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The house comes back for veto overrides, but it doesn't go as planned.

Advocates say the cost of ending Medicaid expansion.

If that happens, would be bigger than the state predicted.

And I'm Sarah Donaldson on Lake Erie to look at eco tourism and each to Ohio cuts this week on the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

The Ohio House was set to return on Monday to override three of governor Mike DeWine 67 line item budget vetoes.

These related to property taxes.

But the efforts stalled as they only took up one of them because the votes weren't there.

Among DeWine's fellow Republicans, frustrated at him for striking so much in the spending plan, state House correspondent Joe Ingles reports.

State reps, canceled vacations, postpone surgeries, worked around weddings, and put off other summer plans to instead pack into the Senate chambers because air conditioning was not working in the House.

All of this to override one veto of a provision to restrict the power of school districts and others to pass emergency and other kinds of levies.

Republican Representative David Thomas said homeowners will see spikes in their property bills again next year if lawmakers don't override DeWine's vetoes.

We're in a crisis and we are in a crisis.

You act immediately.

But, he noted turning over the veto of this provision would only affect levies passed going forward.

Democrats agreed that overturning this veto wouldn't help struggling homeowners and would hurt schools and communities.

Item 66 would would have us remove several important tools that provide options for how a local community wants to structure that remaining share of property taxes.

What's most confounding is that most of you represent communities that will be hit the hardest by this.

Your choices are hurting your own neighbors and friends.

The vote to override was 61 to 28, just over the 60 votes needed.

Republicans had also wanted to override vetoes on provisions allowing county budget commissions to reduce voter approved levies, and on kinds of levies used to calculate the 20 mill floor or the effective tax rate.

They didn't do that.

It was really kind of unclear to me whether we would get to 60 votes on 55 and 65 today.

Speaker Matt Huffman said members were getting what he called bad information from locals about what to do.

I think if we have more discussion, I will come back in October.

It's my expectation that we will take veto overrides on those two.

And likely some others also.

Lawmakers have until the end of the two year session next December to override those two and the remaining 64 line item vetoes.

Democrats, including Minority Leader Danny Isaacson, said the session did nothing to help struggling taxpayers.

Today was a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars, and people spoke for the last few weeks loud and clear.

The public pressure worked.

It kept the majority from having the votes they needed to override two of the three vetoes.

And so we came here to vote on a veto override that will provide no property tax relief.

And you don't need to take my word for it.

The bill's sponsor stood up and said, this is not relief.

And yet we use taxpayer resources to bring us all back to vote on what was ultimately political theater.

Huffman pushed back against the criticism that the session squandered time and money.

Everybody is paid a salary to work 365 days a year.

They're not going to get, you know, and for all I know, they came down on Sunday night and spent the night at the, taxpayers paying for their hotel room, and they also get paid their mileage to come down here.

So I'm not I'm not sure what the the waste of time or money is.

And Huffman was also critical of the working group deadline has assembled to come up with ways to reduce property taxes while funding local services, especially since a bipartisan legislative committee studied property taxes and put out 21 recommendations in January.

DeWine vetoed the three that were added to the state budget.

We have to have a governor who wants to do something about this, and I guess maybe I'm being a little bit, optimistic that governor DeWine actually means it when he wants to address the problem, which is taxes too high, government spending too high at the local level.

But we'll see what they come up with.

DeWine has had two vetoes overridden in the past, both in January 2020 for the vetoes of the bans on gender affirming care for minors and on trans athletes and girls sports, and the ban on local communities.

Regulations of flavored tobacco products.

Both of those laws are being challenged in court.

Joe Ingles, Statehouse News Bureau.

DeWine's working group met for its first session on Thursday, the day before at the opening of the Ohio State Fair.

DeWine talked to reporters about that and his power to strike those 67 items that Republicans put into the budget.

out.

They also have the right if they want to come back and override my vetoes, they certainly, certainly can do that.

I think whether or not vetoes are overridden or not overridden, we still need to have this working group, and they're going to start, as I said tomorrow, they're going to focus for the next 60 days and they're going to come up with something that, will be, will be, I hope, meaningful.

What guarantee is there that this is not just another working group that produces a bunch of ideas that never get well?

I can't guarantee anything.

I mean, you know, but.

Well, I can do is say, look, we put serious people at room, and charge them with coming up with things that, that matter.

And as this process goes on, the public will, you know, see some of the ideas, and then certainly when they present it, the public will see ideas, the legislators will see ideas, people can react and and, you know, I think this will what they come up with.

And I know what they're going to come up with.

But the goal is that it really brings out a full discussion, and that we can really get down to these serious questions and with some serious questions, we have to fund our schools.

Speaking of schools and education, state officials announced this week they are doing as expected and appealing last month's trial court ruling that the choice program that offers taxpayer paid vouchers for families to use at private schools is unconstitutional.

The trial judge said the voucher program can continue while the court case goes on.

I feel very confident over the course of this appeal that the legislature's action will be found to be lawful constitutional, and then will continue to operate in Ohio into the future.

Bottom line, it is law of the land for the 2526 school year, and we encourage people to make the best decision for their children.

Now, our our opponents, operate under the mistaken impression that Ohio must choose between a robust public school system and a voucher program.

But Ohio can and does have both.

What's most important is that Ohio parents retain the opportunity to choose the educational program that works best for them and their children.

The vouchers hurt Ohio Coalition argued in its lawsuit filed in 2022, that by putting money into vouchers, the state is not doing its constitutionally required duty of securing a thorough and effective system of common schools.

There were around 100 districts in the coalition initially.

Now there are 308, which is around half of the state's public school districts.

Medicaid is one of the biggest parts of the state budget, with more than 1 in 4 Ohioans receiving Medicaid benefits.

Over half of them children.

756,685 people access Medicaid through the expansion done under Republican former Governor John Kasich in 2013.

The new budget includes trigger language that says if the federal match for Medicaid expansion drops below 90%, the program would be done in Ohio.

The state says the cost to absorb the lack of federal funds would be enormous, but there are advocates who say ending the expansion would cost even more, including the Health Policy Institute of Ohio.

you released a study from Regional Economic Models, Inc., or Remmy, I guess, of the impact of Medicaid expansion reversal in Ohio, saying if that happened, job growth would slow by 50,000 jobs over the next five years.

Why would that be the effect?

Well, because Medicaid is a federal and state partnership.

We bring in federal resources to pay for the cost of delivering services to Ohioans who are eligible.

Without Medicaid expansion, those federal dollars would no longer be coming to our state, and that would impact health care providers, which in turn would mean job loss not only in health care, but also in fields that feed into health care.

For example, if there's a deli right around the hospital system and they rely on the employees of the system to purchase food there, they could be impacted as well, and that could result in more job loss.

Your study says personal income growth would decline by more than $900 per household, which I think is actually more than the income tax cut that's in the current budget.

The study also says eliminating Medicaid expansion would result in a drop of $220.6 million to the state's general revenue fund.

But Medicaid Director Maureen Corcoran says if the rate drops to 85%, the state would have to pay $380 million to cover that cost.

I mean, how do these numbers all work?

How do you feel that and how what does the model say about why ending Medicaid expansion would be that much of a drop to the state's general revenue fund?

Well, those federal dollars that I mentioned just a moment ago, when they come into the state, they generate additional economic activity.

So there's sales tax that is generated from, those dollars coming to the state.

There's personal income taxes that are paid as a result of those dollars coming to the state.

So if we no longer have those federal dollars, then we will experience a reduction in those revenues.

And that's how we end up with, the numbers that you saw in the study.

Director Corcoran also said that if you take the Medicaid expansion reimbursement and drop it down to 65%, that would cost the state $2 billion and the state can't afford that.

That's been the argument.

The impact of the state.

That's a significant amount of money that the state would have to backfill.

And can the state afford that?

Well, the analysis that was conducted by Remmy looked at the total picture of the the impact of those dollars coming to Ohio.

So we we looked at, the the impact of the tax revenue that comes to the state.

And we combined that also with other sources of revenue that are made possible because of Medicaid expansion.

And that ended up finding that the cost to the state, of discontinuing Medicaid expansion would be, substantially the savings to the state as a result of eliminating Medicaid expansion would be would be less than one would expect.

So we'd have a loss in revenue.

We'd also have a decrease in spending.

And in aggregate, our analysis found that our savings would be just 116 million, not that larger number that you referenced.

Medicaid expenditures in Ohio last year were almost $39 billion, with 69% coming from the federal government.

Yes, there are concerns, though, that the federal government is going to make some changes in Medicaid.

We already saw in the mega bill and there were some changes made.

So this is something to be concerned about, is it not that the state is going to have to potentially pay more toward helping people in this Medicaid population?

Yes.

H.R.

one, the bill, the federal bill that you just mentioned does make, very significant changes to how the Medicaid program is funded.

It didn't reduce the matching amount, which therefore means that the trigger provision that was in our state budget won't be, put into effect, at least not now.

But it does make many other changes to how the Medicaid program is financed.

One of the ways that Ohio has funded the program is by, charging taxes on managed care plans and on health care providers, and using that as the state match to draw down the federal dollars.

The federal bill changes some of the elements of that mechanism that currently is used by many states.

So that's going to reduce funding to states.

An analysis from KFF found that Ohio's funding over the next ten years would be reduced by 37 billion.

So there's there's, you know, a limited number of ways in which the state can absorb that degree of cut.

They can eliminate coverage for some folks.

They can eliminate or change the services for which people are eligible.

They can change provider rates, provider reimbursement rates.

And those are going to be major policy, considerations for our state policymakers over the next several years and potentially affecting a lot of people.

Yes.

We keep hearing the argument that getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse and Medicaid would save untold amounts of money.

Is there enough waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid to get rid of that?

There would be significant savings.

To my knowledge, there would not be significant savings to the degree that would fill the gap, that is, that is being left by the federal funding reductions.

I want to ask you two about your study of mental health and kids.

You've concluded that smartphones and social media have benefits, but also mental health risks such as bullying.

Fewer face to face interactions, and exposure to harmful content.

The budget does include a provision that requires schools to implement no cell phone use policies while in class during the school day.

Is that going to be enough to mitigate some of these problems?

It'll be a help for sure.

I think having a less cell phone usage in the schools and it says during instructional hours.

So if that is defined as, say, roughly 830 in the morning until 330 in the afternoon, one can imagine that students will be less on their phones when they're passing from one class to the other, or sitting in the lunchroom or sitting in the study hall.

And that could increase social interactions.

It could increase, actually focusing on schoolwork during those school hours.

At the same time, though, I don't think that's enough to solve the issues that, are, you know, a part of cell phone or other digital media usage.

So we need to make sure that we're also, teaching kids and parents to responsible use of, of, of, cell phones and social media and how to be wise consumers of those tools.

They can have benefits, but they can also have, you know, downsides.

So it needs to be coupled with other education as well.

To the other findings in your report say that kids without safe, stable and high quality housing are at risk for mental health challenges.

And up to 80% of foster kids have significant mental health needs.

These are two populations that are dealing with a lot housing, the the disruption of their families.

I mean, there's a lot going on with these kids beyond just those two issues.

Yes, yes.

And, you know, one of the, policy changes that the governor had proposed, and a child tax credit, in the original version of the budget was taken out during the process.

That was the one funded by the increase in tax on cigarets.

Yes, yes.

And that was a disappointment on both fronts because we know, tobacco usage is correlated with poor health.

And we know having a limited income is a contributing factor to poor health as well.

And families, who have limited incomes would have greatly benefited from that child tax credit.

It could have helped to improve housing security.

It could have helped to prevent adverse childhood experiences.

So our hope is that our legislature, continues to consider the child tax credit as a policy change in the future.

Lake Erie has seen a lot of action pollution from petroleum and agricultural runoff, algae blooms, deaths of whole species of fish, invasive zebra mussels.

Beaches shut down by E coli and other bacteria.

But there have also been wins to reclaim the lake's health and Ohio's Lake Erie region lured in 13 million visitors in 2023, according to the tourism coalition's Shores and Islands.

Ohio.

But the new budget makes cuts in a water quality program aimed at Lake Erie, created by governor Mike DeWine.

Our statehouse News Bureau colleagues, Sarah Donaldson and videographer Dan Connick, set out on the annual Fish Ohio Day celebration to look into that.

As an industry.

Ecotourism is growing every year in Ohio.

I'm here on Lake Erie with the state considers one of its greatest natural assets.

Figuratively, Lieutenant Governor Jim Tressel and I are in the same boat.

On an overcast Wednesday morning in Port Clinton.

I've never been on Lake Erie to fish, so I'm excited.

It's the 45th annual Fish Ohio Day.

Each year, elected officials and government workers descend on Lake Erie for a half day of casting, waiting, catching, and often releasing any walleye.

15in or longer comes back with us.

Now, literally, I'm on Steve Gray's boat, the assistant director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has been with the agency for decades.

So I started in 1976, but I was retired for a few years.

Sustainability and recreation are central to Odnr.

As an industry, ecotourism is booming.

According to an Ohio State University study from 2019, outdoor recreation contributed more than $8.1 billion each year to Ohio's overall economy.

That's only grown since Covid 19.

Take birding, a hobby the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service estimates 1 in 3 American adults engage in in the hill country of Ohio.

We have wild turkeys and whitetail deer and ruffed grouse.

We have a variety of songbirds that either nest there or migrate through there.

And then you come to Lake Erie, and we've got the coastal wetlands, which has a variety of waterfowl, ducks and geese, a lot of shorebirds, egrets, great blue herons.

And then there's fishing for this.

The state leans heavily into Lake Erie's western basin, where the walleye, about.

Governor Mike DeWine even says he'll sign a bill making it the official fish, though that's been a hot button issue at the state House for years.

Here's Tressel again.

Tens of thousands of people come to Lake Erie from out of state for the sportsman opportunity.

And what that brings.

They stay in the hotels, they eat at the restaurants.

They stop at the drugstore, or of course, they spend money at the charter boat companies and, you know, the marinas and everything else.

There's a murkier reality undercurrent at fish Ohio this year, though, the final version of the two year state budget gutted funding to each to Ohio.

That's the multi-agency clean water initiative DeWine established in 2019.

And it made sense to me that, you know, our greatest jewel, Lake Erie.

We got to make sure we take care of that.

And of course, water in general.

DeWine signed the budget June 30th.

Under it, Odnr, as well as the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, will have way less to work with in 2026 and 2027.

Across agencies, the cuts account for about 40% of H2 Ohio funds.

Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, a Republican, told me that was because of questions about the initiative's effectiveness at using the dollars it was allocated.

So I think it's technically accurate to say you cut to Ohio, but we didn't, you know, we took the money and paid for other similar things or other things like funding brownfield programs, historic tax credits, number of things like that.

Gray says the results were never going to come overnight.

He believes the agency has seen wins and six years of wetland rehabilitation.

We were trying to get off to a good start.

Now we're going to concentrate our efforts more what we think we can do.

The most good with, with the least amount of dollars.

Among its efforts, H2 Ohio aims to reduce nutrient runoff from farm fields, which can contribute to harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie.

They degrade the water quality of the lake, where more than 11 million Ohioans get their drinking water.

Better water quality would make the fish better, the fishing better, the bird life better.

But that's basically a side benefit from 7 to 11 in the morning.

Our boat rocks back and forth under gathering clouds.

I was content to head back to the dock unrewarded.

And then I feel the tug on my line, reeling in our boats.

Ten large walleye of the day.

Sarah Donaldson, Statehouse News Bureau.

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

Thanks for watching.

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

This weekend started with a heat advisory and temperatures soaring into the 90s, so it must be time for the Ohio State Fair, which runs through August 3rd.

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.