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Copies of the 3,215-page budget bill passed by the Ohio House of Representatives on Wednesday sit on a table in the House chamber.
(Jeremy Pelzer/Northeast Ohio Media Group)
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Ohio House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a two-year, $131.6 billion budget plan that would reduce the state's top income tax rate to its lowest level in more than three decades.
The legislation, approved by a 63-36 vote, would - if passed - be the largest state budget in Ohio history, according to the Office of Budget and Management.
House Bill 64 now heads to the Ohio Senate, which is planning to ignore both the House and Gov. John Kasich's budget plans and effectively start from scratch using the budget for the current fiscal year.
Lawmakers have until the end of June to hammer out a final agreement to send to the governor.
The House's budget bill seeks a 6.3-percent income tax cut. That would reduce Ohio's income-tax rate from 5.33 percent to 4.99 percent on residents making more than $200,000 per year -- a rate not seen since 1982, according to lawmakers.
Earlier this month, House Republicans ditched the governor's proposal to cut income taxes by 23 percent by raising and expanding the state's sales tax, as well as increasing taxes on cigarettes, commercial activities, and oil and gas fracking.
The House budget also contains about $280 million more in primary and secondary education spending than what the governor's budget called for.
Despite grumbling by some conservative lawmakers, it also would continue to accept another two years of federal funding for Medicaid expansion. Such federal support is scheduled to start declining in 2017.
In total, the House's plan calls for $71.5 billion in general revenue fund spending - more than $770 million less than what the governor sought. However, overall spending would increase in the House version because it would raise the state's hospital franchise fee, resulting in more Medicaid matching funds from the federal government.
House Republicans, who hold almost a two-thirds majority, said the budget would create jobs and help Ohio's economy.
Speaker Pro Tempore Ron Amstutz of Wooster, the number-two Republican in the House, said while the House's budget is larger than the current budget, it's more conservative than some might think.
Medicaid spending in the proposed budget is below the level of inflation, Amstutz said. The other "big chunk" of money in the bill, he said, aims to give more money for primary and secondary education.
"We have a very strong proposal here," he said.
House Minority Leader Fred Strahorn, a Dayton Democrat, said at times he mulled voting for the budget bill and praised the House for removing most of Kasich's "tax-shifting" provisions that he said help the rich at the poor's expense.
But in the end, he said, the budget plan still calls for some tax-shifting, is anti-labor, and doesn't include enough money for education or local governments.
Before passing the budget, GOP lawmakers shot down a number of Democratic amendments that would, among other things, reduce Ohio's income tax for middle- and lower-class residents, encourage equal pay for women, and provide funding to reduce infant mortality.
Cleveland Reps. John Barnes, Bill Patmon and Martin Sweeney were the only Democrats to vote for the budget; Barnes and Patmon each said the benefits of the bill outweighed its problems.
Five Republican lawmakers voted against the legislation.