Tomorrow (Tuesday) at 2:30, the Senate Finance Committee is expected to adopt the amended budget and send it to the full Senate for a vote; that session will be long, likely involving tens if not hundreds of additional changes in the form of an “omnibus” amendment, then expect committee Democrats to offer a bunch of amendments that are voted down; but, before they leave, we should have a new working document

Also tomorrow, at 10 a.m., progressive think tank Innovation Ohio is holding a press conference to discuss the size of the budget deficit. We expect they will look at the question of whether the $8 billion hole ever existed, and if it did, whether it’s still accurate.

And at 11:30 a.m., co-authors and cheerleaders of the Governor’s introduced budget, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and their 501(c)4 front group, Ohio’s Campaign for Jobs, will hold a press conference in the Statehouse, likely decrying the removal of unchecked privatization authority and merit pay provisions in the Governor’s budget and urging the legislature to hold firm against additional restoration of funds, despite projections that another $2-3 bilion may be available.

Wednesday and Thursday, committee hearings are tentatively on the Senate calendar for 9 a.m., as a contingency in the event that they are unable to finalize budget negotiations on Tuesday afternoon.

On Wednesday at 1:30, assuming the committee passes the bill tomorrow night, the full Senate is scheduled to meet and will likely debate and pass the bill. We think it’s unlikely that President Niehaus will grant his members a 24-hour “reading day” as was done in the House, but if necessary, an “if needed” session is scheduled on Thursday morning at 11 a.m.

Once the bill passes the Senate, the House will vote to concur (or not) with Senate Amendments. If they refuse to concur, the bill heads to a conference committee. We’ll be back with a primer on how Conference works, but suffice it to say, if you’re not a fan of openness and transparency, you’ll LOVE Conference Committee!

• public testimony this week (see our events calendar – right column)
• another round of amendments to the bill (due soon, see below)
• passage (we assume) by the Finance Committee, early next week
• amendments, debate and a vote on the Senate floor, sometime next week

Amendments to the substitute bill, unveiled yesterday are due to Chairman Widener’s office no later than 12 noon on Friday, June 3. Over the weekend they will decide which to include in an “omnibus” amendment. The committee will meet, likely Tuesday, and vote to incorporate the omnibus and consider additional one-off amendments — usually Democratic, and usually rejected.

This means if you don’t like what was in the sub bill, you can still testify in committee today or tomorrow and still encourage a committee member to incorporate an amendment, either to remove something that’s in the bill or add something that’s not.

UPDATE: from the Dispatch, here are ideas still under consideration for inclusion in the Senate, or in the conference committee (more on that later):

Widener and Niehaus said Senate Republicans are still working on nursing home funding, public
e mployee pension contribution rates, wage regulations, commercial activity taxes applied to casino wagers and the plan to privatize the state’s liquor merchandising business to fund the new JobsOhio economic development entity. There is also a chance a last- minute proposal to allow video lottery terminals at horse racetracks may be included, Senate Republicans said.

We hope this type of primer on the budget process is helpful; I know it’s old hat for many of you. Please email, tweet or reply in the comments if there are other mysteries about the budget you’d like insight into. We’re here to serve!

Today’s the day that the Senate will put its mark on the state budget.

At 1:30, they are holding a press conference on the budget, presumably to outline the changes they have made to the budget bill. Members of the press are invited to the Senate Majority Conference Room in the Statehouse.

Then, at 4:30, in Senate Finance Committee, the substitute bill with some of the 1600 drafted amendments included, will be adopted and become the new working version of the budget bill.

We will miss the hearing thanks to a late doctor’s appointment, but we’ll get all the summary documents that are released and post them as soon as they become available so you can find out what changes they made to the budget.

Thursday at 5pm is the deadline for members to submit amendments to the bill. (as always, budget related events are on our calendar).

The House took about a week and a half before returning with a substitute version of the bill containing around 1,000 amendments. We expect the Senate will take slightly less time, so perhaps we will have a bill by the end of next week. That gives us the week of Memorial Day for hearings on the Sub bill and a last chance for amendments in committee. The bill heads to the Full Senate and a floor vote the first full week of June.

Here’s instructions from Chairman Widener’s office to those wishing to testify in committee:

Persons wishing to testify during public testimony are asked to submit a witness slip to the Chairman’s office as soon as possible. Witnesses are asked to limit prepared remarks to 2-3 minutes and bring 40 hard copies of testimony with them on the day they testify. Direct questions and witness slips to Daniel Hurley in the Chairman’s office, daniel.hurley@senate.state.oh.us.

Individuals and organizations who have already testified or are not able to testify may submit testimony or supplemental information to the committee for the record in written form only.

• the Senate will pass the budget out of their chamber the first full week of June
• amendments to the bill will be due sometime next week
• the Senate is looking at changes to the House-added charter school amendments and looking at Kasich’s plan to make public employees contribute more to their pensions

We’ll see if we can find a more detailed calendar with the remaining public hearings and exact date and instructions for submission of amendments, and post it here.

Fortunately, my tireless collaborator, fiscalyearzero, has been more than picking up the slack, writing several a number of articles this week you may have missed:

• House Republicans still refuse to say who included controversial charter amendments in House budget
• New report highlights wasteful state spending on E-schools
• Tax cuts in 2012 could further harm schools and local governments
• Breaking News: Kasich still sort of a jerk, can’t explain his own budget
• Republicans use faulty logic for supporting the repeal of the estate tax

Another big week of budget hearings in the Senate this week. Up on Monday, the Governor, Auditor, Secretary of State and Attorney General, plus a number of cabinet agencies. Tuesday features some visitors, including education officials from Indiana and Massachusetts. I wonder which of them is going to confirm Kasich’s education advisor’s assertion that student-teacher ratios of 50 to 1 are now a good thing? Here’s the complete list of upcoming events.

Public testimony on education continues Tuesday, while the public is invited to testify about health and human services Wednesday, and anything on their minds Thursday. We assume the week will also see the announcement of a deadline for members to submit amendments to the Chairman for inclusion in the substitute bill.

Finance committee has changed the rules a little bit – only public officials are asked to submit testimony electronically for posting on the website. All others must notify the Chair’s office 24 hours in advance they wish to speak, are asked to limit their remarks to 2 to 3 minutes, and must bring 40 paper copies to the committee. Guess we aren’t quite yet in the golden age of electronic democracy after all. And folks, keep it short. Senators have important business to attend to that doesn’t include listening to a bunch of whiners talk about their poor kids’ education suffering at the expense of the Governor’s $170,000-a-year Chief of Staff.

We are hearing that conference committee (when the House and Senate meet to hash out differences between their two versions of the bill and when new revenue magically appears, allowing both chambers to spend some more on their favorite support groups; nursing homes, for example) will get underway by the second week of June.

* here’s the full set of instructions from the Finance Committee Chairman’s Office:

Witnesses are asked to submit a witness form to the office of the Chairman no later than 5:00pm on the day before the day you wish to testify. Witnesses who do not meet this deadline will be heard, though wait times will be longer.

On the day of your testimony, please check-in and deliver 40 copies of your testimony to the Chairman’s office (Room 127). Witnesses are asked to limit prepared remarks to 2-3 minutes; you may submit longer testimony and summarize your remarks if you prefer.

 

• Tuesday: Health & Human Services agencies at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. and a Medicaid panel at 9:45.
• Wednesday: K12 education agency testimony at 9 a.m. and interested party testimony(*) at 1 p.m. and again at 7:30 p.m.
• Thursday: Higher Education agency testimony at 9 a.m. and interested party testimony(*) at 1 p.m.

* – to testify in Senate Finance Committee, you must contact the Chairman’s office no later than 5:00pm on Monday, May 10, 2011 and provide an electronic copy and 20 hard copies of their testimony to the Chairman’s office no later than 24 hours in advance of your scheduled time to appear before the committee. Electronic submissions can be directed to Daniel Hurley at daniel.hurley@senate.state.oh.us. Testimony will be available to interested parties and the general public on the Senate Finance Committee website.

The House is set to put its final marks on the 2012-2013 state budget. Here’s what they have in store:

• Hearings Monday and Tuesday
• Amendments are due to the Chairman of the Finance Committee by noon Monday
• Tuesday, expect to see a committee vote on additional amendments, and on the bill itself
• The House as a whole will take up the measure (with one last chance for speeches and amendments) on Thursday

Meanwhile, the Senate isn’t waiting around. They are slated to start a flurry of hearings, and we mean F-L-U-R-R-Y!

• It all kicks off with an afternoon hearing on Tuesday, featuring testimony from the Governor’s Budget Director and the Legislative Services Commission about the bill overall, and likely about somewhat rosier revenue projections than when the budget was initially introduced in March
• Two hearings a day will commence for the rest of the week beginning Wednesday morning.
• Wednesday features testimony from a slew of boards and commissions, while cabinet agencies and other offices of high prominence start up on Thursday.
• The really fun stuff (in my opinion) will be: Ohio Consumers Counsel on Thursday,
• We’ll also be watching for the hearing with the Legislative Services Commission to see if it gets any questions about Speaker Batchelder’s unilateral transfer of the controversial former director of the Workers Compensation Council to its staff.
• Friday morning is the one we’re especially eager to attend, with testimony from the Casino Commission, Liquor Commission and Department of Commerce (the latter two are key players in a privatization scheme to fund the embattled JobsOhio nonprofit corporation). The Director of the Department of Development, which JobsOhio seeks to replace, will also testify at the hearing.

As always, a complete calendar is available on the right-hand side of our site, or as a printable list on this page.

The full committee hearing schedule is posted on our events calendar.

if you would like to testify, here are the rules, according to the Finance Chairman’s office:

As public testimony before the Finance and Appropriations Committee on Sub. HB 153 continues, Chairman Amstutz asked me to request that anyone planning to testify please submit a witness slip (attached) with your email and appropriate contact information to me as soon as possible so that we may better coordinate the large amount of witnesses wishing to speak. The committee schedule through Monday, May 2 is attached. Also, please be prepared to bring 75 copies of your written testimony with you to the hearing.

Please pass this along to anyone wishing to testify who may not have received this.

Jessica Crews
Legislative Aide
Representative Ron Amstutz
(614) 466-2392
jessica.crews@ohr.state.oh.us

 

We aren’t sure what they plan to discuss. Hagan isn’t a member of the Finance Committee. She hasn’t introduced any legislation, which otherwise might be an indication of what they will be discussing (an amendment to include her legislation in the budget, for instance). And it takes place three days prior to the suspected release of the substitute bill, so we are stumped. But it’s a budget event, so we’ll be watching.

And if anyone knows the subject of Monday’s press conference, let us know.