Ohio House of Representative Heidi Workman of District 72 attended the Windham Board of Trustees Township meeting last Thursday at the Windham Town Hall to provide updates on the current legislative session in the Ohio Legislature.
Workman was elected to Ohio House in District 72, mainly Portage County, after she defeated incumbent State Representative Gail Pavliga last year in the primary then went on to win the general election. She informed the Board about some of the initiatives that were being pushed through at the state level.
Workman said that a new energy reform bill had been passed by the Legislature and would go to the Governor’s office and expected the bill to be signed into law in the near future.
“It does increase massive ratepayer protections so that our energy rates are much more affordable, so it was a big win in my book for Ohioans,” she said.
Workman added that the House had approved a State Budget of $102 billion for the next 2 fiscal years. She said that it was currently under review at the Senate and would most likely be altered with several amendments before it went into effect.
The new Ohio Representative said that the House Budget contained two significant items, including property tax reform and funding for the new Cleveland Browns’ football stadium in Brookpark. Workman noted that she was not in favor of the State issuing bonds for $600 million to build the new stadium and proposed an amendment to remove that provision from the Budget but the House rejected her amendment.
According to Workman, the property tax reform component of the House Budget provided a blueprint and target to which they could identify property tax relief, as approximately 70% of property taxes were distributed to public schools and the House identified $10.5 billion being reserved by the public schools in their cash reserve accounts. That number accounted for a 60% carryover each fiscal year.
“We realize that schools do not need this much money, that is the taxpayers money, let us get that back in the pockets of the property taxpayers so we have proposed that the county budget commission limit our public school access reserve to a 30% carryover so that I think is big win,” Workman said.
Workman said that in Portage County, that initiative would save the taxpayers approximately $38.1 million. She said that the cash carryover rates would be lowered to 30% by Jan. 1 of the next fiscal year. She acknowledged that there existed a concern that several school districts needed those funds, but the House decided that the carryover rate still needed to be drastically reduced. Out of the 611 public school districts in the State of Ohio, Workman noted that 548 had been identified as having a cash carryover rate that exceeded the 30% threshold.
Board President, Trustee and Fire Contact Dan Burns questioned what would happen to the public schools in Portage County that did not currently exceed the 30% threshold but also barely touched the minimum floor of cash carryover. Workman responded by saying that the schools would get to keep everything but acknowledged that at least two school districts, Crestwood and Ravenna, were already approaching fiscal distress and would require the intervention of the state auditor.
Workman also provided an update on eCheck, saying that there was significant momentum in eliminating vehicle eChecks in Portage County. She explained that the United States Environmental Protection Agency had recently enjoyed their biggest day of deregulation in the history of the country, which went a long way in the effort to dismantle the current eCheck policies.
“The really good news is that I tackled this at the state level in committee and I spoke directly with the director of the Ohio EPA and she told me that the emissions are actually coming from Lake Erie,” Workman noted. “They are not created here in Portage County or any of the seven counties in Northeast Ohio that are being affected or held accountable for it. A bill that I had co-sponsored will basically eliminate our facilities, our physical facilities and move this to more of a self-regulating or self-reporting aspect if you don’t have a light on in your car, you can self-report.”
Workman said that that she had recently been informed of at least three lawsuits in Streetsboro about the installation of water smart meters. Although there were no smart meters that currently existed in Windham, there was a moratorium on installing any more smart seters for the time being.
Workman also said that she was going to continue to fight to stop the continuing increase in property taxes for Portage County residents but acknowledged that an amendment would need to put on the next ballot in order to make any serious progress on that issue.
Portage Foundation Executive Director Janice Simmons-Mortimer asked where the House stood on increasing Homestead Exemptions.
“We are increasing the income,” Workman replied. “It was $35,000, it is now $50,000 and we are also looking at veteran disability percentage limits to see if we can get some more support for our veterans.”
Trustee and Road Contact Brian Miller said that a tree had recently fallen on Silica Sand Road and was still down, so it needed to be removed immediately. He added that he had touched base with Bill Dvorak, Vice President of The Shelly Company Construction, and was notified that they would be get started on chip & seals around the Windham roads at the earliest. Miller added that the Township had recently performed some ditching on the roads as well.
Vice President, Trustee and Cemetery Contact Rich Gano said that four headstone footers were being mounted in the cemetery.
Burns provided an update from Zoning Inspector Jake Sweet, informing the Board that he had recently sent out a letter to the legal owner of the property on State Route 82 but the letter had been returned. Burns added that Sweet’s next step was to apply for a search warrant on the property. Sweet also informed the Board that he had sent out several other letters of notice to residents but had yet to receive any responses.
Burns said that the Fire Department had now responded to 204 calls this year. He once again stressed the Township’s need for a new ambulance.
“I think all fire departments in the county are the same boat as us,” he acknowledged.
Gano said that the Township had begun demolishing property 9092 on State Route 303 funded by a grant from the Portage Community Land Bank. Board of Zoning Appeals member Tricia Kendrick noted that the Township had already come a long way in a short amount of time but were still in the middle of demolition.
Miller said that contractor James Miller recently completed the roofing project on the Gazebo outside of Town Hall.
The Board agreed to purchase an additional 100 tons of salt from Morton Salt to add to their salt inventory for the next winter season.
Gano provided an update in the Township’s project to replace 23 streetlights with 250-watt LEDs. He had recently been given a map from Ohio Edison First Energy Regional External Affairs representative Amy Hopkins, but the map had marked 40 streetlights.
“One of the lights said State Route 303 and 700, that is Freedom, but it has a Windham zip code. I don’t want to be paying for it,” he said.
Gano added that the project would cost the Township $4,807 to replace 23 streetlights. Burns questioned if they should hold off on approving the project before they correctly marked the 23 streetlights that belong to Windham but Gano said they could amend which streetlights needed to be removed from the map along the way. The Board unanimously approved a motion to greenlight the project.
The Board of Trustees will reconvene on June 5 at Windham Town Hall at 6 p.m.
