Senator Brenner Gives Us A Budget Breakdown and Bill Victories

Senator Brenner pulls back the curtain on Ohio's legislative process, sharing significant wins for wildlife rehabilitation and consumer protection while breaking down what matters most in the massive state budget bill moving through Columbus.

The interview begins with a deep dive into Senate Bill 152, which addresses a critical gap for wildlife rehabilitation centers. Currently unable to humanely euthanize severely injured animals due to opioid crisis legislation, these centers must hire veterinarians, causing delays, increased suffering, and higher costs. The bill that passed unanimously out of the Senate creates a pathway for properly trained staff to administer euthanasia when necessary, and will potentially become law before the end of June.

Equally important is the Senate's consumer protection effort through Senate Bill 155, which addresses real estate "wholesaling" practices where buyers purchase homes without disclosing their intention to resell them at a higher price immediately. Rather than banning the practice, the legislation requires transparency, particularly in protecting vulnerable homeowners, such as seniors and those in economic distress.

The conversation shifts to the 5,565-page state budget, where Senator Brenner highlights property tax relief measures including expanded homestead exemptions, a flatter income tax structure, and school funding guarantees. The Senator articulates an innovative approach to funding economic development using Ohio's $4.8 billion in unclaimed funds rather than direct tax dollars, with built-in protections to ensure returns on investment.

Throughout the discussion, we see how legislative choices directly impact Ohioans, from managing property tax burdens for seniors to addressing the statewide housing shortage through zoning reforms and allocations from the housing trust fund. For listeners concerned about school funding, the Senator provides context on the significant increases in per-pupil spending despite what he says are declining student populations in many districts.

Want to follow these developments? The Senator explains how to access the full budget bill and summary documents at ohiosenate.gov, with final negotiations between the House, Senate, and Governor concluding by the June 30th deadline.

Transcript

Welcome to Central Ohio Matters

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to Central Ohio Matters, the podcast where we delve into the issues that shape Central Ohio's future. Each episode features in-depth conversations with local leaders, visionaries and changemakers driving progress in our region. These conversations offer insights into the challenges our communities face and the solutions being crafted to move them forward. Here's your host, michelle Gatchel.

Speaker 2 0:23

Welcome everybody. We we got a great episode for you today. We are talking to Senator Brenner, and everything at the statehouse is revolving around the budget. Right now, people are focused on what's going to be in, what's going to be out, but there's other stuff going on too.

Ohio Wildlife Center Bill

Speaker 2 0:39

We'll talk a little bit about the budget, because, of course, that's the biggest part right now but, let's talk about, kind of, some of your passion projects that you've also gotten through right now, because one of your passion projects at the Ohio Wildlife Center and what you've done uh, bill wise for that I caught, and that's a place that I have volunteered at for years, so I thought that was a great one. Tell everybody what that bill reminds means.

Speaker 3 1:03

Yeah, well, thank, thank you, michelle. Well, it's. The Ohio Wildlife Center is in Shawnee Hills. It's across from the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, and they receive distressed animals, thousands of them every year, I think over 8,000 animals a year that are basically mostly wildlife animals. These are animals that you know could be an injured raccoon or a bird or a deer or something, and they rehab them and that is their main goal is rehabilitation and then also education of students who come through there. They have thousands of students and families that go through there every year and they go to school specifically and then take some of the animals that have been injured but cannot be returned to the wild, you know, like bald eagles or other types of birds or animals, and you know show them.

Speaker 3 1:55

You know what's going on with a wildlife standpoint.

Speaker 3 1:58

But we changed the laws about oh 12 or more years ago, changed the laws about 12 or more years ago dealing with the opioid crisis, and one of the things that we did was we banned certain organizations from being able to use certain types of drugs and, in this case, the Ohio Wildlife Center and other entities like it throughout the state were prohibited from being able to euthanize the animals that were, you know, severely injured and could not, you know, humanely, they needed to be put down and put to sleep, and so they're not able to do it, so they have to hire veterinarians.

Speaker 3 2:38

They've got to go through an entire process in order to do it and it's just not.

Speaker 3 2:42

It's not a good situation for the animals because they may have to wait, and it's not a good situation from a cost standpoint.

Speaker 3 2:49

So what we did is we are now authorizing the state board of pharmacy to issue a limited license to a wild animal rehabilitation facility, called a WAIF or WARF, I should say, and solely for the purchasing, possessing and administering drugs and euthanizing animals, for pre-euthanizing drugs to, you know, put them under anesthesia so they're not suffering in sedation. The people that do this must actually undergo a category two or three terminal distributor license from the pharmacy board and they must also receive a euthanasia technician certification course and by taking those and doing that and following those procedures, they'll be able to properly euthanize, you know, severely injured wildlife and it will be something that I think is it's know, it's humane, it's it's what should happen, and we're giving them the authority under this bill it's Senate Bill 152 and it just just passed a little over a week ago and it's now in the Ohio House. I expect this is a bill that could go to the governor, maybe before we go on break here at the end of June while we're working on the budget.

Speaker 2 4:05

And then it will be huge because you know, I luckily worked with an agency that had a vet on hand so if those things came in they could deal with it. But most rehab centers are a bunch of volunteers helping out and people are bringing them animals hit by cars and sick animals that they found in their yard and you know you need to help. I mean, euthanizing them is the most humane thing to do in most cases.

Speaker 3 4:34

In those situations, I totally agree, and so that's what the bill does. It's been a long time coming and we finally got the bill again. We passed it unanimously. It was 33 to nothing, so that was good. I think there's always one or two people even missing from the Senate or in the General Assembly in any one day, let alone people voting no. So to pass something unanimously with every member, I think, does speak well of the bill and the intent of what we're doing.

Speaker 2 5:04

Great, so it'll go to the House. How quickly does it get to the House for a vote?

Speaker 3 5:08

Well, I believe the bill has already been referred over there. They'll then have to refer it to committee, which they may have done this week or next week, and then they'll usually have two or three hearings on it, usually sponsor, followed by proponent, opponent, interested party. Given that this isn't really that controversial of a bill, it probably can move quickly and I suspect is a bill that could be voted on before the end of June and go to the governor at that point.

Real Estate Wholesaling Reform

Speaker 2 5:36

Let's talk about your other bill. That just what you guys just voted on yesterday, right? Yeah, that's the wholesaling bill correct.

Speaker 3 5:45

Yeah, basically what we have decided to do. My joint sponsor is Senator Ingram, so it's a bipartisan bill. She and I don't always see eye to eye on a lot of things, but in this case we're both in the real estate field and we wanted to do something that protects consumers but still allows the flexibility of people to be able to wholesale homes, and that's basically purchasing homes and kind of through an arbitrage ability. So what they're doing is they're purchasing a house, but there's somebody who doesn't necessarily they're not going to keep the house, they're not the end buyer. They're actually then turning around and trying to find somebody who will buy it. A lot of times, wholesalers work with somebody and they actually go out and find the homes and then set it up a deal with whoever it is that the end person is.

Speaker 3 6:36

However, there are some circumstances and many circumstances. We've seen an increase where wholesalers have gone in. They have suggested things to a lot of senior citizens or people who may be in a distressed home or distressed situation, that oh, we're going to buy this and they will buy it, and not let them know that in fact, they are in fact turning around and selling it to somebody else and they're making money off the difference, and it's taken advantage of some senior citizens, it's taken advantage of people who are in a distressed situation. I think that what we did is we said look, you have to disclose that. I mean, it's not banning it, but it says, look, you have to disclose it. And I think that's a good step forward. And if they don't disclose that they're a wholesaler and what their intent is, then they are subject to having to repay any deposits that were made and so forth. So it's something that I think protects sellers. It's a good measure. That doesn't necessarily add to bureaucracy. It does put some teeth in it. It, though, with the Division of Real Estate so many real estate agents also do wholesaling and they're supposed to follow ethical rules. But this does is put some teeth into that as well and says that if you're not following the disclosures properly, then in fact you can seek some disciplinary actions with the Division of Real Estate.

Speaker 3 8:06

I think, forward the Ohio Realtors, I think many organizations came out in favor of the bill, and I think the I know the AARP was very supportive of the bill, so it was a broad range of organizations that support it. That bill passed also the Senate yesterday unanimously. Senate Bill 155 had passed unanimously 33 to nothing. That also now goes over to the House of Representatives and that was a bill where we had something that was a lot more stringent in the last General Assembly and it didn't go anywhere. So we worked with the various colleagues and business organizations, because there are private property investors who purchase homes and we didn't want to necessarily step on what they want to do, but we wanted to make sure that there were proper disclosures and I think this is a step in the right direction for protecting consumers.

Speaker 2 9:01

Can I ask kind of a question because I honestly don't totally understand real estate. I honestly don't totally understand real estate, but it's like a reverse price gouging in a way, like they're contacting people and saying, well, buy your house for this amount of money, that's all it's worth, but then they turn right around and sell it for more. Is that kind of what happens?

Speaker 3 9:25

That's kind of what happens. In some cases, though, I think wholesalers will. They have investors that are willing to buy homes that are distressed and I'm usually those would be like homes that are run down, so maybe a senior citizen does live in it, but they've let it run down over 20 years or so and they just haven't maintained it and it's going to require work and somebody to actually go in and do the work. And so what some wholesalers do? They go out and they look for those homes and they meet with the people, they set it up and then they do make money off of it, but they're also basically kind of a salesman, in a way, for these investors. That way, the investor is the one that's coming in, actually doing the work and flipping the home and you know that actually improves the you know the market, because it'll actually improve a home and maybe help out a neighborhood.

Speaker 3 10:10

So that's why we kind of wanted to not we didn't want to necessarily, you know step on that market. We were more concerned about the people that were just going in and saying, look, we want to buy your home, knowing that they were just price gouging to some degree, and when I mean price gouging I mean doing what you suggest. Sug suggest that, well, you know, the home is only worth X, when in fact they knew it was worth a lot more. And and we're just kind of taking advantage of a senior citizen or somebody who you know may not mentally market there or, you know, maybe highly distressed because of, you know, an economic misfortune, and we don't want that either.

Speaker 2 10:47

So an economic misfortune, and we don't want that either. So yeah, yeah, well, it sounds like a great bill.

Speaker 3 10:53

We have to keep us informed on how it's going through when do you guys go on break well, we go on break at the end of the month, uh, in june. Uh, 30th is uh the last day of the month and the budget should be done by then, because it's due by june 30th, because the new fiscal year starts July 1st. Oh, I will also say I just got word that Governor DeWine is going to be signing my Rutherford B Hayes bill. He's signing it today. We will have a ceremonial signing here soon, where I can be there along with my joint sponsor, bill Reineke. We've joint sponsored it to designate October 4th as Rutherford B Hayes Day, because he was born in 1822 in Delaware and he died in Fremont. Thus my joint sponsor is Senator Bill Reinecke. So that's another bill that I just did that the governor actually is signing today.

Speaker 2 11:46

Nice, and I think you need to have some kind of a ceremony down there, in the middle of downtown Delaware, where his statue is.

Speaker 3 11:55

That's not a bad idea. Maybe I'll talk to the governor and see what we can do. Or maybe in Fremont I don't know Delaware's closer I want it to be in his birthplace.

Property Tax Relief in Budget

Speaker 2 12:05

Yeah, well, cool. So let's talk budget, because there's a lot going on there, and you just came from a morning of finance meetings and I'm sure a lot of that had to do with the budget. So you know, the last couple of shows that we've done housing affordable housing has come up. Yes, what is in this bill? And we talked to the group that was trying to get property taxes just abolish property taxes, right. So what in this bill is there that's aimed at helping that situation?

Speaker 3 12:45

Well, we're trying to do several things and one of the things that we're looking to do for property tax relief, and not all these are going to be big. But the people who want to do away with the property taxes I can be sympathetic. But when half of school funding comes from property taxes and when most local governments fire levies and all those other things come from property taxes, eliminating them while it sounds good, then what do you do with all those services? So we're either going to have to raise taxes elsewhere or eliminate the services and I don't think people want to eliminate their schools or fire or police and so forth, so I would disagree with them on that. Maybe we can convert things to a sales tax but I think that needs to be a public discussion and maybe transition into a different form of taxation.

Speaker 3 13:34

But in the meantime, the Senate has been working on the state budget and a couple of things that we're working on is dealing with property tax relief, so transparency. So a lot of this is around school funding and since 60% or so of the property taxes are schools, this is obviously a major amount. In fact, it could be higher depending on the area. So the House had passed a bill to limit the amount of money local school districts can hold the Senate. We kind of agreed but we were like, wait a minute, you've got five-year forecast. You've also got money that is collected up front and then they spend it down over time because they collect a fixed amount each year and they're collecting a certain amount early on, that's more. But they know that over time they're going to have, you know, payroll goes, it gets higher because you have to pay for, you know, pay raises and so forth.

Speaker 2 14:31

So we thought there should be adjustments.

Speaker 3 14:33

So, yeah, we raised the threshold to 50 percent of their annual revenues to be a cash hold back and then if they hold more than that, they need to vote to put that into a fund like a construction fund. So we believe local school districts can still make that decision, but they need to have formal votes on it and actually designate those funds for things like new roofs for schools. So we did that, and if they go in excess of 100 percent or go over that and they don't have a reason to set it aside, then we let the local budget commissions make a decision that they could roll those taxes back, so that could be a potential reduction of property taxes. We also were looking at things like eliminating emergency school levies, because there are some school districts that have had emergency levies on for 30 years. That's misleading to the public, so we're looking at different mechanisms so that the public is fully informed as to what the taxes are. So we prohibit a school district from proposing a tax expense levy if their general fund carryover balance is over 100 percent, and then that's going to be something we believe that will save money for schools. And then we will do a few other things. We eliminate some debt, bonding structures and other things that are around, that we put some caps in on some of the expenditures.

Speaker 3 15:57

We've got a school funding system that I think we are phasing in the next level of it, so there is more funding for schools, for everybody says that there are cuts. There are no cuts in school funding. No-transcript have economically disadvantaged students, but only for actual economically disadvantaged students, not everybody. So there were some changes there and I think that will help reduce costs. But we should also say something else. Ohio is seeing a reduction in and I'm not talking like Delaware County, but throughout Ohio. We've seen a decline in student population of 5.5%. Yet we've seen an increase in real funding per student since 2014. And in fact, the student population in our traditional public schools in 2014 were below, or around 1.6 million today, and that's statewide. So that's a significant fall off, significant fall off. Yet real funding per student has gone from I believe it was around $11,500 per student to in real funding. We're looking at $15,500 per student, with actual expenditures at $17,500 per student in the most recent year. So this idea that we've reduced funding, that's just not true. In fact, we've substantially increased it and the state portion has remained higher than it has been, from a standpoint of more dollars are actually going into schools. So I think from that standpoint we're returning it.

Speaker 3 18:02

But the other big thing that we have for tax reform is the Senate has proposed reducing the income tax to a flat tax. But internally, categorically, we're trying to eliminate those cliffs, so everybody is going to get a small income tax cut. And then we're also raising the threshold for property tax homestead exemption. For those who are on the standard homestead exemption, we're going from $28,000 to $32,000. And then for those that are on the standard homestead exemption, we're going from 28,000 to 32,000. And then for those that are on the disabled veterans extension, we go from 56,000 to 59,000. So and then increasing the income threshold also from 40 to 42,500. So more people are going to be able to qualify for a homestead exemption and we've increased the homestead exemption. So that should help with some property tax relief as well. So I think there's a lot of stuff in this budget that will help grow the economy and reduce some of the taxes for people.

Speaker 2 19:02

Are there breaks in the taxes for seniors? The one thing, that message that we kept hearing, was the fact that a lot of seniors are having to move out of their homes because they can't afford paying for the school taxes and those things that keep getting voted in. Is there any kind of a break for them?

Education Funding and Stadium Projects

Speaker 3 19:21

Well, yeah, I think if they're on fixed income, which most senior citizens are, that's where their homestead exemption will increase. And for those who don't know, the first $26,050 of income is tax-free in Ohio. So there is no income tax on that first $26,500 or $50. And then we're indexing that to eliminate that cliff so that instead of $26,051, you're now paying income tax. We're trying to level that cliff off over the next two years so they don't have to pay as much in tax. So in a way, it's a flat tax, but it's a flat tax with maybe micro reductions in it for people on the margins, so that they're not just suddenly having to pay out a larger amount. And that's hundreds of millions of dollars of tax relief for Ohioans. I don't think people realize that, but that is in the state budget and I think that's something that will help, especially if you are poor, if you're a senior citizen and you do have some income. This should help out, I think, people marginally on lower income levels.

Speaker 2 20:30

So what else is in this budget that people should pay attention to that will directly affect them in the next year or two?

Speaker 3 20:37

Well, I think one of the things that I've been working on, we've been working on a lot of education policy. So we do phase in the school funding formula and we do have a guarantee to the year 2021. To the year 2021. So, basically, no school district will see a decline in their school funding from the year 2021's date. Now, I say that because while here in Delaware County or in Central Ohio, we've seen an increase in the student population, we've got some school districts that since 2020, this is just five years ago have seen a 10, 20, and 38 percent decline in student population. In those districts, the one that had the largest decline was East Cleveland City Schools, but we've got school districts all over the state that have seen student declines in student population. So I think that you know we're funding them at a level that is covering the cost of all their students and you know it's a large amount of money. If you take a look at the overall numbers, if you look at local, state and federal dollars, you're around $24.5 billion being spent on K-12 education. So that's a huge part of the bill. The other thing that's in the bill that the House had put in, what we in the Senate disagreed on was sports stadiums, and specifically the Cleveland Browns had asked for money for a new Browns stadium in Brook Park in Cleveland. Well, the Senate has decided that, look, we don't want to use tax revenues to do it. We don't want to put our tax dollars, our bond rating, in jeopardy, but we do have money that the state collects and has been sitting on, and that's about $4.8 billion in unclaimed funds. And I would encourage people you know you can Google unclaimed funds, ohio and there's a website you can go to look it up and if you've got some, definitely go after it and get it. But a lot of these funds, a large chunk of them, have been in the state for 10, 20, 30 years, and so the idea was we will take those dollars to essentially put together a scenario where we will get a return on our investment for the state on any sports or economic project like that cultural art centers and other things. So theoretically, under the bill, the way we're proposing it, like even the arts castle or something like that and I'm not 100% certain the Arts Castle, but it would be cultural centers could even apply for the funds that they could use for updating or rehabbing. Now they do have to have a return on an investment, so that's something that they would have to. If you're charging which I don't know, I don't believe the Arts Castle does, but you know those are type of things that could be available for it, and it wouldn't be just the Cleveland Browns. You know other sports organizations or arts centers, cultural centers could apply for those funds. I'm even looking to try to put an amendment in to see if other organizations like the PGA golf tournament in your field could apply, and or maybe the Little brown jug could potentially apply. So we'll see.

Speaker 3 23:56

Again, this is money that we would have to see a return on the investment and there would have to be a return of tax dollars back to the state. But this is coming from unclaimed funds and it's only unclaimed funds that are over, I believe, 10 years old. There's $100 million of unclaimed funds that apparently go into that fund every month. So it's not like it's going to be dried up anytime soon. It's actually just been growing over time and I don't think anybody's really thought about using it. So that way we protect the state.

Speaker 3 24:28

Now there is an argument. Why are we giving any money to any of these organizations? It's not a giveaway. There is a structure in the Senate version that does show a return of tax revenue to the state of Ohio and if we don't get that, there are clawback guarantees that are put into it. That you know in the case of the Haslam's and the Cleveland Browns they will have to put money up front to bond to guarantee the state that they will get their money back. So that's kind of the way it's working. I think it's a better alternative than what the House did and you know it's a way to do it. But you know that's probably the other big thing that was put in the budget that people are talking about.

Speaker 2 25:09

And just to clarify for people that maybe don't know unclaimed funds like I know. Two things for me that I found in there were I had gotten presents from my mom of like Coca-Cola stocks and then I moved and I never connected with anybody and so there was this money in there from Coca-Cola that was owed to me that I never had picked up. But I read in the bill that it also talks about when people pass and they have these bank accounts and they have no family and all this money is sitting there and where does that go? And that's part of the unclaimed fund as well.

Housing Initiatives and Budget Details

Speaker 3 25:48

And actually banks and other institutions try to track down the families or who owns the money to return it, and they usually go through an extensive search and cannot get it or nobody has reached out to them and they may have sat on many of those funds for years. At some point they have to then turn them over and they turn them over to the state. The state then becomes a repository. Names are on there, so if you go to unclaimed funds you can go look it up, and I found a bunch of my family members. Most of the money is like $25 or something and you do have to prove that it's you getting it, because they don't just want to give the money out to somebody that isn't the appropriate person. Now you know, in many cases the appropriate person has died or died years ago and there probably will never be a collection on it.

Speaker 2 26:33

So families can't go and collect on that person.

Speaker 3 26:37

Well, I would assume that there's a procedure, probably through a power of attorney, or if it's gone through probate or something, that there might be a way to do that.

Speaker 2 26:47

Okay, so any smaller items in the budget. Are we fixing the front lawn at the state house?

Speaker 3 26:54

Well, I mean there's always a lot of stuff, I mean from a policy standpoint housing there's we're working on some housing stuff to try to improve the housing stock. There's some zoning reform in there. There are some things about super site super sites, such as stuff to help with zoning for rural areas so that you can put together comp plans, so you can better put together subdivisions or whatever. I mean it could be just planning from housing for a rural area that might have a couple acres, whatever, but we have a housing shortage, so there's some stuff in there about that. And there's stuff to try to deal with the areas like around Intel or the big sites where they know there's going to have a huge influx of people, to try to help improve those areas. But yeah, we had actually there's our summary doc of just the Senate version is 32 pages of amendments, so you can imagine I mean there's a lot. This is a 5,565 page document. Now I say that most of that is just you know existing law with. You know when you change the law there's like scratch out and then underline for the new language. So there may be, only you know, hundreds of pages of that. That actually is the change and then the rest is existing law. That's unchanged, but you know that is in the budget. So there's a lot of stuff there. You know we've we've got a lot of things. You know. We've got some things dealing with public records requests. We have pilot programs for school transportation. We've got a lot of things dealing with Medicaid. The one thing that we're dealing with Medicaid is that if you are an able-bodied person, we're putting some requirements in that you must be able to prove that you are in fact needing of this. And then we were putting some things in there. We're cutting some of the Medicaid budget. It is a, you know it's a, you know, I think, 30 plus billion dollar entity itself that distributes money. So we're trying to find ways there to trim some of that money. And you know, if you're disabled if you are, you know legitimately have issues there will be. You're not going to see any difference. I think you'll continue to see good services on Medicaid and that was what we were trying to do. There are some differences between the House and the Senate on the Ohio Housing Trust Fund. Getting back to housing that issue, the Senate restored the housing trust fund to its existing ability for people in counties to apply and be able to get housing trust fund money. And I've actually introduced a separate bill allowing local authority to be able to use conveyance fees for counties that have not used their conveyance fees to create money for a housing trust fund in the county that it's located in and keep those dollars there. So if they wanted to charge, you know, a half a dollar for a conveyance fee, all those monies could theoretically stay in that county and be used for low-income housing or you know charitable organizations like Habitat for Humanity and others who will help with housing or senior citizen housing or you know whatever that county would choose to use for those types of issues. So we've got things like that.

Speaker 3 30:22

We were working on H2 Ohio. There's a lot of stuff going on there. A lot of the money wasn't being wasn't spent in certain areas, so we felt that a large chunk of the money needs to go to help agriculture. So and and runoff prevention. So we felt that a large chunk of the money needs to go to help agriculture, so and runoff prevention. So we moved a lot of the money that was in H2Ohio around and put it under the agricultural section so that those dollars could be used for ag runoff in the Senate version and so there's a few things like that. But I mean, this covers a wide gamut of things and we're going to-. Where can people?

Speaker 2 30:56

go to look at it if they want to check it out.

Speaker 3 30:59

Well, they can go to any either the. In my case they can go to the ohiosenategov and then just type in the bill. The bill is House Bill 96. So if they go to ohiosenategov, there's a thing that says legislation search. All I have to do is type in 96, click enter and then the next bill that comes up is it. They may not get the most recent version of the bill, but there is a summary doc that you can look at on there that explains what's in the bill and we'll explain what was in the House version of the bill as well. As you can go and look and see what the Governor's version is and you can see the differences. I have a comp doc that is two inches thick just showing the differences between the Executive Branch, the House and the Senate, and we do have differences of opinion between the two chambers in the Governor's office. But the Senate will be voting on the bill next week. We will pass it. It will go to the House. They will not concur. It will then go to conference committee. In the next two or three weeks there will be a discussion between the House, the Senate and the governor as to what the final version will look like They'll negotiate that and then we'll vote on the final version at the end of the month.

Final Budget Process and Timeline

Speaker 3 32:14

Oh, there was one other thing library funding. Libraries are basically fully funded, but it isn't as a percentage. There's been a lot of discussion of that. Library funding and local government funding used to be a full like a percentage one and three quarter percent of the state budget each. But there are 250 libraries in Ohio. There are hundreds or literally several thousand government, local government entities. So I think there's been some discussion that maybe we should start looking at that. You know, continue to fund libraries, continue funding them at levels that they've mostly seen in the past, but we need to consider that. Look, we do have other local governments, like townships and municipalities and counties, that may need some of those dollars for some of their services, especially for people with disabilities or seniors or other things, and we need to start considering some of that when we're making the discussion or even using some of that money for our public schools. So, you know, to keep the school funding formula phased in.

Speaker 2 33:15

So I think overall it's a solid budget and there's a lot to it that everybody can take a look at and filling us in on the budget bill and your bill on real estate wholesaling, as well as the wildlife rehab centers being able to euthanize now. So thank you very much. And definitely keep us informed on when the bill goes through, what what we're going to get.

Speaker 3 33:48

Will do. Thank you very much. Happy to be on and happy to inform your viewers.

Speaker 1 33:55

Thank you for listening to this episode of Central Ohio Matters. Be sure to like, share and download. We cover government policies, health care challenges, housing and business developments, transportation solutions, education and innovation. If you know of a good story we should be talking about, go to the radio station website and fill out a contact form Directed to Michelle Gatchel, host of Central Ohio Matters. Thank you. To show up a good story we should be talking about, go to the radio station website and fill out a contact form Directed to Michelle Gatchel, host of Central Ohio Matters. Thank you.