ousted by now U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), according to multiple reports on Tuesday. Brown will seek to unseat U.S. Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), who was appointed earlier this year to replace now Vice President JD Vance. Cleveland.com was the first outlet to report Brown’s plans, citing several Ohio labor leaders whom Brown spoke to. Reports earlier this month had Brown meeting with U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The race between Brown and Moreno was among the most expensive in the country last year, and next year’s race is expected to be no different.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY/STATEHOUSE

The chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee isn’t happy with the tax provisions that his fellow Republicans approved as part of budget law HB96 (Stewart). Speaking during a panel discussion at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce Tax Conference on Thursday, Sen. Louis Blessing (R-Cincinnati) said the budget’s income tax cut was “deeply irresponsible. … I didn’t say this on the Senate floor out of respect for my colleagues, but I do not believe that it has the return on investment that they think it will. We’re going to wind up looking like Kansas at the end of the day, when all of this comes through — maybe not this cycle, maybe not the next cycle, but with everything going on, I think that was a mistake. … I think there is a general belief in my caucus in particular that if you continue cutting income taxes, more money will flow in to offset those cuts,” he continued. “There is obviously an economic bump to that, but it certainly doesn’t pay for itself the way these folks think it would.” Blessing also discussed his interest in reining in certain tax expenditures.

The Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR) made a last-minute addition to its regular agenda Thursday and referred one rule each to its to-be-refiled and withdrawn columns, followed by public testimony from opponents of proposed rules for certified medication aides (CMA) filed by the Ohio Board of Nursing (OBN) after passage of 135-SB144 (Romanchuk). CMA rules drew opposition testimony during an Aug. 4 public hearing and received more pushback at JCARR Thursday from Paul Dohse of Xenia, a licensed professional nurse (LPN) and former medication aide-certified (MA-C), and Sherri Gunasekera of Beavercreek, a licensed nursing home administrator and registered nurse (RN), among other credentials. JCARR took no further action on the rule.

JUDICIAL

Eighteen counties and some 70 school districts stretching from Northwest to Southeast Ohio are celebrating after the Ohio Supreme Court Wednesday affirmed the Board of Tax Appeals’ $3.67 billion valuation for the 700-mile Rover Pipeline linking natural gas fields in shale-rich Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio to industrialized Michigan and sister pipelines reaching Canada and all parts of the U.S. At more than twice the pipeline owners’ $1.79 billion valuation, the Court’s unanimous finding is a major boon to local jurisdictions and public schools facing long-delayed revenues for the 2019-2023 tax years, during which the interstate pipeline paid reduced levies while the case was on appeal. “The operating budgets of local governments — particularly school districts — are unstable since Rover tax payments have not been finalized. Second, construction projects that are in part dependent upon the property tax monies from Rover have increased in cost because the projects have been delayed. Third, interest rates for financing those types of projects have increased because of the delay in those projects, causing local governments to incur additional debt service expenses,” state 18 county auditors, the Buckeye Association of School Administrators (BASA), Ohio Association of School Business Officials (OASBO), Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA), Ohio Township Association (OTA), Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association (OPAA) and Ohio Library Council (OLC).

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STATE LEGISLATURES (NCSL)

Hannah News has compiled its comprehensive coverage of the 2025 National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) Legislative Summit in Boston into one document. Coverage ran the gamut from using/regulating artificial intelligence (AI) to the economy to education to cannabis to Medicaid to broadband to elections and so much more. The compilation can be found HERE.

The One Big, Beautiful Bill included new tax policy promoting school choice, but a lot of implementation questions won’t be answered until federal regulators fill in the details, an NCSL policy specialist said during a Legislative Summit discussion. House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) told Hannah News he sees it as highly significant. Emily Katz Sayag, associate legislative director for NCSL, gave an overview of the new federal tax credit for donations to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs), set to take effect in 2027. It will provide a dollar-for-dollar credit up to $1,700 for donations to nonprofits that fund scholarships. Katz Sayag reviewed the criteria for SGOs and families, including a household income limit of 300 percent of the area median income (AMI). She cited Urban Institute estimates that show about 90 percent of U.S. households fall under that threshold. “While this is not a fully universal eligibility, it is quite close to that,” she said. Speaking to Hannah News following a different NCLS session, Huffman said he got “an incredible response” from private schools when Ohio created its SGO program, and the federal policy will amplify its effects. “I can put money in this and it doesn’t cost me anything — a credit versus a deduction,” he said.

Unlike any other tax issue that lawmakers tackle, Vermont Rep. Emilie Kornheiser said the work around property taxes is emotional. “I love my home,” Kornheiser said during a panel at NCSL. “I love it like a person sometimes. I don’t feel that way about my bank account or my paycheck or really anything else in my life that’s tied to dollars. I know that’s not just true for me, it’s true for my constituents, so the work is very emotional. The property valuation is very emotional, the property tax bill is very emotional, and … the risks that our constituents feel around property taxes can be very emotional, so it makes this work much harder and it makes having conversations about the precision and the stability of the tax code feel even more tone deaf than some other tax policy conversations can feel, which are often tone deaf.” Bethany Paquin, senior research analyst, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a nonprofit that seeks to improve the quality of life through the effective use, taxation and stewardship of land, set the current landscape around home values and property taxes across the country. She said states across the country experienced record home price growth between 2020 and 2022, and prices have continued to rise since then but at a more moderate pace.

A tight labor market, waning concerns about the COVID pandemic and high inflation are driving more people to leave retirement and return to the workforce — a workforce that will continue to get older in the aggregate as the nation ages. An NCSL panel explored the effects and possibilities of that trend, featuring Angela Rowe, NCSL policy specialist focused on pensions, retirement and public sector employment; Carly Roszkowski, vice president of financial resilience programming at AARP; and Montana Rep. Llew Jones. Rowe said the changing nature of work makes it easier for retirees to return for part-time, flexible and remote roles. NCSL legislative tracking found close to 100 bills on the subject of reemployment after retirement, with just under 40 enacted, she said.

While foreign investment in U.S. agricultural land has increased in the last 15-20 years, China’s share of that has decreased since 2021 from 383,000 acres to 277,000 acres in 2023, said Danny Munch of the American Farm Bureau Federation. At NCSL, Munch reviewed the share of ag land that is owned by foreign nations and China owns about 0.2 percent of the foreign-owned ag land in America. Sixty-two percent of foreign ag land is owned by Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Germany, Munch said, with almost half of all ag land being forest. Munch said the reason European countries are largely eyeing property ownership, leasing or use in the U.S. is because they have nowhere else to expand for renewable energy, like solar or wind, and they need to buy cheap land to keep pace with demand.

PENSIONS

An auditor hired by the Ohio Retirement Study Council (ORSC) for a periodic check of actuarial calculations used by the School Employees Retirement System (SERS) found nothing substantial to report, the council heard Thursday. State law calls for the five public retirement systems to undergo actuarial audits once per decade. ORSC hired consulting firm PTA-KMS-Bolton to conduct the audit for SERS, and consultant Linda Bournival presented the results to the council Thursday. “The major finding: no news was good news,” she said.

Next in the rotation is the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS). ORSC Chair Rep. Adam Bird (R-Cincinnati) established a subcommittee for the actuarial audit of OPERS to be chaired by Sen. Willis Blackshear (D-Dayton). Other members include Rep. Phil Plummer (R-Dayton) and gubernatorial council appointee and former Rep. Gary Scherer, with OPERS Executive Director Karen Carraher serving as a non-voting member. Such subcommittees typically solicit bids and then recommend to the full council a firm to conduct the audit.

POLITICS

When it comes to youth engagement in the political process, House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn (D-Cincinnati) says it is a growing problem in Ohio relative to nearby states. Speaking at a Columbus Metropolitan Club (CMC) forum Wednesday, Isaacsohn said the state has young people registered to vote at “far lower rates,” and lower rates of turnout among younger voters. “I do think we have failed to engage a diverse group of people in our democracy and government,” Isaacsohn said, adding that entire swaths of the state have been lacking representation in their state government. Isaacsohn was part of a panel titled “The Next Wave: The New Leaders Shaping Ohio Politics” held in Columbus, which also featured Rep. Munira Abdullahi (D-Columbus), Whitehall Treasurer Shaquille Alexander, Sen. Michele Reynolds (R-Canal Winchester), and Rep. David Thomas (R-Jefferson).

The Ohio Democratic Patty’s (ODP) announced its rural caucus has elected new leadership. Christopher Gibbs will serve as chair, while Jordan Horstman will serve as vice chair and Troy Scott as secretary. ODP formed its Rural Caucus in 2023 to support Democratic values in rural communities; to identify, discuss, and address rural issues; and to accurately represent the needs of rural Democrats at all levels.

PROPERTY TAX

The Property Tax Reform Working Group discussed five proposals that have been advanced on the issue at its meeting Thursday, reaching some consensus on two. Those included having a trigger percentage, such as 100 percent, in excess of the carryover at which time a taxing jurisdiction would have to justify to its county budget commission why the money was needed, rather than what Co-Chair Bill Seitz called an “arbitrary restriction” on the carryover amount. The other consensus item was that the county budget commission should have to wait “a decent interval” of time following voter approval of a levy before reducing it, Seitz told reporters, along with more specific definitions of “unnecessary and excessive” in the context of the commission’s authority to act on levies found to meet that standard. There was also general agreement around HB186 (Hoops-D. Thomas), though discussions are ongoing about inside millage and whether to provide an offset to school districts through the school funding formula. The formula is expected to be discussed more at the next meeting on Thursday, Aug. 21.

PUBLIC SAFETY

As families prepare for the approaching academic year, the DeWine administration is asking drivers to protect students by following traffic and school bus laws. Ohio has seen 6,225 crashes involving school buses since 2020, including five fatal crashes involving one deceased student and four other deaths. “While school buses are considered the safest mode of transportation for students, their safety depends heavily on every driver remaining vigilant while behind the wheel,” Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement. “There is nothing more important than our kids, and it’s our shared responsibility to keep them safe.” The governor recently signed legislation creating a new school bus safety grant program to help schools upgrade or add safety features to buses.

REDISTRICTING/REAPPORTIONMENT

With Ohio the only state required to redraw its congressional map in 2025, a number of groups are coming back together to reform the Equal Districts Coalition with a message for lawmakers drawing the lines — Do the right thing. While other states are voluntarily redrawing congressional district lines to maximize political gain ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Ohio is required to redraw its lines because the previous map adopted in 2021 did not have any bipartisan support, limiting its use for only four years under the Ohio Constitutional amendment adopted by voters in 2018. Members of the Equal Districts Coalition held an event at the Statehouse Thursday calling on lawmakers to draw fair districts in a transparent way. The coalition, made up of representatives from environmental, education, civil rights, and several other advocacy groups, highlighted what they said were the stakes as Ohio redraws its lines. Republicans currently hold 10 of the state’s 15 congressional districts, but they could attempt to draw the lines to increase their advantage by two to three seats.