On April 8, the Ohio House of Representatives gave final approval to a $91.5 billion budget bill that makes a number of changes to the proposal sent to lawmakers by Governor Mike DeWine in February.
Below are issues GOPC has been actively monitoring through the budget process.
Brownfields
When introduced, the budget included no additional funding for brownfield remediation grants. The House-passed budget extends the Brownfield Remediation Program through the appropriation of $125 million per year over the next two years.
GOPC and others have sought programmatic changes to the brownfield program which House lawmakers did not take up. We will continue to seek changes to improve the operation of the program in the Ohio Senate.
Transportation
The House-passed budget includes $37 million per year for public transportation funding. In the past, this funding was included in the state transportation budget, but lawmakers made the decision this cycle to retain all general revenue fund appropriations in the main operating budget.
The House-passed budget also includes provisions adopting the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Compact and appropriates $25,000 per year to pay costs of Ohio joining the compact. The Compact represents an important step forward as Ohio continues to explore expansion of passenger rail service in the state, including enhanced service on existing rail lines and new services, including proposed routes to connect Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland, along with a Pittsburgh to Chicago line which would pass through the cities of Columbus and Lima, among others.
The House included a provision on the budget which would establish that the taking of property for recreational trails does not satisfy the public use requirement of Ohio’s eminent domain law.
GOPC is concerned that this provision would have a substantially negative impact on the continued development of active transportation infrastructure and will seek to have it removed from the budget while it is being debated in the Ohio Senate.
Housing
The House made a number of changes to the executive budget related to housing. This includes elimination of proposals to allow for a refundable tax credit for rehabilitation of historic owner-occupied residential properties, and the elimination of the proposed Ohio Housing Investment Opportunity Program which was intended to support housing development in rural and border-counties.
Other housing-related initiatives from House-passed budget include:
Ohio Housing Trust Fund: The House-passed budget removes the requirement that housing trust fund fees collected by the county recorders be deposited into the Ohio Housing Trust Fund account, and requires that each county use low- and moderate-income Housing Trust Fund fees for purposes determined by the appropriate county board of commissioners.
GOPC and others have significant concerns about these provisions and will seek the restoration of the Ohio Housing Trust Fund in the Ohio Senate.
Welcome Home Ohio Program: The House made a number of changes to the Welcome Home Ohio Program (WHO), including adding CDCs to the list of qualified nonprofit developers as eligible applicants for grants; extends WHO tax credits from the end of FY25 to the end of FY27; increases the amount of the WHO tax credit from one-third of the construction cost to 90% of such costs; raises the income eligibility threshold to purchase a WHO home from 80% AMI to 120% AMI, and increases the amount WHO-funded homes can be sold from $180,000 to $220,000, among other.
Housing Accelerator Program: The House-passed budget included a version of legislation from the last session, House Bill 499. The “Housing Accelerator” would provide grants to municipalities and townships that adopt at least three defined “pro-housing policies”. A total of $5 million ($2.5 million per year) would be available for grants to communities that have any three of the eight qualifying policies.
Development
Several changes were made to proposals that impact development of infrastructure. This includes the Historic Preservation Tax Credit. The House-passed budget increases the annual cap on credits from $60 million to $90 million per year (the as-introduced budget proposed to increase the cap to $120 million per year).
Another change was to the Transformational Mixed-Use Development (TMUD) tax credit program. The House-passed budget removed a provision in the bill that would have automatically sunset the program. This change will allow the program to continue until it either exhausts the credits that it has available or until a future legislature would decide to end the program.
There are a number of other changes that were added to the budget. You can review all of the changes on this spreadsheet provided by the Ohio Legislative Service Commission.
Lawmakers are currently on a two-week break but will return to work the week of April 28. The Ohio Senate Finance Committee, which has begun preliminary hearings on the budget, will begin to work in earnest on drafting a Senate-version of the state budget. Final passage of the budget is expected to take place sometime in mid to late June.
You can keep-up with all developments related to the budget via the bill tracker here on our website.