Legislative News

Local districts should be able to use new financing mechanisms for their share of Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC) projects so long as adequate protections are maintained, the commission recommended Tuesday. Budget Director Tim Keen, chairman of the commission, said the administration will seek to grant districts this new authority in the upcoming capital budget. 

Districts already have statutory authority to use lease-purchase agreements or certificates of participation arrangements to finance construction using their own money, but there’s no explicit authorization for them to do so on projects where OSFC is providing a share of the project cost. The recent state budget, HB64 (R. Smith), ordered a study on risks, benefits and effects of allowing such arrangements for OSFC projects. 

The report lists benefits of the financing arrangements, including greater flexibility for districts to raise their share of funding and greater ability to react quickly to favorable market conditions, as well as the avoidance of tax increases to support voted bond levies. 

Downsides include possible loss of the facility for failure to make lease payments, reduced liquidity and funding predictability, lack of transparency when compared to the typical public debate when pursuing a voted bond levy, and possible concerns about subverting voter intent. On the latter point, OFCC chief counsel Jon Walden noted that while use of a lease-purchase deal in the wake of a district’s bond issue defeat might be controversial, it’s also difficult to know exactly what voters’ motivations are in turning down such ballot requests.

Using such arrangements also brings increased costs, the report notes, since markets recognize the elevated risk of deals in the form of slightly higher interest rates, and because deals can require additional involvement by financial experts, triggering more costs and fees.

The report says that failing to address the use of these financing mechanisms would leave uncertainty in the law, while prohibiting their use in OSFC projects would run contrary to lawmakers’ sentiment in authorizing them for non-OSFC projects. 

Keen said a key factor in his support for the recommendation is the fact that lawmakers had previously authorized schools’ use of such financing in other situations. “Given that, it’s appropriate with the right protections,” he said after Tuesday’s commission meeting.

Those protections, Keen said, include the superior lien the commission holds during constructing and while the books are still open on a project, and the requirement that districts maintain the building for its intended educational purpose or risk having to pay the state back.

Keen said the administration is on board with including the policy change in the capital budget bill, expected to be introduced in a couple weeks, and he said he’s talked with staff for legislative leadership about the proposal as well.

The commission also adopted a resolution Tuesday extending the moratorium on lease-purchase and certificates of participation arrangements for OSFC projects while the General Assembly considers the recommendation.

Democratic lawmakers recently introduced legislation (HB 492) aimed at bolstering local infrastructure.

The measure, called “Restore Ohio,” was introduced by Rep. Denise Driehaus (D-Cincinnati) and Rep. John Rogers (D-Mentor-on-the-Lake) and would leverage $1 billion from the rainy day fund over five years to “provide low-interest loans and grants to local governments to help restore the state’s crumbling infrastructure.”

Fifty percent of investment earnings, the pair said, would be made available to communities as infrastructure grants.

“I believe we must invest now – before it’s too late – in order to maintain and improve our infrastructure for future generations,” Rep. Driehaus said.

The program would be overseen by the Public Works Program.

“‘Restore Ohio’ is a fiscally responsible approach to provide local communities with much needed relief from infrastructure deterioration by setting aside funding for critical community redevelopment projects,” Rep. Rogers said.

Higher education leaders are nearing consensus on how to spend the more than $400 million they’re expecting to receive in this year’s capital budget to improve and maintain infrastructure.

The Higher Education Capital Funding Commission, which is in its third round of crafting recommendations for the administration’s capital appropriations bill, plans to wrap up its work by the end of the month.

Without providing details of the arrangement, those close to the process say the sectors have largely agreed on how to allocate the funding in the wake of some House lawmakers pushing for additional money for community colleges.

“I think everybody has gotten better at it,” Ohio Association of Community Colleges President Jack Hershey said, referring to the process of collaborating to recommend funding – a duty the administration passed on to the institutions in 2012.

“I think the level of projects you’ll see are much better, much more strategic and aligned to the overall goals we’ve heard from not only the governor but legislature as well,” he said. “I think everyone will be pretty proud of this set of projects we recommend.”

While the commission anticipates a slight increase in funding this year from the $404.5 million colleges and universities were allocated in 2014, it likely won’t be near the $700 million in requests it received from the state’s 36 institutions.

For that reason, “most of our recommendations will be very basic renovations, including laboratory space that is outdated. HVA systems that don’t work,” Bruce Johnson, president of the Inter-University Council of Ohio, said in an interview.

“There are $29 billion in assets around the state and that takes a lot of money to maintain,” he added.

Mr. Johnson said the projects are getting harder to whittle down as institutions become more familiar with the commission’s guiding principles and the governor’s expectations for higher education.

The seven guiding principles include: Focusing on maintaining investments the state has already made in existing facilities; advancing strategic collaborations; and reflecting the needs of students related to safety, degree completion and learning environment.

“Cutting this large list down to a smaller list is not an easy thing to do,” Mr. Johnson said. “All the requests have been very responsive to the governor’s principles so it makes it tougher for those of us who are making judgements.

A principle that institutions’ funding proposals have reflected more so in recent years is strengthening their ability to respond to new or increased workforce development opportunities in the state, Mr. Hershey said.

While the majority of this year’s funding allocations will continue to be for maintaining and modernizing facilities, he said there will also be recommendations to expand “educational efforts and industries that have in demand jobs” as well as career counseling projects.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee is studying SB 235, introduced by Senators Bill Beagle and William P. Coley, II, which would exempt newly developable properties and redevelopment properties from incurring additional property taxes due to land improvements before building construction. According to the sponsors, this will allow property owners to make improvements to land such as adding sewers, electricity and roads so that it can be sold for commercial purposes without incurring additional property tax increases before the sale of the land to a new entity.

During testimony before the Committee the sponsors said that “this legislation is solely for land where no commercial activity is being conducted and there is no construction or reconstruction occurring. These properties are full of potential for community revitalization and business development. This change will incentivize property owners to enhance land sites for future business and development, rather than the current deterrent of increased property taxes for making land more attractive to interested investors.

“With this tax freeze, property owners will find it advantageous to improve their land, drawing business to Ohio. This bill will result in more pad-ready sites for new businesses and, in turn, encourage economic development and job creation throughout the state. This growth will lead to an increase in tax revenue for local government to support our communities.

“This legislation benefits every entity involved and will benefit Ohio by enhancing local economic development efforts and incentivizing business expansion and new construction projects at no cost to local government and schools. These long term- benefits are essential and pivotal for our state in remaining competitive through business and economic development.

“Senate Bill 235 is rather simple legislation, but one that will have positive ramifications throughout the state. With the support of various regional chambers of commerce and municipal governments, we believe this legislation will benefit both local governments and property developers.”

The Senate Ways and Means Committee is taking testimony on Sub. HB 233, which was introduced by Rep., Kurt Schuring and which is designed to assist in redeveloping strategic areas within Ohio’s downtowns. The bill uses as its core a historic preservation project that qualifies under the Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit. By way of background, the Historic Preservation Tax Credit went into effect in 2007 and has been widely successful throughout our state in restoring historic buildings. Many of those restoration projects have been in downtowns. Sub. H.B. 233 is intended to compliment those projects by offering new economic development tools that will have a synergistic effect on a designated area within a downtown and will provide a critical mass of activity that can support a place where people can live, work, and play.

The legislation allows a municipality to establish a Downtown Redevelopment District in ten-acre increments. The district must have a historic preservation project in it in order for the district to be formed. Up to 70% of the additional property taxes from the appreciated value of the historic preservation project can be diverted to pay for the following:

                        ·  for promotion of activity within the Downtown Redevelopment District 


                        ·  revolving loans to other businesses in the district, infrastructure improvements, and 
debt service on construction loans 
These dollars will be used to support other economic activity in the district and will serve as a building block to the revitalization of the downtown as a whole. 


The legislation also allows for the establishment of an Innovation District to be established with in the Downtown Redevelopment District. The Innovation District will use a 100 gigabyte broadband connection to facilitate IT research and development in the form of business incubators and accelerators. These types of districts have been on the rise in recent years, attracting leading-edge businesses and the talented workers that go with it. The districts will foster a paradoxical alliance of combining old buildings with new high-tech job opportunities that create a sense of place that is very attractive to young people.

The bill passed unanimously in the House Government Accountability and Oversight Committee and also on the House Floor.

Governor John Kasich signed AIA Ohio’s “Good Samaritan” bill into law on Valentines Day, 2016.  The new law grants qualified immunity from civil liability to a volunteer architect for any acts, errors, or omissions conducted in the performance of professional services that are requested by government officials, for a building, structure, piping, or other engineered system during a declared emergency and 90 days thereafter. No immunity is granted from wanton, willful or intentional misconduct. 

Passage of the bill comes following a three year effort. Rep. Louis Blessing III (R-Cincinnati) introduced the bill three years ago during the last General Assembly as HB 379.  That bill cleared the House and the Senate Committee, but failed to achieve a Senate vote prior to the end of the legislative Session.  Rep. Blessing re-introduced the bill as HB 17 at the beginning of the current General Assembly.

HB 17 passed the Ohio House unanimously last February and the Senate January 20 with only Senator, Michael Skindell (D-Lakewood), voting against it.

AIA Ohio thanks all those who helped lobby for the passage of this bill… especially past AIA Ohio President, Elizabeth Murphy, FAIA, who testified on behalf of the bill on several occasions!

Akron officials told lawmakers Feb. 16 that local hiring quotas are a means through which employment opportunities can be provided to city residents.

However, representatives of two trade associations told members of the House State Government Committee that local hiring quotas could have unintended consequences.

Akron Director Public Service John Moore testified as an opponent of legislation (SB 152) that would prohibit a public authority from requiring a contractor to employ a certain number or percentage of laborers from the public authority’s defined geographic area or service area for the construction or professional design of a public improvement. He told the committee that local hiring quotas “were established to ensure our unemployed and underemployed people would have an opportunity.”

The city, he told the committee, is currently undergoing its largest public works project in 200 years – a $1.4 billion sewer project that has resulted in rate increases of 251% over the past five years.

The project includes a local hiring goal of 50%, according to Mr. Moore.

“Akron cannot afford to miss an opportunity to help our residents obtain the training and skills they need so they can work for national, state and local firms bidding on these projects,” he said.

Mr. Moore also blasted the Ohio Contractors Association, which has testified in support of the bill.

“Akron has never asked for a local hiring goal of 100%,” he said. “I don’t know what the rest of the world is like, but in Akron, fair is when you split something equally or 50/50. Apparently, a small child has a better understanding of fair than the Ohio Contractor’s Association.”

Councilwoman Tara Mosley, representing black elected officials of Akron and Summit County, called the measure “an assault on Akron residents.”

“Hiring a percentage of residents who live in the city only makes sense,” she said in written testimony. “Whether it’s 10%, 20% or 50% there needs to be an incentive given back to those cities who at the end of the day are paying for the new jobs that are being created, while strapped with burden of paying for mandated improvements, i.e., extremely high water and sewer bills. We should have a piece of the pie.”

However, Valerie Dahlberg, executive director of the Mechanical Contractors Association of Ohio, told the committee that hiring quotas are “detrimental not only to the construction industry, but also ultimately to the municipalities themselves.”

“Instead of promoting employment, residency requirements actually limit the ability for Ohio employers to complete projects in these municipalities,” she said in written testimony. “We cannot control where our employees live so even if our businesses are headquartered in the municipality, we may not have enough employees to fulfill the requirement. And as you know, in construction, we go where the work is. We are unlikely to have employees living in every municipality that has a project.”

She also told the committee that hiring quotas could benefit companies and workers from outside the state.

“Federal law does not permit local residency requirements to apply to out-of-state contractors,” she said. “This gives an advantage to out-of-state contractors. It seems a perverse result that contractors from Pennsylvania could take a job in Cleveland without worrying about where their workers live but that contractors from Strongsville and Parma could not.”

Jason Clark, a political representative for the Indiana/Kentucky/Ohio Regional Council of Carpenters, echoed those sentiments.

“With the restrictive nature of residency requirements some of the most qualified construction professionals within the state would possibly be left out,” he said. “No resident in Ohio should be excluded the opportunity of employment on a project regardless of where the project may be.”

The Senate Transportation, Commerce and Labor Committee took testimony February 10 regarding SB205 which would require a separate, exterior means of egress for dwelling areas above the second story of certain residential rental properties and provide a qualified immunity to landlords who in good faith comply with the requirement.

Sen. Beagle read the written testimony of Ann and Rod Garner, whose daughter, Ellen, died as a result of injuries she sustained in a house fire near the University of Cincinnati campus.

He said Ellen was trapped in a third-floor bedroom when a fire was started by a space heater.

The testimony indicated that having an external egress option could have helped Ellen escape the home, and argued that a failure to act would mean accepting the deaths of more college students.

The testimony indicated that quality egress ladder costs about $265, and besides offering an escape route, would also minimize the risk that insurers and landlords face from the issue.

The hearing start was delayed briefly at the outset when Senate staff and a canine were brought to the Senate Finance Hearing Room after an object thought to be a suspicious package was found in the room. The room was temporarily cleared and it was determined the box contained an egress ladder that Sen. Beagle displayed during the testimony.

Spencer Brannon of the Ohio Student Government Association also backed the bill. He said the measure would have a significant positive impact on college students in that it would make many of them safer in their off-campus residences.

The rising cost of university housing often forces students to seek lodging elsewhere, and students often end up renting older off-campus homes that have been renovated to make attics and other areas available for living, he said. It is in those areas of homes where having external egress options would be beneficial.

Mr. Brannon added that the association’s members regularly disagree on legislative issues, but said members were unanimous on this bill.

Written proponent testimony was provided by Rod Garner, Anne Kohls, Andrea Heinrich, Laure Quinlivan, University of Cincinnati President Santa Ono, James Oaks of the Miami University Student Senate, Andrew Naab and Andrew Griggs of the University of Cincinnati student body and Dean Dennis of the Northeast Ohio Fire Prevention Association.

The Capital Reappropriations Bill, SB 260, passed the house unanimously February 10.  The bill now goes to Governor Kasich who is expected to sign it soon.

Local districts should be able to use new financing mechanisms for their share of Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC) projects so long as adequate protections are maintained, the commission recommended Tuesday. Budget Director Tim Keen, chairman of the commission, said the administration will seek to grant districts this new authority in the upcoming capital budget. 

Districts already have statutory authority to use lease-purchase agreements or certificates of participation arrangements to finance construction using their own money, but there’s no explicit authorization for them to do so on projects where OSFC is providing a share of the project cost. The recent state budget, HB64 (R. Smith), ordered a study on risks, benefits and effects of allowing such arrangements for OSFC projects. 

The report lists benefits of the financing arrangements, including greater flexibility for districts to raise their share of funding and greater ability to react quickly to favorable market conditions, as well as the avoidance of tax increases to support voted bond levies. 

Downsides include possible loss of the facility for failure to make lease payments, reduced liquidity and funding predictability, lack of transparency when compared to the typical public debate when pursuing a voted bond levy, and possible concerns about subverting voter intent. On the latter point, OFCC chief counsel Jon Walden noted that while use of a lease-purchase deal in the wake of a district’s bond issue defeat might be controversial, it’s also difficult to know exactly what voters’ motivations are in turning down such ballot requests.

Using such arrangements also brings increased costs, the report notes, since markets recognize the elevated risk of deals in the form of slightly higher interest rates, and because deals can require additional involvement by financial experts, triggering more costs and fees.

The report says that failing to address the use of these financing mechanisms would leave uncertainty in the law, while prohibiting their use in OSFC projects would run contrary to lawmakers’ sentiment in authorizing them for non-OSFC projects. 

Keen said a key factor in his support for the recommendation is the fact that lawmakers had previously authorized schools’ use of such financing in other situations. “Given that, it’s appropriate with the right protections,” he said after Tuesday’s commission meeting.

Those protections, Keen said, include the superior lien the commission holds during constructing and while the books are still open on a project, and the requirement that districts maintain the building for its intended educational purpose or risk having to pay the state back.

Keen said the administration is on board with including the policy change in the capital budget bill, expected to be introduced in a couple weeks, and he said he’s talked with staff for legislative leadership about the proposal as well.

The commission also adopted a resolution Tuesday extending the moratorium on lease-purchase and certificates of participation arrangements for OSFC projects while the General Assembly considers the recommendation.

Democratic lawmakers recently introduced legislation (HB 492) aimed at bolstering local infrastructure.

The measure, called “Restore Ohio,” was introduced by Rep. Denise Driehaus (D-Cincinnati) and Rep. John Rogers (D-Mentor-on-the-Lake) and would leverage $1 billion from the rainy day fund over five years to “provide low-interest loans and grants to local governments to help restore the state’s crumbling infrastructure.”

Fifty percent of investment earnings, the pair said, would be made available to communities as infrastructure grants.

“I believe we must invest now – before it’s too late – in order to maintain and improve our infrastructure for future generations,” Rep. Driehaus said.

The program would be overseen by the Public Works Program.

“‘Restore Ohio’ is a fiscally responsible approach to provide local communities with much needed relief from infrastructure deterioration by setting aside funding for critical community redevelopment projects,” Rep. Rogers said.

Higher education leaders are nearing consensus on how to spend the more than $400 million they’re expecting to receive in this year’s capital budget to improve and maintain infrastructure.

The Higher Education Capital Funding Commission, which is in its third round of crafting recommendations for the administration’s capital appropriations bill, plans to wrap up its work by the end of the month.

Without providing details of the arrangement, those close to the process say the sectors have largely agreed on how to allocate the funding in the wake of some House lawmakers pushing for additional money for community colleges.

“I think everybody has gotten better at it,” Ohio Association of Community Colleges President Jack Hershey said, referring to the process of collaborating to recommend funding – a duty the administration passed on to the institutions in 2012.

“I think the level of projects you’ll see are much better, much more strategic and aligned to the overall goals we’ve heard from not only the governor but legislature as well,” he said. “I think everyone will be pretty proud of this set of projects we recommend.”

While the commission anticipates a slight increase in funding this year from the $404.5 million colleges and universities were allocated in 2014, it likely won’t be near the $700 million in requests it received from the state’s 36 institutions.

For that reason, “most of our recommendations will be very basic renovations, including laboratory space that is outdated. HVA systems that don’t work,” Bruce Johnson, president of the Inter-University Council of Ohio, said in an interview.

“There are $29 billion in assets around the state and that takes a lot of money to maintain,” he added.

Mr. Johnson said the projects are getting harder to whittle down as institutions become more familiar with the commission’s guiding principles and the governor’s expectations for higher education.

The seven guiding principles include: Focusing on maintaining investments the state has already made in existing facilities; advancing strategic collaborations; and reflecting the needs of students related to safety, degree completion and learning environment.

“Cutting this large list down to a smaller list is not an easy thing to do,” Mr. Johnson said. “All the requests have been very responsive to the governor’s principles so it makes it tougher for those of us who are making judgements.

A principle that institutions’ funding proposals have reflected more so in recent years is strengthening their ability to respond to new or increased workforce development opportunities in the state, Mr. Hershey said.

While the majority of this year’s funding allocations will continue to be for maintaining and modernizing facilities, he said there will also be recommendations to expand “educational efforts and industries that have in demand jobs” as well as career counseling projects.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee is studying SB 235, introduced by Senators Bill Beagle and William P. Coley, II, which would exempt newly developable properties and redevelopment properties from incurring additional property taxes due to land improvements before building construction. According to the sponsors, this will allow property owners to make improvements to land such as adding sewers, electricity and roads so that it can be sold for commercial purposes without incurring additional property tax increases before the sale of the land to a new entity.

During testimony before the Committee the sponsors said that “this legislation is solely for land where no commercial activity is being conducted and there is no construction or reconstruction occurring. These properties are full of potential for community revitalization and business development. This change will incentivize property owners to enhance land sites for future business and development, rather than the current deterrent of increased property taxes for making land more attractive to interested investors.

“With this tax freeze, property owners will find it advantageous to improve their land, drawing business to Ohio. This bill will result in more pad-ready sites for new businesses and, in turn, encourage economic development and job creation throughout the state. This growth will lead to an increase in tax revenue for local government to support our communities.

“This legislation benefits every entity involved and will benefit Ohio by enhancing local economic development efforts and incentivizing business expansion and new construction projects at no cost to local government and schools. These long term- benefits are essential and pivotal for our state in remaining competitive through business and economic development.

“Senate Bill 235 is rather simple legislation, but one that will have positive ramifications throughout the state. With the support of various regional chambers of commerce and municipal governments, we believe this legislation will benefit both local governments and property developers.”

The Senate Ways and Means Committee is taking testimony on Sub. HB 233, which was introduced by Rep., Kurt Schuring and which is designed to assist in redeveloping strategic areas within Ohio’s downtowns. The bill uses as its core a historic preservation project that qualifies under the Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit. By way of background, the Historic Preservation Tax Credit went into effect in 2007 and has been widely successful throughout our state in restoring historic buildings. Many of those restoration projects have been in downtowns. Sub. H.B. 233 is intended to compliment those projects by offering new economic development tools that will have a synergistic effect on a designated area within a downtown and will provide a critical mass of activity that can support a place where people can live, work, and play.

The legislation allows a municipality to establish a Downtown Redevelopment District in ten-acre increments. The district must have a historic preservation project in it in order for the district to be formed. Up to 70% of the additional property taxes from the appreciated value of the historic preservation project can be diverted to pay for the following:

                        ·  for promotion of activity within the Downtown Redevelopment District 


                        ·  revolving loans to other businesses in the district, infrastructure improvements, and 
debt service on construction loans 
These dollars will be used to support other economic activity in the district and will serve as a building block to the revitalization of the downtown as a whole. 


The legislation also allows for the establishment of an Innovation District to be established with in the Downtown Redevelopment District. The Innovation District will use a 100 gigabyte broadband connection to facilitate IT research and development in the form of business incubators and accelerators. These types of districts have been on the rise in recent years, attracting leading-edge businesses and the talented workers that go with it. The districts will foster a paradoxical alliance of combining old buildings with new high-tech job opportunities that create a sense of place that is very attractive to young people.

The bill passed unanimously in the House Government Accountability and Oversight Committee and also on the House Floor.

Governor John Kasich signed AIA Ohio’s “Good Samaritan” bill into law on Valentines Day, 2016.  The new law grants qualified immunity from civil liability to a volunteer architect for any acts, errors, or omissions conducted in the performance of professional services that are requested by government officials, for a building, structure, piping, or other engineered system during a declared emergency and 90 days thereafter. No immunity is granted from wanton, willful or intentional misconduct. 

Passage of the bill comes following a three year effort. Rep. Louis Blessing III (R-Cincinnati) introduced the bill three years ago during the last General Assembly as HB 379.  That bill cleared the House and the Senate Committee, but failed to achieve a Senate vote prior to the end of the legislative Session.  Rep. Blessing re-introduced the bill as HB 17 at the beginning of the current General Assembly.

HB 17 passed the Ohio House unanimously last February and the Senate January 20 with only Senator, Michael Skindell (D-Lakewood), voting against it.

AIA Ohio thanks all those who helped lobby for the passage of this bill… especially past AIA Ohio President, Elizabeth Murphy, FAIA, who testified on behalf of the bill on several occasions!

Akron officials told lawmakers Feb. 16 that local hiring quotas are a means through which employment opportunities can be provided to city residents.

However, representatives of two trade associations told members of the House State Government Committee that local hiring quotas could have unintended consequences.

Akron Director Public Service John Moore testified as an opponent of legislation (SB 152) that would prohibit a public authority from requiring a contractor to employ a certain number or percentage of laborers from the public authority’s defined geographic area or service area for the construction or professional design of a public improvement. He told the committee that local hiring quotas “were established to ensure our unemployed and underemployed people would have an opportunity.”

The city, he told the committee, is currently undergoing its largest public works project in 200 years – a $1.4 billion sewer project that has resulted in rate increases of 251% over the past five years.

The project includes a local hiring goal of 50%, according to Mr. Moore.

“Akron cannot afford to miss an opportunity to help our residents obtain the training and skills they need so they can work for national, state and local firms bidding on these projects,” he said.

Mr. Moore also blasted the Ohio Contractors Association, which has testified in support of the bill.

“Akron has never asked for a local hiring goal of 100%,” he said. “I don’t know what the rest of the world is like, but in Akron, fair is when you split something equally or 50/50. Apparently, a small child has a better understanding of fair than the Ohio Contractor’s Association.”

Councilwoman Tara Mosley, representing black elected officials of Akron and Summit County, called the measure “an assault on Akron residents.”

“Hiring a percentage of residents who live in the city only makes sense,” she said in written testimony. “Whether it’s 10%, 20% or 50% there needs to be an incentive given back to those cities who at the end of the day are paying for the new jobs that are being created, while strapped with burden of paying for mandated improvements, i.e., extremely high water and sewer bills. We should have a piece of the pie.”

However, Valerie Dahlberg, executive director of the Mechanical Contractors Association of Ohio, told the committee that hiring quotas are “detrimental not only to the construction industry, but also ultimately to the municipalities themselves.”

“Instead of promoting employment, residency requirements actually limit the ability for Ohio employers to complete projects in these municipalities,” she said in written testimony. “We cannot control where our employees live so even if our businesses are headquartered in the municipality, we may not have enough employees to fulfill the requirement. And as you know, in construction, we go where the work is. We are unlikely to have employees living in every municipality that has a project.”

She also told the committee that hiring quotas could benefit companies and workers from outside the state.

“Federal law does not permit local residency requirements to apply to out-of-state contractors,” she said. “This gives an advantage to out-of-state contractors. It seems a perverse result that contractors from Pennsylvania could take a job in Cleveland without worrying about where their workers live but that contractors from Strongsville and Parma could not.”

Jason Clark, a political representative for the Indiana/Kentucky/Ohio Regional Council of Carpenters, echoed those sentiments.

“With the restrictive nature of residency requirements some of the most qualified construction professionals within the state would possibly be left out,” he said. “No resident in Ohio should be excluded the opportunity of employment on a project regardless of where the project may be.”

The Senate Transportation, Commerce and Labor Committee took testimony February 10 regarding SB205 which would require a separate, exterior means of egress for dwelling areas above the second story of certain residential rental properties and provide a qualified immunity to landlords who in good faith comply with the requirement.

Sen. Beagle read the written testimony of Ann and Rod Garner, whose daughter, Ellen, died as a result of injuries she sustained in a house fire near the University of Cincinnati campus.

He said Ellen was trapped in a third-floor bedroom when a fire was started by a space heater.

The testimony indicated that having an external egress option could have helped Ellen escape the home, and argued that a failure to act would mean accepting the deaths of more college students.

The testimony indicated that quality egress ladder costs about $265, and besides offering an escape route, would also minimize the risk that insurers and landlords face from the issue.

The hearing start was delayed briefly at the outset when Senate staff and a canine were brought to the Senate Finance Hearing Room after an object thought to be a suspicious package was found in the room. The room was temporarily cleared and it was determined the box contained an egress ladder that Sen. Beagle displayed during the testimony.

Spencer Brannon of the Ohio Student Government Association also backed the bill. He said the measure would have a significant positive impact on college students in that it would make many of them safer in their off-campus residences.

The rising cost of university housing often forces students to seek lodging elsewhere, and students often end up renting older off-campus homes that have been renovated to make attics and other areas available for living, he said. It is in those areas of homes where having external egress options would be beneficial.

Mr. Brannon added that the association’s members regularly disagree on legislative issues, but said members were unanimous on this bill.

Written proponent testimony was provided by Rod Garner, Anne Kohls, Andrea Heinrich, Laure Quinlivan, University of Cincinnati President Santa Ono, James Oaks of the Miami University Student Senate, Andrew Naab and Andrew Griggs of the University of Cincinnati student body and Dean Dennis of the Northeast Ohio Fire Prevention Association.

The Capital Reappropriations Bill, SB 260, passed the house unanimously February 10.  The bill now goes to Governor Kasich who is expected to sign it soon.