Support for the Statehouse News Bureau comes from the law offices of Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

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

More at Porter Wright.com.

Porter Wright.

inspired every day.

And from the Ohio education Association, representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools every child deserves.

More at OHEA.org A tax expert predicts the impact of abolishing property taxes.

And it's big.

And governor DeWine effort to move the pardon process along has helped hundreds, but it could be near an end.

That's this weekend.

The state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

The leftovers from the flurry of activity generated by state lawmakers last month before they left for summer break have been cleaned up.

As governor Mike DeWine signed 14 bills into law.

Among those bills is one that requires the state to issue cards with electronic chips to snap or food stamp recipients.

Senate Bill 315 also mandates that home health care workers paid by Medicaid electronically verify when they are working with clients and when they leave.

But the bill does not include a ban on Medicaid payments to people providing home health care for family members.

That was added after a report from a conservative outlet alleged widespread fraud among home health care workers paid by Medicaid in Ohio in 2020, for which the state has not fully confirmed.

Disabled Ohioans and their advocates were vocal and outraged in their opposition, leading lawmakers to strip out that provision quickly after it was added.

DeWine also signed Senate Bill 276, which started as an uncontroversial plan addressing licenses for school psychologist coming to Ohio, who hold licenses in six other states.

But it got Partizan opposition when a conservative backed proposal called the success sequence, was added last month.

That's a formula promoted by many conservative groups claiming that graduating high school, getting a job, marrying and then having children results in a better economic outcome than doing those things in a different order.

Republicans say teaching the success sequence gives young people tools to make informed decisions, but Democrats say it's another burden on teachers and doesn't account for other factors faced by people in poverty.

A constitutional amendment to abolish property taxes in Ohio will not make this fall's ballot.

As the all volunteer Committee to Abolish Property Taxes or Acts, Ohio Tax said it will not submit the signatures it's gathered over the last year.

Though the group won't say how many signatures they do have, but they are still collecting them.

And many Ohioans say their frustration over soaring property taxes is growing, and they're not satisfied with legislators efforts to reduce those bills.

What's happening in Ohio got the attention of from the Tax Foundation, who used it as a test case to look into the effect of replacing property taxes with an alternative tax.

He wrote a paper for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a think tank that researches issues involving use of land, including affordable housing, climate and environmental concerns, and taxation.

His report says the current state sales tax of 5.75% would have to more than double, and the 2.75% flat income tax that was just adopted in the current budget would have to more than triple.

My state House News Bureau colleague Jo Ingles spoke with him about his study.

The property tax raise is about $21 billion a year, so any replacement will have to be quite large.

If you're looking at a single rate flat income tax like Ohio has now, you go from 2.75% to about 8.24% in my estimates.

If you look at a graduated rate tax, it'll obviously depend on the details.

But even the more broad based ones that are not as progressive, you're looking at at least a 12% top rate.

It could be much higher than that.

And then if you were going to replace this with a sales tax, you're going from a state rate of about 5.75% to a rate of 13.36%.

And in all of these cases, you have local taxes as well, because you have municipal income taxes, about 2% more on average, and you have local sales taxes.

So we're talking 14.5% sales tax rate, maybe a 10.25% flat income tax rate to replace the property tax.

One of those two.

And you did look at the way that they would be applied in different areas.

And there was a difference you saw between suburban areas, for example, or a rural urban rules, a rural area.

There we go.

Tell me about that.

If you replace the property tax at the state level, the state then has to remit revenue back to local governments and school districts so that they can pay their bills.

And there's always a challenge of how do you do this?

Because you can't just replace the property tax.

Dollar isn't a property to replace anymore.

So either you're going to take the prior year, the last year's property tax collections and adjust those forward for inflation, population change every year, or you're going to come up with some other formula.

This would be up to the legislature.

So I tried this in a couple of ways.

Standard way would be inflation and population.

That would be the most logical way to do this.

But look at other ways to basically any way you run this because urban areas, larger cities are going to have higher property taxes.

Now, if you replace revenue, you're subsidizing them.

The replacement tax will fall on everyone, but the revenues will go more towards those already higher tax areas.

So if you look at an income tax or a sales tax, you see that the rural areas and the smaller suburban areas get significant tax increases on net because everyone is paying more in income or sales tax, but they're paying much more in income or sales tax, and they're getting less of it back to their community, more of its flowing to other jurisdictions.

So you lose that local control.

You no longer really have a say over the size of your local government, and you may be paying to subsidize some other jurisdiction, some other school districts, some other city, and not your own.

So what's the answer here?

Is there an answer?

The answer is recognizing that for all its flaws, the property tax is actually the best tax we have to fund local government.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about when rates go too high.

It doesn't mean we shouldn't be open to reform.

But when you're looking at a tax swap, hopefully you're looking at taking a bad tax and replacing it with a better tax or finding a way to make it more efficient.

And that's not what this is.

The property tax is more economically efficient than the alternative.

So you would have worse economic effects if you went to higher income or sales taxes.

It also breaks that connection between local property, local individuals and the services that they receive as homeowners or as residents.

So that's a worse deal for just about everyone.

People don't like the property tax, and I get that part of it's the transparency of it that, you know what you're paying in property taxes.

You may not know what you're paying, and state income taxes, you definitely don't know what you're paying in state sales taxes.

But transparency is good.

We shouldn't penalize the property tax for being transparent when other taxes are not.

And we should also recognize that it's good for you to feel the tax a little when you think your property taxes are too high.

You can go to local government, and you can have a conversation with local elected officials that you actually have some real influence over as a local voter.

And you can also evaluate, am I getting my money's worth if the state takes over this responsibility?

Almost all of that accountability is gone.

So what about fee for services?

You didn't look at that in this, did you?

I didn't in this paper.

And that is certainly an option for some things.

But it is not a replacement for the property tax.

So different different states have different models about how much is funded through general property taxes and how much you might have different taxes for or different fees for certain utilities.

For certain services, you can bundle or unbundle those as you wish.

And there's a case for unbundling them.

There's cases against it too.

Obviously, it means that sort of people are going to be paying more.

Certain people can pay paying less, and that's always going to be a debate.

But going separate on your trash service is not going to eliminate the property tax.

There's just no way, really.

We're talking about $21 billion worth of revenue.

This is, to put it in context, significantly more than the state raises in either the income or the sales tax.

It's not higher than both combined, but it's higher than either of them separately.

You're not going to replace that with fees for services.

We can always talk on the margins about improvements, but that's a different conversation and replacing the tax.

So the bottom line is I'm hearing you say you can't get something for nothing basically.

Is that it?

Pretty much.

We have to pay for local services now.

It's just a question of how we do that.

Do we want a tax that's relatively economically efficient, that relatively conforms to what's called the benefit test, where you're paying in proportion to the benefit of the services you receive, truly local services that benefit your property.

Better schools mean that your home is worth more.

Better roads, better parks.

All of those actually accrue to the value of your property and make it more attractive to live there.

Do we want that or do we want it to tax this less economically efficient?

That has nothing to do with the value of your property.

That really gives you no control over the size of your local government, or what you're getting for your money, and often may send your tax dollars to another jurisdiction.

Those are the choices we have to fund it.

The question is just how.

In his seven years in office, governor Mike DeWine has pardoned more people with felony convictions than any other governor in Ohio history.

He's issued 359 pardons, well beyond the 86 pardons issued by Governor John Kasich over eight years, and even more than the 290 pardons from Governor Ted Strickland in his one four year term.

300 of those pardons have been the result of DeWine expedited pardon program, which began in December 2019 as an alternative to the traditional clemency process with DeWine time in office.

Winding down, his administration is trying to get the word out about the program to encourage those who are eligible to apply.

I talked with the wines chief pardon, attorney Sarah Akman.

The governor has the power to pardon anyone after the parole board hears a case and makes a recommendation on clemency.

So why was this particular expedited program created?

The reason that the expedited pardon program was created is because the system was really bogged down, and we wanted to create an opportunity the governor did for reform citizens that are leading exemplary lives to have a second chance.

And because the system was so bogged down, that's what he tasked his team to find a way to do.

And so initially, we met with University of Akron School of Law and Ohio State.

University of Akron had been doing this work, and so we wanted to talk to them about what their experience had been.

And then we started working with the parole board as well, to figure out a way that we could speed this process up for eligible people that met the criteria that we determined, which I'll talk about in just a minute.

And so we created a process where multiple things are happening at one time, rather than one thing at a time.

So you turn in your application to the law school.

If you're approved, then you start working on your full application with free one on one legal assistance throughout that entire process.

But at the same time, the parole board is doing their background check, so that helps speed up the process.

Then you get an expedited review with the pro board and then expedited review at our office as well.

But again, the reason is because the process was so bogged down with so many applications.

I mean, we've received thousands of applications and governor DeWine tenure.

And so he really wanted to find people that were deserving of this chance so he could use this, this great power.

When you talk about deserving, there are obviously certain crimes that are not eligible for this.

What what's considered deserving of an expedited pardon?

Well, the stories are actually quite remarkable that we get to read and to experience.

And it's people that have turned their lives around, are doing wonderful things in their community, but they're being held back, having a felony conviction on your record, even if you're doing great things, is going to limit you, whether it's volunteer opportunities or educational opportunities or work opportunities.

And this program is really a workforce multiplier.

You know, we're looking in Ohio to try to build out our workforce, and there's lots of deserving people that have turned their lives around or living these exemplary lives, but are being held back because of their convictions.

And the convictions that don't qualify are anything.

Sexual, violent crimes, homicide, things like that.

But there's a whole host of other convictions that would qualify.

Yes, that is correct.

So there are certain disqualifying offenses.

Those would include anything of a sexual assault, nature, domestic violence and anything related to a homicide.

But we still look at any sort of convictions.

It could be anything from aggravated robbery to a minor theft.

And we really look at each case individually.

The facts of the case, the underlying facts, how long they've been, you know, post sentence, what they've been doing in their life.

Does this expunge or seal their records?

So the governor receive the power under the law, I want to say approximately 2021 to also seal a record when he issues a pardon.

Previous to that law, only a judge could do that.

And the benefit is that prior to him having that ability, your record would still list all of your offenses.

It would just notate that you've received a pardon.

And so those were still showing up on people's background checks with the ability to seal the record.

Those don't show up any more.

Does does this always seal someone's record or is that kind of a case by case?

It's a case by case basis.

But I would say that the vast majority also receive the record to be sealed.

So you say you've gotten thousands of applications.

Have they just come from Ohio?

How many Ohioans and how many people in general would you estimate are eligible?

So we've received over 1800 applications just through the expedited pardon program from 33 states and also from 85 counties, in addition to Canada.

And so we've received lots of occasions that are in all different stages of the process.

The governor has granted 300 through this program, but it's important to note that if you don't meet the criteria for the program, that you can still go through the traditional process.

And he has granted 59 through the traditional process as well.

So what's the success rate for the program?

You say you've gotten 1800 applications, 300 have been approved.

That implies kind of a lower success rate.

Well, it's sort of deceiving in that some of the applications are still pending.

Some are still with the parole board, some have withdrawn, some were not eligible.

So there's a whole breakdown of where those are all in the process.

with a lower success rate are there any that are denied entirely and pushed off?

Yeah, I think that it's important for people looking at this program to know that the great majority of people who go through the program, of the applications that make it through the process are granted.

The governor has only denied 14 to date, and I imagine that as you're trying to go through this process and this is expedited parole as well as the regular process, you want to make the best case for yourself.

So what what do people need to know, or do they work with the law students on making the best case for themselves to to really improve their chances, to make the best case for people, whether you're going through the traditional or with the law schools, I think mirroring what the law schools are doing with people to put forward the best application possible.

That includes a letter, a personal letter to the governor from the applicant talking about their life and what they've been doing and the facts of the crime, so that there's just real context for the individual.

Also, support letters are hugely important and always a part of the applications through the expedited pardon program.

I always tell people, whatever you think that the governor want to know when he's making this important decision.

Now, you've partnered with the University of Akron School of Law, as you mentioned, in Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, also Cleveland State University College of Law and University of Dayton School of Law.

Why do that?

And what are the law students get out of working in this program?

I also want to add that we just recently added Toledo College of Law to our list as well.

So now we're up to six when we started with two.

So that's really exciting that we have the state covered.

Now can you go back to the question?

Absolutely.

What does this do for the law students.

Why would they want to work with them?

Yes.

It's so wonderful that the law students, we get such great feedback, not only from the applicants on their experience with the law students, but also we're creating a workforce within the legal career because this is a really it's a niche area of the law that not a lot of lawyers practice.

And so we're creating this workforce of, you know, budding lawyers that will now know how to do this work.

What is keeping people who are eligible for this from applying?

Because you've talked about this now, it's been in place for six years.

What's keeping people from doing this?

I think the biggest thing that we need to do with this program is try to get the word out.

So I'm so glad I had this opportunity to talk to you today.

We've just really started an active effort to get out there as much as possible and start presenting on this program.

We want to make sure that everyone that is eligible is aware of it.

And that has really been our biggest challenge, is getting the word out.

Are you concerned that some people who are eligible are not applying because they're suspicious of the system?

They don't think that they stand a chance.

They they just they think that it'll be a waste of their time.

Yeah, I think I think people think that before they start this process, we've gotten so much feedback from the people that have gone through the process that it was not that.

And they were surprised to see, you know, that someone would actually look at them and give them a second chance.

I think there is an impression with the public that pardons, you know, aren't just for the everyday person.

And in Ohio, they really are.

And we want to give people a second chance.

And so we have testimonials on the website of people that have gone through the process that talk about that.

Can you get an expedited pardon if you have been convicted more than once, if you've been imprisoned more than once, you can get a pardon for multiple offenses.

We've had more people with more than 20 offenses that have received a pardon.

And so there is no limit on the number of convictions.

You just can't have those disqualifying offenses.

It's probably good to note here what the qualifications for the program are.

You have to have ten years from the end of your last conviction with no offenses in that ten year period, and that means from the end of your sentence.

So if you came out on probation or post-release control, it's ten years from the end of that terminating.

We also like to see people working some sort of volunteer or working in your community in some way and giving back, and then no disqualifying offenses.

You mentioned working, and that's obviously a big part of this, because there are certainly employers who would not want to look at people who have been convicted of felonies.

And I'm wondering if there is a desire to give people a second chance here.

Couldn't state lawmakers do that?

Couldn't they lift some of these restrictions or these restrictions?

A big part of why people are seeking these pardons, it's a huge it's a huge reason for people to seek a pardon.

The number, the number one reason is work.

And the number two reason is volunteer opportunities.

I think that the legislature has been certainly proactive in trying to reform the law in terms of second chances.

We've seen that in several bills over the last several years.

But I think that it is.

It's a it's a difficult balance to balance public safety while also balancing people's second chance.

Right.

I think that's the beautiful thing about this project is that we have a team of people that are experienced and know what to look for, and we can really go through the cases and make those case by case analysis.

And you mentioned volunteer opportunities.

There are certain volunteer opportunities that would not permit people who have felony convictions from participating.

Yeah, there are volunteer opportunities that are limited for people.

A couple of examples of people that have had better opportunities since getting a pardon I wanted to mention to you, and one was Red cross being able to carry blood, but the one we hear the most is actually just being able to coach your kids, you know, sports team and or going on a volunteer trip with the school and people not being able to do that, even though they're doing all these great things in their life, you know, having a great family, but they can't, you know, go on a field trip with their kids.

Now, governor's time in office is limited.

Governor DeWine is leaving office at the end of this year.

What's the future of this program?

Since this is really his program, the future of this program, we are quite hopeful that whatever administration comes next, that they will see the value that this brings to people's lives and that it's changing lives.

And then it's building out a workforce of people that otherwise wouldn't have those opportunities.

And so we're quite hopeful about the future.

Are you concerned that there might be an impression that pardons are undeserved, that even young and stupid mistakes are still mistakes, and people need to be corrected for those?

I mean, that's that's certainly a concern.

I think that if anyone spent a few minutes talking to any of these pardon recipients, that they would or read about their story, that they would have an opportunity to see who the people are and what they're doing in their lives.

If it would be okay.

I have one story I wanted to share with you.

People are very sensitive about talking about their record in a lot of cases, but we do have a couple of partner recipients that are very open in a couple that have written books, and one recipient.

I was reviewing his book before we spoke today.

His name is Dana Killebrew, and his story is that his mother was a drug addict and she was in and out of jail.

So ultimately he and his siblings were split up into different foster homes.

Then he starts hanging out with a bad crowd of kids, you know, starts gambling, selling drugs to support his gambling habit, starts using drugs and alcohol, drops out of school, and then starts racking up some misdemeanor convictions.

Ultimately, the convictions that led him to incarceration were two aggravated robberies that happened in a 30 minute period of time.

It's important to note no one was injured during those robberies, so he's caught at the second scene and at 22 years old, goes to prison for seven years.

While he's incarcerated, he takes advantage of the opportunities.

And in the institution, he gets a further education and is really wants to change his life.

When he gets out of prison, he meets his wife, starts a family, is living a great life.

But he wrote in that he really wanted his family to be proud of him, and he wanted a pardon so that they could, and that he wanted to be a nurse.

And so ultimately he received a pardon in 2022.

And then he's kept in touch with me since then.

He's went on to get his LPN and his license.

He works at a huge hospital in the northern part of the state and wrote a book and is living his best life.

And you know, when we get to make the phone calls to people to tell them that they've received a pardon and the the joy is indescribable that they've been waiting for this for, you know, 20 years, 30 years, sometimes 50 years.

And some people say, you know, I just don't want to die a felon.

The reasons are different for different people, but each of the stories are remarkable.

Details on the expedited pardon program and how to apply for it are at Ohio expedited pardon.

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

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at State News or find us online by searching State of Ohio Show.

Stay in the know by registering for Ohio State House alerts through this QR code, or by texting state news to this number.

And you can also hear more from us on our podcast, The Ohio State House scoop every Monday morning.

And please join us again next time for the State of Ohio.

Support for the Statehouse News Bureau comes from the law offices of Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

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

More at Porter Wright.com.

Porter Wright.

inspired every day.

And from the Ohio education Association, representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools every child deserves.

More at OHEA.org