Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from Medical mutual providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country.

Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

Maude Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA.org A shocking sentence from Republican former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, convicted of racketeering and the nuclear power plant bailout scandal.

And once again, happy new fiscal year is down to the wire.

That's this week in the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of ohio.

I'm karen kasler.

Republican former ohio house speaker Larry Householder went to prison on Thursday after a federal judge sentenced him to the maximum of 20 years in the House bill six nuclear power plant bailout case.

In a scathing statement before delivering the sentence, Judge Timothy Black blasted Householder as, quote, a bully with a lust for power who disregarded the Ohioans he represented when he mastered mind.

Of the $61 million bribery scheme to become speaker with dark money from first energy to pass and protect the $1.3 billion bailout for the utility's nuclear plants.

Black rejected the defense's request to stay householder sentence during the appeal, saying, quote, This court and the community's patience with Larry Householder has expired.

U.S.

Marshals came into the courtroom just before Black announced the sentence.

Householder emptied his pockets, was handcuffed, looked back at his wife and was taken from the room.

Outside the courthouse, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Ken Parker, said it was apparent Householder had no remorse that the sentence was justice for Ohioans.

And we were looking for accountability.

And today, we believe that Mr. Householder received just that.

Ohio Republican Party Chair Matt Burgess, who was convicted of the same charge by the same jury in the same trial in March, learned his fate the day after householder.

Judge Black admonished Burgess for a lack of remorse and said, quote, Larry Householder was a crook and you knew it.

Burgess said, quote, I'm here today for one reason and one reason only.

My behavior, my decisions, my poor judgment.

He was sentenced to five years in prison and like Householder, was immediately taken into custody.

Though there were hundreds of differences to work out between the House and Senate versions of the two year state budget, Ohio lawmakers and the six member conference committee have been working toward the June 30th deadline to have the budget signed and in place.

They reached a deal on Friday.

It includes an across the board income tax cut, an extension of the week long sales tax holiday in August to two weeks, half a billion dollars for a fund to improve state roads and a proposal to add the words and work force to the Ohio Department of Education and strip power from elected state school board members and give it to the governor.

The budget does not include the conservative backed higher education overhaul bill known as Senate Bill 83, which bans most diversity training and faculty strikes and requires expressions of intellectual diversity on a set of specific topics including electoral politics.

Marriage or abortion.

Education spending was one of the big points of difference.

But Republican Senate President Matt Huffman announced there was a deal on that on Wednesday.

I talked about that with Paul Imhoff, director of Governmental Relations for the Buckeye School Administrators Association, Ohio's Association of School Superintendents.

And until January, he was the superintendent of the Upper Arlington City schools.

We're hearing that the final budget deal might include the houses K through 12 funding package and the Senate's universal voucher plan.

So let me ask you first about that K through 12 funding package out of the House versus the Senate's.

The Senate's budget would have cut the House's budgets funding for public school districts by $541 million, half a billion dollars.

Go ahead.

There's obviously a preference that you have here.

Well, certainly we we prefer the House version.

We think the House version was was fair and it was an appropriate level of funding for our public schools.

And you just said it.

It was.

When we look at the Senate version, it was $541 million less for our traditional public schools, but $372 million more for vouchers.

And so definitely it was much more money going to school choice in the Senate version as opposed to our traditional public schools.

So let's talk about vouchers.

The House extended Mike DeWine's proposal to expand the Choice voucher program from 250% of the federal poverty level, up to 400%, which is about $8,000 a year for a family of four.

The Senate then expanded that to all families in the state without added means testing.

So the more money you made, about 450% of the federal poverty level, the less voucher value you would get.

A report from the Ohio Education Policy Institute, which does research for school groups like yours, is increased spending on private school vouchers by $372 million accounts for 37% of the total increase in K through 12 funding.

So is this a a deal if you've got the houses K through 12 spending and universal vouchers, is this a this is a good deal in your opinion?

I think the issue that we have with the voucher legislation, whether it was the governor's version or whether it was the House version or the Senate version, we are we are not against choice.

We are not against choice.

We are for accountability and for transparency.

So, for instance, when when we look at the Senate version of vouchers, that's another billion counting all of the of the programs current in the ad, that'll be $1,000,000,000 a year on school choice with very little accountability or transparency.

And we do believe when taxpayer dollars are being spent, especially to the level of $1,000,000,000 a year, that there has to be both accountability and and transparency.

And we also think and think about this, Karen.

I'm a parent, okay?

And I'm trying to make the best choice for my child about where I would like them to go to school.

And parents have a right to make those choices.

That is very important.

Very important.

But as a parent, I can't make that choice unless I have the same data set on all of my taxpayer funded options.

And basically now all of them are taxpayer funded.

So we really believe the accountability has to be there.

And the and the and the transparency.

And so as we look at this, too, I think the other thing is we aren't talking about all of the numbers.

So when we talk about these voucher amounts, that's only a part of it because our chartered nonpublic schools also receive auxiliary services, money and administrative costs, reimbursement funds totaling almost 1400 dollars a year.

So we have to add that amount of money to the voucher to determine what the taxpayer level of support is for these schools.

And when you're talking about the taxpayer level of support for public K-through-12 schools versus other options, most students in Ohio are in public K through 12 schools.

Is there a balance here that you think is off?

So, yes, I do think there is.

So when we look at the funding, especially the funding levels that were proposed in the Senate budget, there was a cut of $541 million as opposed to the House version for the 80% of children who attend a traditional public school, because this money goes to kids.

And then there was an increase of $372 million for the 10% of kids who attend a chartered nonpublic school.

Now, all of these kids are incredibly important and they are all our kids.

But we do have to make sure that we are funding all of our kids at an appropriate level.

And when you see that kind of cut for the 80% and that amount of an increase for the 10%, it brings up a lot of questions.

The Ohio Education Policy Institute report says the Senate budget that modifies that funding plan in such a way that local property tax payers could be responsible for funding 61 and a half percent of school districts based funding.

While the state will now fund only 38 and a half percent.

Now, that may not be what we finally see in the budget, but I thought some of this was already resolved with the draft decision and the whole idea of the school funding plan, taking away that reliance on local property taxes.

Well, Karen, I think I think you're really hitting a very good point here.

As we think about there always has been a balance between what the state does and then what the local area does, and that is as it should be.

But but in the Senate budget, that that balance is really shifting more and more to local property tax payers and less and less from the state.

And how they did that was by a change in the fair school funding formula, also known as Cut Patterson.

And they changed the capacity part of that formula to make school districts look wealthier, thus reduce the state share.

And what that also did through that change in the formula is it made the formula more volatile for us.

And so one of the things that is really important for our public schools is to make sure there is certainty in the level of funding we are going to receive.

So, so so we can plan for the next year and two years and beyond programs, we're going to offer for kids.

And so by introducing more volatility and less certainty into the funding formula, which is what the Senate budget does, it really works against that.

And that's a problem.

And again, that is the Senate budget.

That is the Senate budget.

And again, what we're yeah, And what we're hearing today is we're going to be going with the House budget as it relates to the traditional K-12 funding.

And we are very pleased and we're certainly hoping that that's the way this turns out.

One of the things that appears to be in the final budget bill, at least what we're hearing is Senate Bill one, which is similar to House 12 Education.

The Department of Education Workforce also strips power away from elected state school board members and gives it to the governor.

What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I would tell you as an organization, we have not taken a position on this issue.

So, as you know, we represent public school superintendents all over the state.

And the reality is our public school superintendents are split on this.

And so we have served as an interested party.

And so we have advocated for a number of things.

One of them is in the proposal, there will be a deputy director of primary and secondary at education and then a deputy director who who who's in charge of our career schools.

And those are crucial, crucial positions in the New structure.

So we advocated for and we were pleased that the Senate added it to Senate Bill one, that the people who were in charge of those positions have experience, have an educational background, have experience running something as large as that, because this would be one of the largest departments in state government.

And so that and so that was very, very important to us.

The other thing that is very important to us at the end of the day.

So whichever way this goes, we need an educational agency that is supporting our public schools, especially when we talk about literacy.

We are very supportive of the literacy efforts in the budget.

Many of our schools have been practicing and implementing the science of reading for years, and we are just very, very pleased to get this level of support from the governor and from the the General Assembly.

But but at the end of the day, we are most concerned with the level of support that is going to be coming from whatever agency is responsible for our schools.

Also, I wanted to ask you about the Senate requesting state auditor to favor asking school districts about how much money they've provided to support the lawsuit against vouchers.

The group vouchers for an Ohio senator statement that, quote, Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Faber are walking a fine, fine legal line here.

And here's our advice Be careful, or better yet, back off.

This is a pretty big and unprecedented req Well, I will tell you this.

And, you know, I was just talking about accountability and and and transparency when it comes to our chartered nonpublic schools.

And I can't say that two or two or 3 minutes ago and then not say, I believe the same thing about our public schools.

So I do believe that our public schools are funded by taxpayer dollars.

And that means anyone has a right to know what we are spending our money on.

Are you concerned what that information will be used for?

Well, I think that was already information that was publicly available.

We have about 9% of our school districts across the state who are a part of that.

And they have every ever every right to be a part of that lawsuit.

But that's not been a secret.

That has been very, very public.

Turnout is expected to be low for the August 8th special election to decide issue one.

But 35,000 poll workers is still needed to conduct the election on issue one.

That is the constitutional amendment that would make it harder to approve future amendments by raising the voter approval threshold to 60%.

It would also require citizens and groups to get signatures from all 88 counties instead of 44, and would eliminate the ten day period in which groups could gather more signatures if they fall short of the valid number required.

Most Republican state lawmakers support Issue one, along with anti-abortion and pro-gun advocates and Ohio's largest business groups.

The No.

One issue one coalition comprises hundreds of groups, including Democrat and progressive ones labor unions, Ohio's four living ex-governors, two Democrats and two Republicans and five former attorneys general from both parties.

This week, elections officials from around the state were in Columbus for Secretary of State Frank LaRosa.

His annual conference, including Sherry Poland, the director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections in Cincinnati, and the president of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials.

How is it going getting poll workers for this somewhat unexpected August special election?

Well, recruiting poll workers is always challenging every election.

And when we have a statewide election that was not scheduled, it makes it a little more challenging.

So, yes, so that I think, is a main priority for a lot of election officials right now is recruiting those poll workers and I've heard that there are some boards of elections that have had to increase pay and do some other things to try to bring in the poll workers they need.

Yes, I've heard those same stories in Hamilton County.

Our county commissioners, as well as a few elected officials, are incentivizing county workers to take the day off and work by allowing them to take the day off without having to use any vacation or or vacation or comp time.

And then they'll also award them with an additional personal day that they can use throughout the year.

So, yeah, we're all trying to get a little creative and encouraging people to work the polls.

What happens if you don't have enough poll workers in an individual county or if there aren't the required number of Democratic and Republican poll workers?

Yes.

Well, there's a few things that boards of elections will do.

One is that will move poll workers around.

So we might have one polling place that's fully staffed.

We might move one or two of them into another location that is extremely short.

So that's sort of our triage method that we undertake in the last few days before Election Day.

Once training has ended and we sort of know what our numbers are, we'll start moving people around.

I know we also times will make sure our full time staff are trained and refreshed on poll worker procedures because if need be, we'll send our full time staff out to cover lunch breaks and things like that.

Have you had any trouble?

Not just in Hamilton County but the other boards of elections around the state in getting locations?

Because obviously there was the idea that there wasn't going to be an August special election.

So some of the locations that were used before got picked up.

Right.

Well, in Hamilton County, out of 302 polling locations, we only had three that we temporarily had to move for the August election.

So we were extremely happy with that.

I'm hearing from some counties that may have had to find temporary locations for a few more than that, but the locations have been set and we're good to go.

I'm not hearing about any problems with that.

So this election is going to go forward regardless of the concerns about poll workers and locations and that sort of thing.

We will make it happen.

Now, Republican Secretary of State Franklin Rose's office sent out the wrong issue, one ballot language.

It got changed after an order from the Ohio Supreme Court.

But boards of elections have that language.

What did that do to preparations?

It halted preparations for a short time.

You know, we all halted preparations.

We revised the language.

We we proved to the new language and then we started production up again.

So although it did cause somewhat of a delay, I believe every board was able to meet their what we call You have a deadline.

That was last Friday.

And that's when we start mailing ballots to our military voters and our voters who live overseas.

So every board was able to make that deadline and get back on track and preparing for for the August 8th election.

It's been a long couple of years for elections officials.

I mean, you had you were not expecting to have an August special election because of House Bill 458 that was passed last year.

There have been public records, requests, other challenges.

Some boards of elections employees have reported being threatened.

You have coming up not only this August special election, but you've got November to get ready for submissions of signatures for the November ballot issue on abortion rights and reproductive rights.

Candidates are starting to declare.

You've got local elections that are coming up this year.

All of this potentially creates a real difficult situation for elections workers where mistakes could happen, couldn't they?

They could.

They could.

But I have so much confidence in the election officials in the state of Ohio.

Yes, these are challenging times, but I know that they will rise to the challenge.

It's what they do.

We've learned to adapt.

We've been under these sort of strenuous circumstances before.

I think they are all looking forward to being able to take a break.

I know we're encouraging people.

We still got a little bit of time before absentee voting begins, early voting, that type of thing.

Let's try to take a break.

Cover for each other so that you can get a break and then you can start scheduling those vacations after the presidential primary.

We all need something to look forward to.

You had your conference this week of elections officials from around the state.

What was the the mood going into this August election?

Are there concerns?

Are you what are you hearing?

Yes.

Well, you know, we're moving forward.

You know, we're here.

This is we have a job to do.

We took an oath.

We're going to do that job.

I do think election officials there, they're a little tired.

You know, they are.

But again, I know that they will rise to the occasion.

And I'm so proud to be part of of an association and people who are so committed to our democracy.

So I know they will make it happen.

The Ohio Association of Elections Officials voted formally to oppose the August special election, and it was concerns about the cost of the election, concerns about some of the things that we've been talking about right here.

Are you seeing those things come to pass or will that be something that you'll see potentially after this election happens?

Yes, Well, we have been assured that the state will bear the cost of this entire August 8th election.

So that that is good news.

You know, that those the counties will not have to bear the cost of that.

So we have been guaranteed that.

And, you know, we just I think that, you know, it was not what we wanted, But now that it's here and we're doing our job.

Is the stress more on local boards of elections that are smaller offices?

I mean, obviously, Hamilton County, you've got a good number of employees.

There are some counties that have two and three elections officials.

And it's not like elections officials just work three days a year or whatever you're working year round.

We are absolutely working year round.

And it is harder, I believe, on the smaller counties where, you know, in a larger county like Hamilton, we will cover for each other so that we can all take a break.

When you're a two man operation, a two person show, that's that's a little harder to do.

You know, so I would encourage the boards we all answer to a four person board in each of our 88 county Board of elections.

So, you know, the board members can help out their staff, you know, help them, help them get a break because they're going to need it.

House Bill 458, which I just referenced, which banned most August special elections, though the resolution that created Issue one brought those back, brought the August special election back for this year.

But there were some other things in House Bill 458, for instance, the requirement of photo ID for voters and limitations on ballot drop boxes on provisional ballots and that sort of thing.

The election in May did have those in place.

Do you find that voters are aware of these kind of things?

Most voters do bring photo ID, but are you finding that people are aware of the changes that they have to that they personally have to apply to?

Well, we as election officials are doing everything we can to educate our voters and let them know what the changes are.

You are right, I think and I know in Hamilton County, 98 to 99% of voters already provide a photo I.D.

when they appear in person to vote on that.

That statistic might be slightly lower statewide.

But, yes, the vast majority of voters already bring a photo I.D.

But then there's those that don't.

Right.

And so we need to make sure that they are knowledgeable.

One thing we're doing in Hamilton County is we are mailing a notice to every registered voter in our county letting them know about the ID changes.

We don't want them to be surprised when they walk into the polling place on Election Day.

The secretary of State's office is also assisting boards of elections with samples.

Social media campaigns, sample press releases, things like that, so we can get the word out.

So, you know, if folks are out there watching and they do not have a state ID or a state driver's license or a passport, you know, call your local boards of elections, they will help walk you through the process on how to obtain a free ID for voting purposes.

You've been at the elections game for many years here.

So what and I know this is difficult to say, but what do you expect the turnout is going to be statewide and also maybe even in Hamilton County?

Yeah, you know, this one's a really difficult one to predict because we don't have the history to go back and look at.

This is very unusual to have a statewide election on a special election date and only be one question on the ballot.

You know, I think our rough guess is 25 to 30% turnout.

That might be on the high end.

That would certainly be on the high end compared to last August's primary election for state legislature.

State legislators absolutely would be.

We do believe that's the association of the election officials of the association do believe we will see a higher turnout than in the primary election.

There's lots of voters that choose not to vote in primaries who do vote on statewide questions.

Early.

Voting for the August eight special election begin soon on Tuesday, July 11th, the day after the voter registration deadline.

And that's it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse news Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our Web site at state News dot org and follow us on the show on Facebook and Twitter.

Happy Independence Day.

Please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

More at Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA.org