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No. 8 May 31, 2006 PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS BULLETIN TO YOUR COUNCIL, DEPARTMENT HEADS & STAFF General Assembly Adjourns for the Summer, at Least. The General Assembly has left the building. Probably best. Despite near-casualties, no one got hurt. Despite flares of temper in the final week and partisanship all around, as one should expect in a body designed to be partisan, the duels were kept rhetorical. Once again, the original rule that all desks on the House and Senate floor be kept one sword-length apart proved to be prudent, but, fortunately, unnecessary. As of last Thursday, the Ohio General Assembly is out of session for several months. A brief session is tentatively scheduled for early August. That session, however, is mostly scheduled for ballot issues the General Assembly may want to place on the ballot for the November ballot, prior to the August 9 deadline for such issues. One of those issues, a new process for legislative redistricting and congressional reapportionment, seemed to go down in flames last week when the Ohio House failed to approve such a measure. While House Democrats showed their lack of enthusiasm for such a measure last week by their votes, the Senate majority has also shown no great enthusiasm for such a measure. While that certainly was the issue that led the list for issues that might draw the legislature back to Columbus for a couple of days in August, the issue of eminent domain, and a possible Constitutional Amendment of some sort on that issue for the November ballot, still looms as a possible August draw for a legislative session early that month. The Task Force on Eminent Domain, with its two subcommittees, is meeting this month (June 8) to discuss the issues. We will keep you informed on developments related to that issue and whether that issue might be the draw that sparks an August session. In addition, we should always keep in mind that that there are only two kinds of years in the legislative cycle, the budget year and the election year. This is the election year. All districts of the House and a little over half of the Ohio Senate districts are up for election this fall. We also have high-profile U.S. House, U.S. Senate and statewide state races in the mix. Given Ohio’s position as the media’s favorite place to frenzy feed on politics and the many tough races facing Ohioans, anything could come up as a possible issue and possible ballot issue in need of legislative action between now and August. Barring all of that, the General Assembly may not be back until November, after the general election. What that possible “lame-duck session” looks like is anybody’s guess. We will have a new Governor and new constitutional officers coming into power. We will have new majority numbers coming into the General Assembly. The politics of the General Assembly will make the adjustment to those new officeholders and new caucus numbers very quickly, no matter how large or small those changes are. The lame-duck session could be very long or short depending on how elections in Ohio turn out. Should be a very interesting time or a time marked by everyone showing how many different ways they can tread water. We’ll see. E-Bulletin and OML Link: Good for you and the League. We know. We know. Your mom used to tell you “its good for you” about a lot of things. And maybe that bit of advice about always telling the truth or something else led to your last divorce or some other hobgoblin of disaster. But, it really is true, when it comes to the League’s Legislative Bulletin information. If you haven’t signed up for the e-Bulletin, you’re missing out on a lot of good information. Many weeks, when we don’t have enough information to write up a full paper bulletin, we still send out an e-bulletin to our e-bulletin subscribers telling them what went on Columbus this week. We also send out information about upcoming conferences, administrative rules that might be of interest and other stuff. We do our best to not bug our subscribers, but still keep them as informed as possible. With the paper, regular mail bulletin, we always have to calculate whether we have enough information from the week to justify the postage. For the past few weeks, that has not been the case, but e-Bulletin subscribers have received what little news there has been. Signing up for the e-Bulletin keeps you better informed and saves the League money. We think both are good things. To start receiving the Bulletins by e-mail, all you have to do is send your e-mail address, your name, your municipality and whether you’d like to taken off the regular mail list to: jmahoney@omunileague.org. We’ll take care of it. We’d also like to thank those many municipalities that have added a link on their municipal website to the OML website. We know it’s not the first thing you think of when designing a municipal website, but it is a way for your citizens to learn about what your community faces on statewide issues. Please, add us to your website, if you feel comfortable with that, and let us know if your community’s website is not already on our site. We’ll be glad to add the link. TEL Me No More. Last week, the General Assembly did two things related to the Tax Expenditure Limitation (TEL) proposal. First, they publicly recognized that the TEL put forth by the Citizens for Tax Reform and Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, for more than a year, was a terrible and badly-crafted idea for all local governments. For that through legislation, they allowed supporters of the idea to request that the Secretary of State withdraw the issue from the ballot. The supporters promptly did so through a letter available on our website. Though some question the legitimacy of this measure, there is still a challenge to the entire petition process for this measure, up for court review on June 9, that is not expected to be challenged by supporters of the measure. Between the two efforts, we do not expect the TEL to be on the November ballot. For those legislators who supported that legislation (HB 312), we are very grateful.
The second thing, legislators did, as part of the deal to get the TEL off the ballot, was to pass a statutory TEL. That TEL limits state GRF growth to the percentage of population growth plus the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or 3.5%, whichever is greater, for the General Revenue Fund. It exempts from that cap Local Government Funds. While it takes an extraordinary majority of the General Assembly to pass a spending bill exceeding the cap, it takes only a majority of the General Assembly to change the cap. Effectively, the statutory TEL has no meaning until the next state budget in 2007. Traffic Safety and Cameras. When last we visited HB 56, which tries to limit the use of cameras by local police for traffic enforcement, you pretty much had to have a picture of the person committing the offense to enforce the law. As HB 56 came out of Senate Highways and Transportation Committee last week (5-4), local police departments are prohibited from taking a picture of an offending vehicle operator. The obligation to investigate and prove that a vehicle owner deserves a ticket or not is also deleted from the latest version of the bill. But, that shouldn’t spoil the fun for those whose idea of a good time is running red lights. For those folks, the solution is to lease your car from the right dealership, the one that knows under this legislation, the dealer has no obligation to tell local police who leases which car. HB 56 also doesn’t care much about school zone speeders and the like for it bars the use of cameras for all enforcement of speed laws, unless an officer is present. This last point renders the use of such cameras worthless. Fortunately, HB 56 is stuck in Senate Rules for now and can’t be moved up for a Senate vote until the General Assembly returns. Plenty of time to talk to your local legislators about letting municipal leaders and police professionals run their own departments and make judicious use of this new technology to enhance traffic safety. Tangible Personal Property Reimbursement. The state is making its first set of payments to reimburse local governments for dollars lost due to the changes made in the Tangible Personal Property tax during the last state budget. The amount of reimbursement for each jurisdiction can be found at: (click on “CAT” featured link, then scroll down to Tangible Personal Property Tax). |
