Ohio Municipal League
175 South Third Street
Suite 510
Columbus, Ohio 43215

614-221-4349 Office
614-221-4390 Fax

email:
Legislative Inquiries
John Mahoney
General Inquiries
info@omunileague.org

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No. 4                                                                                         February 23, 2000

PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS BULLETIN TO YOUR COUNCIL, DEPARTMENT HEADS & STAFF

General Assembly Breaks For Primary, HB 477 Out of Senate Committee.

The Ohio General Assembly, following a one-day session last week, recessed its business until after the March primary. While there will be meetings on some pieces of pending legislation, no floor sessions are scheduled until the middle of March. Last week's session primarily focused on reaching a final settlement between the Houses on how to spend the expected billions that are scheduled to be placed in Ohio's coffers over the next couple of decades from the national tobacco settlement. That settlement was reached, with many of those dollars being earmarked for school facilities. The renewal of session in mid-March will mark the beginning of the last spurt of sessions prior to the November elections. By the end of May, the Assembly is expected to once again be out of session and back on the campaign trail.

Amidst the heat and smoke of the tobacco discussions, the Senate Ways and Means Committee met again on HB 477, which proposes to make a number of changes to the municipal income tax statute. Though the League has been supportive of this bill, we still were asking for a couple of changes to that legislation. The first change was to delete an amendment passed in House committee which would require municipalities to begin paying interest on expected refunds 30 days after receiving the request for that refund. The current and practical requirement is for interest payments 90 days after a refund is requested. The 90-day requirement in current law mirrors the requirement the state places on itself for refunds.

The committee unanimously accepted the amendment to return to the 90-day requirement and delete the House's 30-day amendment.

Though we are still in discussions with the sponsor and others on the issue of the "12-day occasional entrant" provision of HB 477, we still have not gotten any relief on this matter. Additional compromises floated by the League on this matter have been spurned out-of-hand by groups such as the Ohio Society of CPA's. We will continue to work with the House sponsor and members of the Senate to find a compromise on this issue.

In the meantime, HB 477 cannot come to the Senate floor until the middle of March. You have between now and then to let your member of the Senate know the problems the current 12-day exemption from taxation in HB 477 create for your community. Your communication with your Senator is the best way to help us forge a change in this provision of HB 477.

HB 434, Statewide Contractor Certification Legislation

As the General Assembly begins their legislative spring break this week some legislators remain in Columbus to fine tune bills for when the legislature resumes activity. One such bill of interest is HB 434, Rep. Stephen Buehrer’s bill which would make the State of Ohio the only entity to license specific Ohio contractors. The bill would create a system by which heating, ventilating, and air conditioning contractors, refrigeration contractors, electrical contractors, plumbers and plumbing contractors, and hydronics contractors would be able to obtain a single state-issued license to do business in all parts of the state and eliminates most existing authority for municipal corporations to impose additional testing of contractors. This, of course, means that municipalities who currently conduct their own examinations would no longer be able to do so. The testing requirements would be under the direction of the Ohio Construction Industry Examining Board. The bill has received three hearings in the House Commerce and Labor committee and is expected to be voted out by the committee sometime in mid to late March.

This week the Ohio Municipal League met with Rep. Buehrer and other interested parties to the legislation on changes we would like to see made to the legislation. One issue that we and the city of Columbus brought to the attention of the sponsor is the minimum work experience requirements that a new contractor must possess in order to be eligible to be licensed. Currently HB 434 states that a candidate must have three years experience in the field to be eligible for certification. The League feels this is too short of a time for experience and would like to see the minimum threshold as five years work experience. Another problem we have with the proposed language is the elimination of the responsibility of the contractor to secure a surety bond for the work project. A surety bond would insure that if a contractor failed to complete the project to code standards requirements of the municipality in which the work is being performed in, the bond would pay for the work to be completed to meet code standards. To this end, the discussions we have had with the sponsor and others to come up with alternative language is to create a one bond system for the entire state. It has been suggested that instead of a bond being issued by each individual municipality, the contractor would have to purchase a "universal" state surety bond as part of the licensing process. As proposed this state-wide surety bond would have a value of $25,000 which is typically higher than most surety bonds currently require.

We are very interested in your feelings on this legislation, the changes it is proposing and the changes we have suggested. As stated earlier, the House committee is poised to vote out this bill in mid March so any constructive suggestions on the practicality of this issue would be greatly appreciated. Please contact John Mahoney, at the League offices, with your concerns.

LATEST PUBLICATION IN VILLAGE SOURCEBOOK SERIES In response to numerous requests, the OML and the Center for Public Management and Regional Affairs at Miami University are making available on diskette a sample Policies and Procedures Handbook for Villages. The 30-page Handbook is based upon one developed by CPMRA and the Ohio Township Association and has been adapted to a village governmental structure. The diskette includes both WordPerfect® and Microsoft Word for Windows® versions. Users can modify the model to suit local requirements and policies.

The diskette is part of a newly updated OML publication STATE AND FEDERAL REQUIREMENTS RELATING TO NON-CHARTER VILLAGE PERSONNEL PRACTICES. The newly expanded version includes information related to appointing authority in a non-charter village, samples of federal labor posters, a model application for employment form, model ordinances, and sample questions that may be asked during an employment interview.

The cost of the package is $10 each plus $4 postage and handing (total cost of P&H for multiple orders is $6) and is available from the OML by calling 1-800-561-3597 or by Fax at 1-614-221-4390. Please include your purchase order number at the time of ordering.

PLEASE SEND A COPY OF YOUR CHARTER