COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Ohio House members adopted their version of the state’s multi-billion dollar budget, two months after hearings first started.

Every two years, the governor of the state of Ohio introduces what is known as an executive budget. The governor lays out priorities in the executive budget, then House members get the first crack at making changes.

On Tuesday, the Ohio House Finance Committee House amended the budget by adding several new portions, but also removing several provisions that Gov. Mike DeWine put in there.

Ohio House Republicans and leader defend this version of the budget, while Democratic House members said it fails Ohioans.

What’s new?

Property tax relief could come to Ohioans upon this budget’s passage, but not everybody is convinced it will actually work. Ohio House Republicans are proposing a relief system that hinges on how much extra money school districts have each year. Ohio House Finance Chair Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) said this is “immediate relief” that will not cost the state money.

“Folks who pay a higher share of property tax get a higher share of the benefit,” Stewart said.

The proposal requires a County Budget Commission to reduce the property tax rates of homeowners who live in certain school districts. In summary, it will work like this: if a school district has extra money that totals at more than 25% of what it spent the previous school year, property taxes are going down in that district.

“It’s making sure that every single year we do an evaluation at the local level and say ‘do we need to take this much money out of taxpayers’ pockets, or can we leave it in taxpayer’s pocket?’” Ohio House Finance Chair Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) said. “And the state legislature thinks that money is better off in residents’ pockets than the government’s pockets.”

“We are still looking at the details. I am unsure of how this is property tax relief,” Ohio House Finance Ranking Member Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Westlake) said. “All this is going to do is going to force districts to immediately spend money down, so they are under the 25% threshold.”

Right now, according to Stewart, 528 of Ohio’s 611 public school districts have an excess fund that is more than 25%. He said across the state, excess funds have grown from $3.6 billion to $10.5 billion in the past decade.

The property tax provision is part of an ongoing debate about how to best bring Ohioans relief. Of course, the property tax debate also relates to public school funding. Under this proposed bill, while public schools do all get a bump in funding, they are not funded to the degree intended in the “Fair School Funding Program.”

“We simply don’t have [the money],” Stewart said. “We certainly want to get more funding to public schools, but we need to do so in a way that’s sustainable.”

Stewart said it had to be done in a way taxpayers could afford in the long run, without being irresponsible with state dollars. But Sweeney said this proposal for school funding takes the Ohio’s public schools backwards.

“It’s even less state money going into our schools than when this was deemed unconstitutional,” she said.

The budget fully funds programs like the 988 Suicide Hotline; it keeps a merit scholarship for the top 5% of each high school class, as an incentive to go to college in Ohio; and this bill gives more funding to veteran programs. The budget also authorizes a $600 million bond of state dollars for the Cleveland Browns to build a new stadium.

While several provisions in the budget have a price tag next to them, or are associated with spending, some are not. The state budget has a provision in there to make it the policy in the state of Ohio that only two sexes are recognized, male and female: “these sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” the budget says.

Stewart said it is common sense, “like saying the world is round instead of flat.”

“I think it becomes sort of our overriding standard by which you would then evaluate other programs. So, we’ll have a male restroom and a female restroom, we will have programs for girls and boys, we will have programs for men and women, but we’re not going to do things beyond that.”

“I’m not sure why the continuous attack on our LGBTQIA+ community has any place in the budget,” Sweeney said. “I believe it has no place anywhere in state code.”

All of this is only a fraction of what is in the more than 4,000-page budget. NBC4 will spend the next several months bringing you more.

What’s out?

Nearly immediately upon the governor’s budget being introduced, there were a few non-starters. All those provisions were coined “sin taxes.”

DeWine’s budget hiked taxes on tobacco, cigarettes, sports gaming, and recreational marijuana. All of that is out of the budget.

DeWine proposed that the tax for a pack of cigarettes go from $1.60 to $3.10 per pack. The current tax rate has not changed since 2015. DeWine also proposed taxing all other tobacco products, like vapes, being taxed at 42% — up from the 17% rate established in 1993. He wanted to fund a child tax credit through this tax, but that is also eliminated.

This version of the budget also decreases the Tobacco Use Prevention, Cessation, and Enforcement fund by $4 million each fiscal year.

The sports gaming tax would have doubled for the second state budget in a row. It started at 10%, then was increased to 20% in 2023. DeWine wanted to hike it to 40%. DeWine wanted to use this fund, in part, to help pay for new professional sports stadiums and support youth sports.

The Browns will still get some state money for a new stadium. But any other professional team will have to make a separate case to lawmakers for funding, and the youth sports initiatives will also not be funded.

DeWine wanted to double the excise tax on recreational marijuana to 20%. Voters approved a 10% tax in November 2023. There are several bills to revise the laws surrounding reactional marijuana being heard at the statehouse, but neither of them includes a tax hike anymore. Taking it out of the budget was the final move to kill that tax increase, for now.

Several other programs were cut, or fully stripped. For example, DeWine proposed a one-time $30 million expense on school busy safety. That was reduced to zero. “Mental Health Support” under the Department of Higher Education was also reduced to zero from a proposed $10 million dollars the next two fiscal years.

Even though all these changes were made to the state budget on Tuesday, it is not the final version. A few more will likely come next week.

Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said the plan is to vote the state budget from the House chamber on April 9, sending it to the Senate for its consideration. The Senate will likely make its own changes to the bill, before lawmakers agree on a final product, and send it to the governor’s desk.

The budget must pass from the Ohio Statehouse by the end of June, with a deadline for its enactment on July 1. Because it is a spending bill, DeWine does have the power to line-item veto provisions he does not like or agree with.