Last week, OBL shared an overview of the Ohio Operating Budget bill and how the early phases of the process for working up and passing the largest piece of state legislation play out. After initial amendments to the bill, House Bill 96, were adopted and became public, staff reported on a few key provisions we’re tracking including minor ESG changes at the Treasurer of State’s office, Earned Wage Access (EWA), and changes to the Financial Literacy Education Fund. Last week’s update can be read here. 

This week, the House Finance Committee adopted what is called an omnibus amendment. This is another round of amendments to the bill to make any additional changes the House wanted before the bill was voted out of the committee and sent to the House floor for a vote of the full chamber, which will occur this afternoon.  

Some items from the omnibus amendment we are tracking are:  

• An exemption to state education financial literacy requirements that would allow a student to get credit through a financial literacy program offered by a bank or credit union. 

• A new $2.5M housing grant program for townships and municipal corporations that adopt pro-housing policies. 

• A new County Recorder Electronic Record Modernization Fund, for those offices to have additional monies to put toward compliance with state record digitization and electronic recording requirements. 

Once the House passes its version of the budget, which has some significant differences from the Governor’s proposal, it will head over to the Ohio Senate for further deliberation and changes through a similar process that the House undertook.  

Based on recent history with budget cycles, this process is currently moving at a quick pace and well ahead of the June 30 deadline. But a natural pause occurs as the legislature is in recess for the next two weeks for Easter break. When they return the week of April 28, the Senate will kick off their official process with HB 96. They have already been holding informal hearings in the Senate Finance Committee over the past several weeks as a primer to highlight some priorities from state government agencies.  

After the Senate finalizes their version of the budget, which will almost certainly have differences from the House and Governor’s versions, the bill typically will be sent to Conference Committee, which is made of up of designees from both the House and Senate, to hash out the final version of the bill. Though the Governor does not have a formal seat on the Conference Committee, he and his staff will still hold some sway in the negotiations as he will have line-item veto power over the final version of the budget before he signs it.  Thus, there is still a significant amount of the budget process left to go.  

If you have any questions or comments about any of these provisions we are tracking in the State Operating Budget bill, HB 96, please send to VP of State Government Relations Don Boyd at dboyd@ohiobankersleague.com and Manager of Government Relations Anthony Lagunzad at alagunzad@ohiobankersleague.com.