20-25%: Share of electricity Ohio imports from other states via the regional transmission grid managed and operated by PJM Interconnection. House Bill 427 could help reduce that reliance — and your electric bill — by allowing Ohioans to opt into demand response programs. Customers who do so will have their electricity use temporarily reduced during peak times when the grid might otherwise be overwhelmed. Customers are compensated and may override the measure at any time. Molly Bryden recently submitted proponent testimony on H.B. 427, calling it an opportunity for Ohioans to “unlock savings on their electricity bills while enjoying a more resilient, reliable energy grid.”
0.001%: Share of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs’ annual budget spent on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for trans veterans — just $500K annually. A Trump administration executive order forced the VA to stop providing HRT for veterans, and direct “savings” to “paralyzed veterans and amputees.” It’s an obvious attempt to pit one group of veterans against another, and it reflects a sad reality: federal tax cuts have made VA funding a zero-sum game, leaving some veterans behind to fend for themselves. It’s just one way trans veterans are under attack, as Bree Easterling and Heather Smith describe in a recent brief. Learn more about the threats to trans veterans — and some of the resources still available — on our upcoming webinar.
500+: Number of Ohio school districts and joint vocational districts whose local revenue would be cut by H.B. 186, which threatens districts’ ability to raise funds through property taxes. Although legislators are selling this plan as property tax “relief,” more than 40% of Ohioans won’t see any changes to their property taxes. We released a new set of factsheets that combine our district-level analysis of the final state budget’s impact on schools with new data showing how H.B. 186 would make things even worse for many Ohio districts.
$4 billion: Total amount of property tax revenue collected as “inside millage” statewide for Tax Year 2024. Half of it went to school districts. H.B. 335, which would limit inside millage, joins H.B. 186 on the list of the GA’s ill-advised property tax reform schemes. Aditi Srivastava and Zach Schiller testified to how much damage the bill would do, especially considering the legislature also abandoned the Fair School Funding Plan and will divert state funding away from high-poverty districts. The poorly-targeted bills are all the more frustrating when you realize that there’s an effective, targeted alternative that won’t take more money away from our already-depleted school budgets: a property tax circuit breaker.
$19,000: Amount in annual tax cuts the average Ohio millionaire will receive due to Ohio’s plan to flatten the state’s income tax rate to 2.75% by 2026. That puts Ohio’s among the Institute for Taxation and Economic Development’s five biggest state tax cuts for millionaires this year. It’s not a list we want to be on, especially since the fully-phased-in cuts will cost the state more than a billion dollars in lost revenue annually — $350M of which will be shared among the state’s millionaires. Aditi Srivastava digs into ITEP’s data in our recent press release.
32,000: Number of private-sector jobs lost nationally in September, according to ADP — one of the few sources of jobs data we have during the federal government shutdown. With official labor data delayed, we’re left with even more uncertainty about the national and state economies. This month’s JobWatch, from Molly Bryden and Heather Smith, uses available data to keep an eye on key economic indicators, and explains exactly how the government shutdown makes it harder to know what lies ahead for Ohio workers.
PMO 25: If you joined us last month for Policy Matters Ohio’s 25th birthday party, you may have noticed Jo Byrne from See Your Words engaged in her singular style of visual notetaking throughout the evening. Jo’s extraordinary talent is her ability to improvise graphic representations of the conversations, presentations, and memories being discussed around her. She captured the evening’s celebratory feeling and good vibes in a one-of-a-kind piece of art we’re excited to share. See if you can spot your contribution, and stop by our Cleveland office for a look at the real thing!
Action items:
Register for next week’s webinar: Attacks on trans+ Ohioans are attacks on trans+ veterans.
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Lame duck is an opportunity for legislators to act on data centers (and more)