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

More at porterwright.com.

Porter Wright inspired Every day in 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 central Ohio city readies for life without a major employer.

And house members prepare to return to the state house to override three vetoes.

That's this week in the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen, counselor.

Ohio is sitting at a 4.9% unemployment rate, a steady incline from its record of 3.3% two years ago.

Factories have shuttered, and companies have closed down across Ohio in the last few decades.

In Chillicothe, workers and residents are preparing for that now, with the longtime paper mills closure slated for next month.

My Statehouse News Bureau colleague, Sara Donelson has that story.

Karen, behind the scenes, federal and state offices are holding weekly strategy meetings.

The state's powerful private economic arm, Jobs Ohio, is courting potential buyers with lucrative incentives packages, but they're all on borrowed time.

Jeff Allen has been interviewing for jobs for the first time since he graduated high school.

He's 56.

I wasn't very I don't think I was very good at it.

You know, I never thought I'd be doing it again.

The job search was forced on him.

The third generation mill worker and United Steelworkers local 731 president found out around Easter that Pixel's specialty solutions would cease all production at the plant.

If you're going to get a new job making what we're making at the paper mill, you're probably going to drive to Columbus, or you're going to drive over to Jeffersonville, where the the battery plant's going.

And there's still more work over there.

There's a there's a steel mill just on the other side of the river down in West Virginia.

More than 700 of his colleagues will be without work, absent an 11th hour buyer.

The morale is really down.

It's it's almost like, watching a loved one die.

Pixel and its now parent, the private equity firm HEG capital, took over at the mill in 2019.

First, their closure was imminent and then US Senator Bernie Marino said he convinced AIG to delay until December.

The rest of the people, politicians and locals, flooded the Sunbaked lot behind a credit union to celebrate.

Now, according to a government mandated warn mass layoff notice, pixel says it will shutter August 10th.

Marino calls that a, quote, total disgrace.

But I'm very, very, very optimistic that there will be another user of that site.

It may not be a paper mill, it will be something else that provides at least that level of employment.

Plus that level of wage.

He says he's working on legislation to extend Warn notices from 60 days to six months.

I'm proud of the fact that our involvement, at least got 60 more days of payroll than it would have otherwise.

Allen says the relief from that Good Friday rally didn't last long.

They came in and basically said, we fired our customers and we're trying to get them back.

So workers, new and old, clock in and out under a cloud of uncertainty.

Some machines are already halted.

Allen says his colleagues with less than five years could get as little as one week of severance, and the rest of the community in Chillicothe is scrambling to figure out what comes next.

You know, if you would've told me to guess at what that number was going to look like, I would have never said, $1 billion for the state of Ohio, because I wouldn't have thought that broadly.

Thrones referencing a may economic analysis done on the mill in the region, which concluded it contributes an additional 1100 indirect jobs and 750 induced jobs statewide.

Closing it could leave the $78.4 million hole in tax revenue.

It's a declining market for what they did there.

And, you know, it's not sustainable for the long haul.

Brown is grateful for the attention, but he says Chillicothe can take care of itself at the end of the day.

Allen doesn't look to federal or state officials, either.

He blames AG.

They couldn't make it work.

They couldn't get the cut.

They couldn't get the orders.

And I'm not sure how hard they worked at it.

As of Thursday, a few interested parties had put bids out with pixel, though details had not yet been made public.

Sara Donaldson, Statehouse News Bureau.

The house is set to return Monday to decide on three of the four property tax related vetoes issued by governor Mike DeWine among the 67 items he struck in the new budget.

Those are the vetoes on allowing county budget commissions to reduce voter approved levies, requiring emergency and other levies to be used for calculating the 20 mill floor, that is, the effective tax rate, and limiting districts power to ask for emergency levies.

But the House will not vote on the veto that limits the amount of collected property tax from voter approved levies.

The districts can hold at 40% of their operating budgets, with the rest refunded to taxpayers.

Dwayne's fellow Republicans in the supermajority are leading the charge to override these vetoes, but there are those who aren't on board.

I talked to one of them this week, Senator Bill blessing.

So I'll be a no on on all three of the veto overrides.

When?

Whenever that happens, obviously the house has to go first.

And I believe they're slated for this coming week.

But we'll we'll see how it goes.

But, yes, for now, I'm.

I'm, I know on all three of them.

And how do you explain to people who see this as property tax reform why you're voting against that?

So, I mean, it's just a matter of philosophy.

I think one, folks tend to expect that we have that relief would mean, you know, immediate, that there's some form of an appropriation coming down that would help them out today.

And, you know, these three proposals are, to my knowledge, I mean, they're not going to impact anybody right out of the gate.

I'm sure there's some nuance to that that the school districts would talk about.

But, you know, the county budget Commission part of it.

I mean, frankly, if if the county budget commission throughout the state decide, hey, we're not going to do this, then there was no effect with that provision.

With respect to the 20 mill floor that's going to take some time to work.

And, you know, frankly, the provision of, you know, excluding some of these other, or, excuse me, prohibiting some of these other levies.

Again, it's just not something that's going to change out of the gate.

But the biggest issue for me is, is with respect to philosophy.

And I've held for some time that there are the two camps, the one that wants to do, you know, broad based across the board cuts, but only spend local dollars for this.

And then there's the other camp that wants to means test us and use state money.

Obviously I'm in I'm in that camp, and I'm just worried that the more that we, you know, cut property taxes and this is another part of this, that this occurs, let's say they're overridden.

It doesn't hap doesn't have an immediate effect.

People are going to clamor for more, which is going to lead to, you know, more policy changes on this.

I'm just worried that we start shifting away from property taxation to, for example, sales taxation, which is much more regressive, and it's just going to lead to a place that people really don't like.

The other property tax related veto was on the cap for school districts, and how much collected property tax from voter approved levies that they can hold 40% of their operating budgets.

That's not going to be part of the veto overrides, but that's been described as immediate tax relief because that money would have to be refunded taxpayers anything over that 40%.

How do you feel about that?

But that's the same deal.

I mean, it's it's also shifting around, local dollars.

A lot of these things were voted on, although admittedly, you know, there are, you know, inflationary increases baked into the 20 mill floor and inside millage.

But again, I think in the end, the, the, the fundamental issue is that there's an assumption that local school districts, local governments are flush with cash, they're spend thrifts, that, that pot of money needs to be shifted around, but it ignores the fact that, you know, look, I'm I'm a Republican and, you know, the school district that I live in is five Republicans, and they're opposed to these things.

And I just think that that is an overwrought assumption that, you know, they are spendthrift, because, frankly, I would imagine the the vast majority of school board members and local government officials throughout the state are, in fact, Republicans.

So, you know, which is it?

It's it's like, are they are we fiscally responsible at the state level or the local level?

But it kind of seems like there's fighting, on that at this point.

But I think in the end for that particular piece, yes, it would have been immediate.

But I just don't think the votes were there.

Otherwise.

That probably would have been on the override list.

None of the 21 recommendations that the bipartisan Joint Legislative Commission that you co-chaired in the last session, and that you would put out this report recommending these none of them have passed.

And I know that there's been some criticism about governor DeWine saying he's going to appoint a working group headed up by former lawmakers, Bill slides and Pat Tiberi, to look into property taxes as well as funding of critical services.

Do you think this working group is necessary?

Well, I mean, look, we did do a lot of work on that last, property tax Joint Committee on Property Tax Review and Reform, I think was what it was officially called.

It's quite a mouthful.

We did do a deep dive on property taxation.

And obviously there have been some, some new ideas and some developments and whatnot since that report came out.

But where we are today, you know, so I was kind of scratching my head when I saw that.

But, you know, in the end, I am, you know, just having worked in this space, I am willing to keep an open mind and serve on something like that.

Would I like to see something like, you know, the circuit breaker pass today, Senate Bill 22 or even, I'm not familiar with what Sean Brennan's bill number was, but it's the same, same idea, a little more generous, something like that.

Or even, Senate Bill 215, my enhanced, homestead exemption bill.

But, you know, absent that again, it's those two camps fighting each other on on what we should do.

You know, does it look bad?

Yeah.

That we would be doing another task force, but we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

We can certainly pass legislation and continue to look, look at this as we go forward.

The budget that passed, which you did not vote for.

You were the only Republican in the Senate who didn't vote for it included a flat income tax, which is going to cost the state about $1 billion.

Do you think that money could have been used in another way, or are you in favor of a flat or a flat income tax?

So it's funny.

It's funny.

You should bring that up.

I, had sent a package of amendments.

It was only where I should say three amendments.

I don't know if that constitutes a package.

Senate wide.

That offered a compromise.

It was the school funding amendment that, you probably saw it, submitted and tabled a number of times.

It had the, Senate Bill 215, the homestead exemption, which I think is the lowest hanging fruit.

But then what I felt is a compromise, you know, income tax proposal.

Now, admittedly voting against the budget.

Look, I'm not a fan of the flat tax, but I also understand that a lot of my colleagues are and they feel very strongly about it.

So the thought was, okay, let's do a flat 3.25% income tax, which would obviously be cheaper.

Now your first thought is probably, well, wait a minute, a legitimate flat 3 to 5 would mean a tax increase for folks at the lower brackets.

Not.

Well, the few brackets there were, prior to this past budget.

What it also included was a nonrefundable credit that held people harmless, such that you really did have a flat 3 to 5, and we were able to split the difference with that.

But ultimately, I lost on that proposal.

You talked about your concerns about the impact of tax abatements and special exemptions on property taxes and the burden that's created on homeowners and for agriculture versus business and commercial, owners, is it your understanding that there are any sort of property tax exemptions or anything like that in this budget?

So I saw something with respect to sports facilities and new community authorities.

That looks like, you know, some of these, these, you know, new stadiums or even current stadiums will receive a property tax exemption, which, you know, this sort of stuff goes on all the time.

I'm not thrilled with that.

I wish there were some, frankly, Democratic oversight with that, which is something that was brought up, in the, property tax committee that I co-chaired.

In other words, if you're going to do these things, there's got to be a regular vote of the people to approve them if it's above a certain threshold.

Now, admittedly, with a lot of other things going on, there's only so much you can really get into.

But I think that's a big piece of it.

When people find that, hey, this is property tax exempt and that is property tax exempt, that the burden absolutely does shift.

And I think that makes, you know, a very tough sell for the folks who do have to pay, to continue supporting levies when they're bearing more of a burden than they otherwise would.

So that is a big, topic that we need to look at.

And I can't remember who it was telling me this.

This was years ago that, like, almost all of Columbus is is a CRA now.

And it's it's like it, you know, who's who's paying, for stuff like this.

So we do we I mean, we absolutely look at the need to look at that.

The problem is, is that I think you find that there is bipartisan opposition to reform like that because a lot of your, you know, Republican and Democratic, you know, mayors and councilmen will say, well, what else do we have for economic development?

Which is a fair point.

But again, I mean, it puts them at odds with schools and, taxpayers.

So, I mean that that is a major problem.

And I wish I had good immediate answers for it, but I don't just to clarify, CRA is Community Reinvestment Act or.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's right.

Sorry.

year, one of the things that could happen next year is that there could be an amendment on the ballot that would abolish property taxes.

I want to ask you about your thoughts on that.

Is there any concern about what that amendment could do in relation to what's been proposed in the budget and what's still sitting out there that's been proposed but hasn't been acted on?

Yes, that's right, I so I had a, press release where I went into, detail on this and I, to, to, eliminate the suspense here.

I'm deeply, deeply opposed to that ballot initiative.

And, you know, it it not only will it wipe out 23, $23.9 billion worth of revenue, for local governments.

And, I mean, so that's going to destroy school districts.

It'll destroy townships, it'll destroy cities.

I'm kind of confident that at the end of the day, if it if it gets through the, you know, gets past the hurdles and winds up on the ballot, there's going to be immense opposition, to that.

But some of the things that what's going to happen with that, let's say that it did pass, it's in the Constitution.

So the General Assembly is largely powerless to do anything about it.

So we have to find ways to make up for that revenue.

And it's almost certainly going to mean, significant tax increases, like income tax, I think will almost certainly go up.

So we'll sales tax.

And the reason I say income tax is because that you can't Ohio can't have, you know, 13, 14, 15% state sales taxes when we're, you know, in the middle of the country, there's, there's a practical problem there.

All of these things in for example, Senate Bill 190, I think they're going to have to go away like the business income deduction, the severance tax, all that's going to have to increase.

And frankly, with respect to sales tax, I think people are missing that, you know, there are sales tax exemptions on takeout food that are very expensive from the state standpoint.

I think that will have to go away.

I think people in the end will find, oh my God, this is a lot worse.

You know, than, than what we had before.

So and that's, that's excluding some of the old, you know, 19th century, Gilded Age era stuff that's going to come back with respect to land hoarding, where interests are going to come in and they're going to buy up property and they don't have to sell it.

They can sit on it tax free forever.

And basically be a land middleman.

So I think it's going to make real estate explode.

Which, frankly, if you are a young family trying to save up for a first time home, good luck with that.

When home prices went through the roof.

So your mortgage went through the roof at the same time that you're trying to save up is going to be much more difficult with your income taxes going up.

Your sales tax is going up.

I mean, I just I see this being a disaster.

The Senate has not yet set a date for its override session.

In May, blessing teamed up with Democratic Senator Kent Smith to sponsor an alternative budget that included ending the deduction that makes the first $250,000 in business income tax free, raising the severance tax, passing the property tax circuit breaker legislation, and a refundable earned income tax credit.

It also included universal school breakfast and lunch increases to the local government and public library funds, and an increase in eligibility for publicly funded childcare.

It has not had a hearing yet, but blessing predicts there will be one late next year.

No House or Senate Democrats voted for the budget, and many put out statements blasting the spending plan is out of touch, saying it favored the millionaires and billionaires in Ohio over schools, local governments and average Ohioans.

I talked about the budget and the upcoming veto session set for Monday, with Representative Donny Isaacson, who took over as House minority leader last month.

So the million dollar question here is the legislature.

Is the House going to be in session on Monday?

I think it's probably closer to a $500 million question.

And it's a question of our school districts are fire and police cannot get the funding that they need to keep functioning.

And unfortunately, the legislature keeps trying to push forward what is ultimately fake property tax relief.

The governor saw through the sham with these policies.

He vetoed them.

He vetoed them because they're not going to make a difference in addressing the real issue, which is that we have to help property tax payers with outrageously high property taxes.

But we can't do it on the backs of our schools and local police and fire and other public services.

The state needs to step up and pay its fair share.

That's a lot of what you said right after the, vetoes were issued and this whole veto override situation started talking about the, the budget was a sham in terms of property tax relief.

You also said that if Republicans were serious about real property tax relief, they wouldn't pass the buck.

They would use the session to vote on bipartisan, commonsense solutions that make a real difference.

How much do you hope for bipartisan solutions?

Is that something you think might come out of that working group that DeWine's talked about, or how much hope do you have here?

I couldn't do this job if I didn't have hope, that we could make things better.

You know, I introduced in my first, General Assembly a bipartisan bill to provide a circuit breaker on property taxes.

It's now in the hands of two other legislators who are continuing to try and do that.

It's been introduced in a bipartisan way in both the House and the Senate.

And it's in dozens of other states.

That is the gold standard for providing relief for people who are overburdened by their property taxes.

And at the same time, we have to reduce the reliance on property taxes to fund all of these public services.

We over rely on them in Ohio more than in other states, but we can't do that if we continue to cut taxes, income taxes for the highest earning Ohioans, only one out of five people in the state will even see any of the income tax cut that was put in the budget.

As long as we keep going with our short sighted policies, we're not going to be able to solve the real problem, which is high property taxes.

This is a problem that's been building for years, long before you got to the legislature.

Is this a problem that can be solved quickly?

I mean, how do you provide immediate property tax relief to people who are suffering right now?

So the way the circuit breaker bill or the homestead exemption works is that it looks at it if you qualify, if you are overburdened, if you're paying to a higher percentage of your income on property taxes, you would get immediate relief up to $1,000 for the property tax payers I represent for voters all over Ohio, that would make a huge difference.

And so there are ways to provide immediate relief.

And look, they keep saying we don't have the money.

We found $1.4 billion from unclaimed funds to spend on subsidies for billionaires, sports stadiums.

We have the money.

We're just not choosing to use it to help the average person in Ohio pay their property taxes for the first time in, I think, since 2001, this was not a bipartisan budget.

No Democrats in the House or the Senate voted for this budget.

Can it be assumed that no Democrats are going to support any of the veto override?

Should we see any of them?

We continue to be committed to using state resources to help the people of this state live their fullest and best lives.

That means affordable childcare, access to housing they can afford, great schools to send their kids, and being able to age with dignity and access to health care.

This budget didn't do that.

These veto overrides are not going to help.

But you you don't speak for the do you speak for the entire caucus in terms of what you be voting as a bloc one way or the other?

I think we're pretty united in, feeling like these veto overrides are not what's needed to help the people of Ohio, right now.

Once this process moves on, or maybe simultaneously, we also have redistricting coming back forward, and that the Ohio congressional map of 15 districts needs to be redrawn.

Speaker Matt Hoffman has said a bipartisan status quo map is possible, but the pressure may be on from the white House to push for more Republican seats.

And you have U.S.

Senator Bernie Marino even saying a 12 to 3, 12 Republicans, three Democrats map.

How do you stop that?

Especially since the backstop before the Ohio Supreme Court is now 6 to 1 Republican versus a single Democrat?

Three of those Republican justices, attended a Trump rally in 2022.

So how do you how do you work through this?

Well, I think for starters, we can't just accept that it's normal to have a Supreme Court.

That is so obviously Partizan.

We shouldn't have Partizan Supreme Court justices in the first place.

We have to be able to trust that our court system will actually uphold the law in a fair and neutral way.

So I just want to make sure we say that, and then when it comes to the maps, Ohioans deserve fair maps.

They should have a congressional delegation that reflects the partizan makeup of the state.

The state usually votes a little more Republican.

It's probably 5446 somewhere in there on average.

So we should probably have a congressional delegation that is a little bit more Republican and Democratic and shifts, you know, if there's big swings in one direction or another.

So there's some accountability.

What we have is already out of whack.

And the idea of making it even less representative of the state, like the senator has, suggested, is offensive and insulting to the integrity of the process.

Isaacson is facing an uphill battle in a chamber where Democrats have been in the minority for all but two years, since 1992.

He said it's a privilege and an honor to fight for almost 12 million Ohioans, including 400,000 kids every day who don't have enough to eat.

And that's it for this week.

From my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Media.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at State News that.

Org or find us online by searching State of Ohio Show.

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

You can also hear more from us on our podcast, The Ohio Statehouse Scoop.

Every Monday morning.

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

More at porterwright.com.

Porter Wright inspired Every day in 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.