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No. 23 October 26, 1999 PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS BULLETIN TO YOUR COUNCIL, DEPARTMENT HEADS & STAFF Please, note that with the legislative recess, this is our last Legislative Bulletin until Friday, November 5. General Assembly Recesses until November 9. With its work done on the merger of the Department of Human Services and the Ohio Bureau of Employment Services and lots of ideas about how to spend the multi-year tobacco settlement dollars still floating about the Statehouse, the General Assembly broke for recess after a scheduled two-week session. The Legislature is expected to return on November 9 and 10 to deal with the $10 billion tobacco issue and other items. In the interim, the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Roy Ray, will try to fashion a compromise over the tobacco spending plan at a meeting of his panel on October 27. Senate Republicans have been at the center of disagreements with the Taft administration over how the tobacco money should be spent. The arguments have centered on how long of a spending plan ought to be in place, how much this legislature should "tie the hands" of future legislatures on future spending plans of the money, how much of the money should be spent on funding school buildings and whether some of the dollars ought to go toward funding a tax cut. Substitute Municipal Income Tax Introduced. During last week's meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee and second hearing on HB 477, a substitute version of that legislation was introduced by the sponsor, Rep. Don Mottley, and accepted by the committee for consideration. That substitute version contained almost two dozen changes requested by the League to clarify the bill and to ensure the legislation's revenue neutrality. Copies of the substitute version of the bill are available through the League offices or by requesting such from your local members of the General Assembly. We urge those who are interested in this legislation to read the substitute version of the bill in that it is a greatly improved draft over the introduced version. As should be expected in legislation this technical in nature, we have caught a number of additional oversights and technical amendments which we are forwarding to Rep. Mottley this week for consideration. Your reading of the sub version may help us catch additional problems with the legislation that can easily be fixed. With the exception of the way two issues were handled, the League is supportive of HB 477, which attempts to make several changes to the municipal income tax within a context reaching greater uniformity of administration, greater accessibility to income tax information while maintaining the performance of the income in a revenue neutral way. We think, in the end, we can reach those goals with this legislation and avoid a number of other legislative schemes that would gut the income tax. The areas where we have some problems with the legislation are in the definition of when an "occasional entrant" does work in a community and is subject to the income tax and the "de minimus" threshold of municipal income tax liability, under which a non-resident employer would be subject to withholding for his or her employees. The Occasional Entrant threshold in the bill is twelve days per year and the de minimus threshold is $150 in tax liability for all employees. While not necessarily disagreeing that such lines could be drawn in statute, we feel both standards are too generous. We will make that case to the committee and see how we do. However, we do feel that the effort to put HB 477 together has been and continues to be a good one. We appreciate the chance to participate in this months-long effort, in cooperation with Chairman Mottley, the Ohio Chamber and the Ohio Society of CPA's, to craft a positive bill. As always we appreciate the effort and expertise given to the process by tax administrators from Springboro, Akron and the Central Collection Authority of Cleveland. We will keep working to improve the final product of that effort through the legislative process and keep you informed of that progress. We expect HB 477 to be scheduled for another hearing when the Legislature returns in November. It is possible that a committee vote could also be held on the bill at that time, depending on how much consensus can be built on the bill between now and then. Workers' Comp Costs to Go Down. According to the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Comp, all public employers, including cities and villages, will receive a 75% dividend credit on their workers' comp bill. The credit is to be reflected in your January, 2000 bill. Should you have any questions regarding this reduction, please, call 1-800-OHIOBWC. New Open Records Bill Effective December 14, 1999. The contents of SB 78 goes into effect on December 14. Under the provisions of that bill public records must be made available, through locally adopted policies, for requests made by mail. Such requests can be limited to ten requests a month if those records are to be used for commercial purposes. The cost for all mail requests, commercial or not, may be required by your city or village to be paid in advance of fulfilling such mail requests. The bill also makes clear that requests for records in a certain medium must be fulfilled in such a medium only if the records are kept in that specific medium. The bill also exempts from public records residential familial information of a police officer, except in certain circumstances when that information is requested by a "journalist," as defined by the statute. Wet Winter is Needed to Recharge Dwindling Ground Water Supplies. While rain during the month of October helped alleviate some of the effects of this year’s drought, many public water systems across Ohio still have reason for concern. The recent rains helped to replenish surface water reservoirs, especially in Northeastern Ohio, however, they have done little to recharge extremely low ground water levels. Officials from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources report near record low ground water levels in many parts of Ohio. About three quarters of Ohio’s public water systems use ground water to meet all or part of their public drinking water needs. Above normal precipitation is needed during this winter to ensure that an adequate water supply will be available to public water systems during next year’s peak water use season. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency encourages all public water systems to develop contingencies to address water shortages in the event that this year’s drought continues into next year. Public water systems using ground water are especially encouraged to closely monitor water levels in their wells. Communities should implement water conservation measurers prior to reaching a critical water shortage. Officials from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Division of Drinking and Ground Waters and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Water are available to provide advice and technical assistance. New Publication for Villages. Village Planning and Zoning: An OML Sourcebook is now available from the Ohio Municipal League. The 190-page book contains annotated sections of the Ohio Revised Code, sample subdivision and zoning codes, sample forms and instruction sheets, and sample by-laws for boards and commissions. The book comes with a 3.5 inch floppy disk with codes, regulations, forms, and by-laws in both Microsoft® Word and WordPerfect® for WindowsÔ. Cost of the publication is $12.00 per copy plus $4.00 P&H, up to a total of $6.00 P&H for multiple-copy orders. Call the League at 1-800-561-3597 or FAX your order to 614-221-4390. Mayors Court 3 Hour Update Training Classes remaining in 1999. (Both General & DUI Classes)Friday, November 5 Friday, December 3 Friday, January 14 General Friday, February 25 General Friday, August 4 General |
