State budget activity
The Conference Committee considering House Bill (HB) 166, the two-year state budget bill, has yet to release its report. With the June 30 budget deadline looming, only two scheduled session days remain for the House and Senate to agree on budget changes and send the bill to Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature. If the legislature cannot meet the June 30 deadline, a temporary, two-week spending bill is reportedly being considered to fund state government operations until a consensus on the budget can be reached.

Senate Education Committee
Sponsors of HB 154, Reps. Joseph A. Miller III (D-Amherst) and Don Jones (R-Freeport), testified before the committee. Their bill dissolves all current academic distress commissions, repeals the laws regarding academic distress commissions and requires school districts to assemble an improvement team and create an improvement plan for low-performing school buildings.

House Primary and Secondary Education Committee
The committee passed HB 164, which deals with student religious expression in public schools.

House Health Committee
The committee conducted a third hearing on HB 210, which requires Ohio Department of Education-licensed preschool programs and other entities to screen and test prospective employees for tuberculosis and annually test certain employees for a five-year period. No witnesses testified on the bill.

House Criminal Justice Committee
The committee conducted a third hearing on HB 208. The bill increases the penalty for assault if the victim is acting as a sports official or the assault is committed in retaliation for the victim’s actions as a sports official.

House activity
The House informally passed Senate Bill 4, meaning the bill was not voted on and instead placed on the calendar for a potential vote at a later date. It adds $100 million to the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission budget for eight districts with shovel-ready projects. According to news reports, the bill may be used as the vehicle to temporarily fund state government operations if the state budget is not passed by June 30.

Joint Education Oversight Committee
The committee heard testimony on the state report card from Dr. Ronald Iarussi, superintendent, Marion City, and Marcy Raymond, college and career readiness director, ESC of Central of Ohio. Read their testimony here and here, respectively.

Posted by Will Schwartz on 6/28/2019