This report reflects the latest happenings in government relations, in and around the Ohio statehouse. You’ll notice that it’s broad in nature and on an array of topics, from A-Z. This will be updated on a weekly basis.
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ARTS, SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
The Cleveland Browns have taken a significant step toward building a new domed stadium in the suburbs, the team announced Thursday. The 176-acre site in Brook Park will not only house the new Huntington Bank Field enclosed stadium, but also the adjacent mixed-use development, the Browns said in a news release. "We have executed the clause and taken the necessary steps in our land purchase agreement with the current owners to solidify our future purchase of the 176-acre site in Brook Park for a new Huntington Bank Field enclosed stadium, along with an adjacent mixed-use development," Haslam Sports Group Chief Operating Officer Dave Jenkins said. A few days before the team's announcement, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb sent a letter to Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam threatening to invoke the "Modell Law," which was passed by the General Assembly in the mid-1990s after Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore, MD.
FY26-27 BUDGET
Auditor Keith Faber's office would add a dollar per hour to what local governments and school districts are charged for their required audits in each year of the next biennium under draft budget plans submitted to the DeWine administration. The Office of Budget and Management (OBM) provided Hannah News with a copy of Faber's FY26-27 budget request, along with those of other agencies, in response to a public records request. While ultimately, Gov. Mike DeWine decides what ends up in the executive budget proposal that goes to the Legislature, governors, as a matter of course, include requests from other statewide officeholders without change.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/URBAN REVITALIZATION
The Ohio Water Development Authority (OWDA) has awarded more than $2.5 million through low interest loans to Ohio communities to improve wastewater and drinking water infrastructure, and make water quality improvements for Ohioans. For the month of December, OWDA funded five projects that will provide improvements and replace aging infrastructure, the agency said in a news release. The five awarded projects received an interest rate ranging from 3.62 percent to 3.84 percent.
EDUCATION
A Northeast Ohio teacher who alleged in a lawsuit she was forced to resign for objecting to using the preferred pronouns of students in gender transition won a $450,000 settlement against her old employer. Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal advocacy group, said this week that former Jackson Local School District middle school English teacher Vivian Geraghty will be paid $450,000 in damages and attorney fees under a settlement in the case, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
Lt. Gov. Jon Husted announced Thursday the High School Tech Internship program's latest round has opened for students and businesses to apply. The program offers employers wage reimbursement for hosting high school interns in tech-related roles, giving them a recruitment pipeline and providing the students with valuable work experience. Interested businesses, schools and students should contact their regional intermediary organization. Those include the Strategic Ohio Council for Higher Education (SOCHE) in Northwest and Western Ohio; Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Y.O.U.) in Northeast Ohio; the Educational Service Center of Central Ohio; INTERalliance of Greater Cincinnati in Southwest Ohio; and Building Bridges to Careers in Southeast Ohio. More program information, including how to contact intermediary groups, is available HERE.
ELECTIONS 2026
Cancer doctor Bryan Hambley announced Thursday that he will be seeking the Democratic nomination for secretary of state in 2026. A Warren County resident, Hambley is the first Democrat to announce for the statewide office. "Democracy works best when communities can exercise their right to be heard. Here in Ohio, we have seen our secretary of state abuse our democracy, making it harder to vote, purging voters from the voter rolls, and drawing unfair maps that have been deemed unconstitutional time and time again. I am running because I care about Ohio, and I have seen my patients and our communities suffer from a broken and gerrymandered democracy," Hambley said in his announcement.
EMPLOYMENT/UNEMPLOYMENT
Ohio's unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.3 percent in November, though 5,500 jobs were added over the month according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS).
Geographic Solutions Inc. will provide and maintain a new system to administer unemployment benefit payments and appeals under a contract worth up to $83.3 million, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) announced. It is expected to go live within two years. The agency said the vendor provides an off-the-shelf system already in use in other states. Pennsylvania's unemployment compensation program uses a Geographic Solutions Inc. system, and all neighboring states save Michigan contract with the company for some program or another, according to the company website.
ETHICS
The Ohio Ethics Commission recently adopted an advisory opinion aimed at providing guidance to public officials who may simultaneously serve in a public position and on the board of a nonprofit corporation in their "official capacity." Advisory opinion 2024-01 was adopted to answer questions about how public agencies should appoint and instruct public officials or employees to serve in their official capacity, who determines whether a public official or employee is representing the interests of his or her public agency, and how the official capacity exception applies to joint appointments by two or more public agencies.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY/STATEHOUSE
The House and Senate adjourned sine die on Monday, Dec. 30, wrapping up business of the 135th General Assembly. Before doing so, lawmakers sent 29 bills to Gov. Mike DeWine for his consideration. The 136th General Assembly will convene Monday, Jan. 6.
The Ohio Legislative Black Caucus (OLBC) made two changes to its leadership team for the 136th General Assembly, the organization announced recently. Rep. Terrence Upchurch (D-Cleveland) was re-elected as president, and Sen. Catherine Ingram (D-Cincinnati) will serve another term as first vice president, OLBC said in a news release. Rep. Sedrick Denson (D-Cincinnati) will continue as second vice president, and Rep. Dontavius Jarrells (D-Columbus) will remain treasurer. Additionally, Sen. Hearcel Craig (D-Columbus) was re-elected as OLBC sergeant-at-arms and chaplain. Rep.-elect Meredith Lawson-Rowe (D-Reynoldsburg) was elected as OLBC secretary, replacing Rep. Latyna Humphrey (D-Columbus). Humphrey did not seek another term as secretary, according to OLBC. Rep.-elect Erika White (D-Toledo) was elected as OLBC parliamentarian, replacing Sen. Vernon Sykes (D-Akron), who left office after being term-limited.
GOVERNOR
Gov. Mike DeWine told reporters before Christmas that he would "likely" sign HB8 (Swearingen-Carruthers), as some of the changes made to it were by his request, but he and his staff will review every bill that was passed. HB8, the "Parents' Bill of Rights" regarding notification about student health, well-being and instructional materials with sexuality content, also includes language on mandatory released time for religious instruction. The Ohio Federation of Teachers, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, Ohio Center for Sex Education and Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio have all opposed the bill.
Gov. Mike DeWine should line-item veto language in 135-HB315 (Hall-Seitz) allowing the state and local governments to require public records requestors to pay estimated actual costs before receiving video public records. "This language unnecessarily restricts transparency regarding state and local policing by dramatically altering Ohio's public records laws," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio and 18 other organizations wrote in a letter to the governor.
Flags will fly at half-staff throughout Ohio in honor of former President Jimmy Carter following an order issued by Gov. Mike DeWine after Carter's death on Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024.
The governor signed the following bills:
SB109 SEX OFFENSES, MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS (Hackett)-Regarding sex offenses and individuals regulated by the State Medical Board, regarding unauthorized intimate examinations, and to amend the version of section 2305.111 of the Revised Code that is scheduled to take effect Oct. 12, 2028, to continue the change on and after that date.
JUDICIAL
The Ohio Supreme Court has published a second revision of its annual rules package for a fresh round of public comment due no later than Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. Presented to the Legislature in the spring for final approval or rejection by July 1, this rules package includes various amendments to the Ohio Rules of Appellate Procedure, Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence and Juvenile Procedure. It devotes most of its pages to delinquent children and juvenile traffic offenders and generally seeks to strengthen Marsy's Law language in judicial rules.
The Ohio Board of Professional Conduct issued a pair of advisories on judge recusals in its final opinions for 2024. In Advisory Opinion 2024-07, board members say a judge is not automatically disqualified from hearing a case when his or her judicial campaign opponent appears as counsel before the judge. The Board of Professional Conduct reached the opposite conclusion in Advisory Opinion 2024-06. Members say judges, "absent a waiver by the parties," must recuse from cases in which parties are represented by counsel that concurrently represents the judge in another matter.
The Ohio Supreme Court has announced U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) funding from its federal Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Program and Justice for Families Program. DOJ's Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) is now accepting grant applications for FFY25. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP) application deadline is Wednesday, Feb. 5. Additional information on both grants can be found at Grants.gov.
MARIJUANA/HEMP
The state of Ohio needs to move quickly to implement the social equity and jobs program included in adult use marijuana legalization measure Issue 2, according to cannabis policy experts with the Ohio State University (OSU) Drug Enforcement and Policy Center (DEPC). Shaleen Title and Cat Packer, both cannabis policy practitioners with OSU DEPC, said during an Issue 2 panel discussion that they fear the social equity provisions of the law are being left behind. Title said this is a "frustrating time" for people who care about social equity and racial justice.
PENSIONS
Ohio public employees who also have private sector experience for which they've paid into Social Security likely will no longer see those federal benefits reduced to offset their public pensions, following action by Congress over the holidays. Federal lawmakers passed and President Joe Biden is soon expected to sign the Social Security Fairness Act, which eliminates policies adopted in the 1970s and 1980s to reduce the Social Security payments of those who also collect public sector pension benefits.
PUBLIC SAFETY
Forty children under the age of 14 died from a toy-related death from 2021 to 2023, and 167,500 children in that same age group were treated in emergency departments due to a toy-related injury, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC). CSPC recently released its latest toy safety deaths and injuries report, finding the majority of toy-related emergency room treated injuries from 2016 to 2023 were due to non-motorized scooters, accounting for 53,000 injuries across all age groups. Scooters are involved in more than one in every five-toy related injuries for children under 15, CSPC said.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol said in post-holiday reporting that two people were killed in two fatal crashes on Ohio roadways during the Christmas holiday, while three were killed for the New Year's holiday.
TAXATION
The Joint Committee on Property Tax Review and Reform Thursday released its final report after spending the past year studying Ohio's property tax system over eight hearings and receiving testimony from 60 witnesses, issuing 21 recommendations while acknowledging some proposals may contradict others. Created by biennial budget bill 135-HB33 (Edwards), the joint committee was created to review the state's complex property tax system. It was required to review the history and purpose of all aspects of the state's property tax law, including the forms of levies, exemptions, and local subdivision budgeting, and publish a report of findings and recommendations no later than Dec. 31, 2024. The result is an 865-page document detailing the history and changes of the property tax system, while making 21 recommendations, though the joint committee cautioned that the recommendations should not be considered as a comprehensive package given the complexities of the property tax system and the contradictory nature of some recommendations to others.
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION
Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC) directors held back-to-back meetings Thursday and Friday to finish out 2024, a year in which the bureau lowered private employer rates 7 percent and state agencies 8.6 percent and held public employers to 2023 levels; returned Stephanie McCloud as administrator/CEO; survived a cyberattack on its prescription benefit manager (PBM); fired an outside investment firm that had triggered an U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation; hired a new general investment consultant; and added the Ohio Department of Children and Youth (DCY), Deaf and Blind Education Services and New African Immigrants Commission to the state insurance fund.
[Story originally published in The Hannah Report. Copyright 2025 Hannah News Service, Inc.]