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FAX BULLETIN April 27, 2001 PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS BULLETIN TO YOUR COUNCIL, DEPARTMENT HEADS & STAFF Local Government Freeze Still In; New Court Costs Add To the Problem. This week, the Ohio House continued its efforts to put together the final details of a state budget bill that will include both state operating funds and state aid to education. The House and Senate are both poised to finalize a biennial budget by June 1 in order to submit that document to the Supreme Court for Court's judgment on whether the state's plans for education funding are constitutional. The Court has given the other branches of the government until June 15 to come up with a plan that the Court deems constitutional. The freeze on local government and library funds is still a part of the House's budget plan. However, the House budget writers have also included a provision in the budget to make matters worse for some local governments by helping the counties pay for their public defender obligations. The House is proposing to raise state court fees by $2 for the counties. That will, of course, make it more difficult for municipal and other courts to raise the money they need to operate within a balanced budget. This idea does nothing other than make a bad situation worse for local government. Senate leadership has said that it will make few changes to the final House bill. So, if you care about the local government freeze and the increased court costs now is the time to call your members of the General Assembly and let them know how you feel about these issues. Earnings Tax Giveaway Bill Heard. HB 191 was given a first hearing (sponsor only) this week before the House Ways and Means Committee. Under the provisions of that bill, the cities of Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, Cincinnati and Toledo, because they each receive more than $100 million annually from their earnings tax, would have to send 25% of the money received from commuters back to the commuter's resident municipality or township. Estimates are that this bill would result in 10% to 18% reductions in the general fund budgets of these five cities. We have no current estimates about the number of surpluses this would create in the budgets of receiving townships and municipalities. There are also no estimates about the cost this would impose upon the employers in those large cities who would have to figure out quarterly where money would have to be sent. For many of our members, this may, in these difficult economic times, look like an attractive bill. However, aside from the bill's dubious constitutionality, there are many problems with this idea. Why, for instance, is this a good idea in the Toledo area and not in the Akron area? If this is a good idea, why not make the sharing threshold $5 million in annual collections instead of $100 million? And why, in bad economic times, would we put five major Ohio job centers into deficit budgets and create the kind of shortfall in services and safety that would render those centers unattractive as job centers? * * * The House Local Government and Townships Committee is not scheduled for a meeting this week, so there will not be a hearing on SB 5, the annexation bill. Thanks to all the municipal officials who gave testimony this past week against the bill. Good Job! |
