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A conversation with the leaders of the Ohio Senate.

That's this week in the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler for our year end interview with Senate President Rob McCauley and Minority Leader Nikki Antonio.

We had set an in-studio interview with them together just before the recording.

Mccauley's office said he had a conflict and would need to reschedule.

So I interviewed them separately with the same questions.

First, my conversation with leader Antonio, in which I started by asking her about Democrats frustration over the changes the Senate made to a bill regulating intoxicating hemp and putting further restrictions on legalize marijuana, which had been approved by voters in 2023.

I do believe that this overrides the will of the people.

I think it's an example that, once again, the majority in the legislature is out of touch with everyday Ohioans.

Every day, Ohioans said what they want it.

They voted for that issue, the ballot initiative.

And it was supposed to legalize adult use of marijuana.

What we have now is, death by a thousand cuts to that legalization process, decriminalizing things that right now are legal.

The, the only, silver I'm trying to think of the best way to say this is silver lining in the cloud of this bill is the fact that there are protections there for children, with intoxicating hemp, those, items, you know, making it age appropriate, setting, setting an age, making sure that they're only sold in dispensaries.

Some of those other things, the, the drinks go through the alcohol process.

I mean, all of that, those are good things.

But but to, create more criminal opportunities, with marijuana.

And I am very confused by this element of people coming in from out of state.

I'm not quite sure what that's all about.

But I just think it's going to lead to more problems for everyday Ohioans in their legal right to use marijuana.

I don't use marijuana.

Then, what we have even right now, one of the biggest issues we've been talking about all year has been property taxes.

Republicans have claimed that for recent property tax reform measures are about $2 billion in property tax relief and the most significant modernization of the property tax system in decades.

But they don't translate to big property tax cuts for people.

What did you hear from leadership on why Republicans wanted to continue with income tax cuts in the budget, as opposed to going to property taxes, when for so long, we've been hearing about how property taxes are the things people are clamoring for relief from.

I don't want to sound like, a record on repeat.

However, once again, the majority, Republicans are out of touch with everyday Ohioans.

People are telling us we need property tax relief.

Democrats had some I thought were very low hanging fruit ideas, a circuit breaker that would have given even renters the ability to have a rebate for the taxes that they pay.

It would have come in their income tax, which would have been awesome.

Also expanding the homestead exemption, there was a little bit of a change in the current law that was passed, but we could have done so much more and given so much more relief to so many more people.

And frankly, at the core of all of this, in the last budget, we had the opportunity to fully fund the fair school funding formula.

If we had done that, then property tax relief would have been effected, because every time we don't fully fund the public schools, those local communities have to come back to the taxpayers in the way of levy campaigns for not just schools, but for police and fire and libraries.

The legislature is not fulfilling their commitment and our responsibility to fully fund these programs.

Republicans have noted that some districts are sitting on large amounts, large percentages of their operating budgets.

I think a list from earlier this year had almost half of districts having at least 50% of their operating budget sitting in reserve, and that amounts to billions of dollars.

There are lots of reasons for that.

That goes to another Republican criticism about how schools aren't using their money and spending their money wisely.

Is it now time for schools to do more on property taxes that the state has done its part?

You know, I think the conversation around how those funds are used and when is the point where, the, the schools themselves actually actually make decisions in my district, I spoke with a couple of school districts that do have some funds in reserve.

They haven't gone back to the taxpayers in years for a levy campaign.

To me, that shows their responsibility and they're being good stewards of that.

Those funds.

And I think, we need to give more leeway to the local folks if we want to talk about best practices, maybe we should do that.

But to punitively limit and dictate to local communities, what they should and shouldn't be doing, I don't think is appropriate.

On that note, there have been some Republicans who have said we can't protect taxpayers from tax hikes, that they are choosing themselves.

I mean, last month was a good month in terms of levies, 65.5% of school levies passed, 90% of library levies passed.

There's a bill that would require 60% voter approval for levies.

They've also been, measures to eliminate replacement and emergency levies.

If one were suspicious, one might think lawmakers were attempting to limit what voters can decide on.

Not only yes, absolutely, limit what voters can decide on second guess voters.

Again, it's this paternalistic attitude of we the legislature, know better than you community folks in your own local community.

First of all, I think that's totally wrong and out of touch.

But secondly, it's problematic in terms of not only telling the voters that they're that they're wrong and that the legislature knows best, but it also distracts from the fact that the legislature is not fulfilling its part of the bargain and responsibility to funding in general, across the state.

to your state budget.

The past included $600 million in unclaimed funds from the state for the Cleveland Browns Stadium in Brook Park.

A federal judge has ruled that transfer can go forward, but the lawsuit over the constitutionality of using those funds in that way can continue.

The Browns will pay back that money, and if the stadium is the economic investment that its supporters have said it's going to be, then is that arguably a good use for that money, which that money those unclaimed funds weren't earning interest anyway.

And now you've got the city of Cleveland signed on to this deal.

Cobb County Executive Chris Ronayne has still pushed back on it.

But is that potentially going to be a good idea here?

Well, a couple things.

One, is the city of Cleveland signed off because they need to be done with this and move on.

The mayor has lots of important things to do in the city of Cleveland and can't and I think City council and the mayor together came up with the, the best they could, in a bad situation.

And, and hopefully now we'll be able to develop the lakefront.

So that's a good thing.

The money from the unclaimed funds.

I find it interesting.

Just this morning, I, heard about Colorado considering using their unclaimed funds, but they weren't using it to give billionaires, the opportunity to make billions more on the backs of the people on the of the state of Ohio.

They were actually considering putting their, some of their unclaimed funds to, helping fill in the gaps for people with health care because of the, the current situation where they're going to lose those, those rebates.

So I just find it interesting that the priorities in the state of Ohio are so skewed towards billionaires rather than everyday Ohioans.

We know trickle down doesn't work.

People in Northeast Ohio, people in the state of Ohio are not going to see the benefits of the Browns getting billions.

There's some religious themed legislation that's moved through here.

The Charlie Kirk Heritage Act will permit teachers to discuss the positive influence of religion, and specifically Judeo-Christian values, on American history.

The historical educational display, the Historic Educational Displays Act would permit the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms, along with the Declaration of Independence and the U.S.

Constitution, among others.

The Baby Olivia Act would require the showing of a fetal development video produced by an anti-abortion group starting in fifth grade, and there's discussion about stopping school boards from limiting the religious release time policy that allowed kids to go to Bible based, life wise programs off campus.

So is this too much religion, specifically Christianity in public policy, or is this what voters want?

I don't believe the voters asked for any of this.

You know, I found it ironic when we were talking about founding documents.

The founders were the descendants of people that left religious persecution in Europe, came to the United States, and then framed a constitution that was very clear about a couple of things.

One was no kings, the other one was no religion, no state religion.

They were very clear about that.

They understood that the strength of, democracy and of a country that's built with people from all walks and all experiences and all religious practices or no religious practice, the strength of that was built on that.

No one religion takes precedence over another.

And so all of this is a distraction, I think.

But it's also, very dangerous in terms of what we're exposing children to.

All I think about are the children who are not included, whose family practice is something different.

And it creates a situation where they could be othered, and made to feel less than simply because these policies are being imposed on our public schools.

Look, if people want to have their faith practice, enjoyed at school, then there are options for parents to send their children to religious based organizations and schools.

And I believe that's what we should be doing, not exposing our public school children to those I talked with Republican President Rob McCauley a few days later, starting with his reaction to Democrats comments that the changes to legalize marijuana went against what voters want.

it was hyperbole.

They voted in the past on something that was very similar, arguably something that that even went a little bit further.

The Democrats over in the House voted on something very similar when they passed their version out.

I think this is all politics on their part.

Really it's not.

It's it's preserving the.

I would challenge anybody to try and find how we are denying access to the products, the safe, legal, regulated, tested products that Ohioans voted for.

That's still going to be there.

The amendment was marketed as trying to treat marijuana like tobacco and alcohol.

There were some gaps that we needed to address in order to make sure that that was the case, and also make sure that those who do not want to use marijuana products, or those who want to enjoy a Sunday afternoon walking down the street with their family, don't have to walk through a plume of smoke.

So I think the changes we made were reasonable.

They really kind of filled some gaps that were an issue, too, and they preserve the access to the product that Ohioans voted for.

Probably the biggest issue we've talked about this years property taxes.

You've talked about it a lot on your, podcast.

Republicans have claimed before recent property tax bills that are now before the governor, our $2 billion in property tax relief and the most significant modernization of the property tax system in decades.

They don't, however, translate to big cuts for most people when it comes to property taxes.

Why do Republicans continue to cut income taxes instead of really targeting property taxes and doing property tax relief in the budget instead of income tax?

So the income taxes is something that, as you know, we've been working on for probably well over a decade since Governor Kasich came into office.

And it's something that when you look at the other states that are growing right now, you look at the other states that are seeing major capital investment and even Ohio now, now that we've kind of turned a corner, is seeing major capital investment, those states, what they have in common generally is a simplified low income tax structure.

And so we wanted to continue, down to where we were hoping to get, which is where we got in the budget with a flat income tax that we can be not only competitive in the Midwest, but in the entire country for investment.

On the property tax side, I think what you're seeing right now is a perfect storm of a variety of factors.

I would argue the property tax situation we're in right now, you can trace some of its origins way back to the housing crisis, back in 2008, when a number of home developers simply went out of business and the supply had suffered over the last 15, 16 years as a result of that.

And so, we're in kind of a perfect storm where you're seeing home prices, be more based on almost a commodity price rather than tied to inflation.

Which is why we thought this is, a time where we need to fix the system that's in place.

We need to make sure that the increases will be tied to inflation on a going forward basis, unless the voters and those individual political subdivisions actually vote themselves a property tax increase.

On that note, last month was a pretty good month for levees.

In spite of the anger over property taxes, 65.5% of school levies passed, 90% of library levies passed.

Quite often with overwhelming numbers.

But some Republicans have pointed out that voting for levies affects your property taxes.

Representative David Thomas from the House had said on X we can't protect taxpayers from tax hikes.

We choose ourselves at the ballot box.

So bills are passed to eliminate replacement and emergency levies.

There's a bill that would require 60% voter approval for property taxes.

If one were suspicious, one might think that lawmakers are attempting to limit what voters are allowed to vote on.

Well, I'm not sure, what the prognosis would be for the 60% voter approval.

I think that's probably a House speaker.

Hoffman says that's not going to happen.

Yeah, yeah.

So but the replacement and emergency levies, I think it highlighted part of the problem that we have with our property tax system and that there's not a lot of transparency.

So that was one of our goals when we entered this year was we need to make sure that their property tax system is easier to understand and then it's more transparent.

Emergency levies are a classic example of that.

You have emergency levies all over the state of Ohio, where people obviously they see on their ballot emergency levy for my school district.

And they say I love my school district.

They must be in dire straits.

I want to pass this emergency levy, not realizing that that emergency levy might have been on the books for 40 years in some cases, and constantly renewed in various sequences after that.

And also not realizing that the emergency levy in some cases was what was causing these unvetted unexpected, unanticipated spikes in property taxes because they're not counting against the calculation of the 20 minute floor.

And so, in those cases, we had to eliminate the emergency levy because, frankly, there were no criteria to put an emergency levy on.

And also it wasn't necessarily very good.

Truth in advertising.

We are allowing though, for those groups to continue to renew fixed some levies, which is a more appropriately titled levy, that would allow for those emergency type levies to continue, just not being called an emergency levy, and they have to be counted against the 20 mil floor.

Meaning you're not going to see an on voted on anticipated spike in property taxes because a district is claiming or is is, at the floor, but in reality, collecting way more than 20 mills.

So you don't feel lawmakers are doing anything to limit what taxpayers can vote on, what voters can approve?

No, they're still going to have an opportunity to place levies on the ballot.

They're still going to have an opportunity, to place a variety of mechanisms on the ballot that are going to generate revenue.

We needed to increase transparency and the ability for the voters, to have faith that they know when they go to the ballot box, they understand completely what's going to be happening when they vote in favor of something.

The two year budget included $600 million in unclaimed funds from the state for the Cleveland Browns Stone Stadium project in Brook Park, a federal judge has ruled that that money can be transferred from unclaimed funds into the fund that will be used to pay for that.

Why is this a good use of public dollars, especially when you're talking about a billionaire who's going to pay half of the cost.

But why is this a good use of public dollars?

So when we we look at this project, we looked at it as an economic development project.

And frankly, we also looked at, at the Senate, our big goal was to make sure that it is a good return on investment of those dollars, and that's money that was sitting dormant.

And I think we ran an aging report on all the funds that were in the unclaimed funds and all of the money that would be going to this has been sitting there for at least 18 years unclaimed.

People have not sought to retrieve it or anything of that sort.

And so my big push was, we need to be sure we're going to get our money back, and we need to be sure we're going to get a return on investment that's going to generate more tax revenues for the state of Ohio.

So the mechanisms that we put in place, as it concerns not only the security that needs to be put up, by by the, the Haslam family, but also the mechanisms we put in place to make sure we get a return.

So if you ran a net present value calculation, which is essentially designed to, figure out if the price you're paying for something is overpriced or underpriced and what the actual value is right now of what you're paying for the stream of cash flow, that we believe we will get.

We are underpaying by $400 million for that stream of cash flow.

So I understand, people, may look at it this favorably, but I am confident that on the whole, it's going to be a net positive for the state of Ohio.

It's going to generate more tax revenue for the state of Ohio than than what we're outlining for it.

And it's something that we have teeth in place to make sure that if it doesn't generate that tax revenue, the, the ownership group of the Cleveland Browns is going to have to be on the hook to pay the state back.

There was a report that the auditor's office put out saying that a large number of businesses that have been given tax incentives and other credits from the state have not delivered on promises and enforcement is a problem.

So in is is are you concerned about that in general that the state is offering businesses and entities tax credits and incentives, but not getting the return generally?

Yeah.

Yes.

I do think that there needs to be more oversight over that stuff.

You know, obviously we need to be competitive with other states in the country as far as attracting economic development projects.

And in some ways, the game is what the game is, that you have to be aggressive and offering incentives to attract major investment to your state.

But at the same time, we do need to hold people's feet to the fire.

That's one thing we did, with the stadium that's in statute, they won't have a choice but to comply with that.

But also, I would say that the people who are responsible for the enforcement mechanisms of our economic development projects, need to be a little bit more strong handed when the time comes to deliver on those projects.

There have been some religious themed legislation.

Pieces of legislation moving through the Charlie Kirk Heritage Act would permit teachers to discuss the positive influence of religion, and specifically Judeo-Christian values, on American history.

The Historic Educational Displays Act would permit the Ten Commandments, along with, the U.S.

Constitution and the Declaration of Independence in classrooms, among others.

The baby Olivia Act would require the showing of a fetal development video produced by an anti-abortion group starting in fifth grade and public schools.

There's also discussion about stopping school boards from limiting the religious release time policy that's allowed kids to go to the Bible based, life wise program.

All of this is this too much religion, specifically Christianity in public policy?

Or is this what voters want?

I think if you look at the founding of this country and you look at, particularly the the influence of religion over the growth and development of this country, I think when you're talking about history of this country, you have to in some ways have a have a cursory glance at the way that religion impacted that the different religious principles that are in place, that, that, that helped the, the founding of the country or the state.

We have a religious state motto.

How can you discuss that without discussing the role of religion without founding?

Yes.

Without, you know, how can you discuss that without discussing the role of religion?

Even in the founding of the state of Ohio?

And so we need to have an appropriate, look at religion and, its impacts and also its benefits.

And I think when you look at the, the core tenets of, many religions, many of them are what, informs many of our moral beliefs.

Many of them are what informs our our the morals of much of our society.

So I do think there's an appropriate role that discussion of religion can have in even in our public schools, And finally, Republicans in the legislature have really lined up behind the likely Republican nominee next year, Vivek Ramaswamy.

He's talked about what he wants to do, like eliminating income taxes, improving education, giving teachers merit pay while slashing property taxes, bringing down electric bills by requiring data centers to pay for their own energy.

Will there be things that we will see in the coming year that kind of smooth the way for him?

Well, we'll be talking points that we're going to see in the governor's race really influence what you folks do in in the legislature.

Well, we in the legislature are are, I don't think we all have to have only good ideas come from the legislature.

So if there are good ideas that come from, Vivek Ramaswamy or anybody else, we're going to take a look at those.

And they very well could influence the policy that we're going to we're going to implement on a going forward basis.

But, I, I look forward to Vivek's candidacy.

I think he's going to make an excellent governor and, look forward to getting out on the trail and trying to help him, get across the finish line.

And Tony, you said one of her priorities is the bill she's long championed to end the death penalty in Ohio.

McCauley said that while the bill does have bipartisan support, it's a complicated issue, and he's not sure it will get the support it will need to move forward.

And that is it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Media.

Thanks for watching.

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Happy New Year and please join us again next time for the State of Ohio.

Support for the Statehouse News Bureau comes from Medical Mutual, dedicated to the health and well-being of Ohioans, offering health insurance plans, as well as dental, vision and wellness programs to help people achieve their goals and remain healthy.

More at Med mutual.com.

The law offices of Porter, right, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Porter, right, is dedicated to bringing inspired legal outcomes to the Ohio business community.

More at Porter.

Right.

Com Porter Wright inspired every day.

You know, Ohio Education Association representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools.

Every child deserves more at o h e talk.