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The Ohio Senate sends its budget back to the House, kicking off conference committee

By: Sarah Donaldson | Statehouse News Bureau
Posted on: Thursday, June 12, 2025

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — The Ohio Senate sent its version of the GOP-majority biennial state budget back to the House on Wednesday afternoon by a vote of 23-10, ushering in the final stretch of negotiating.

Much of House Bill 96 is now defined by an effort to flatten the state income tax, transitioning down from the current two-bracket system to a flat rate for everybody making over $26,050 annually at 2.75% by tax year 2026. That would most immediately affect Ohioans who make more than six figures, if it goes into effect, saving them and costing Ohio more than $1 billion across the biennium, according to legislative analysis.

“We felt that a flat tax is something that we’ve been talking about for a long time,” Senate Finance Chair Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) said. “We think it’s going to be good for the economy.”

To account for the cut, members were told to be “deliberate” in their budget revisions, Cirino said in an interview last week. Some amendments significantly reduced funding to government programs and community projects to balance the budget.

“By having this flat tax, we’re starving state government, which then starves local governments,” said Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson (D-Toledo), the ranking member on the Senate Finance committee.

Debate dragged into three hours Wednesday. All nine Democrats, who collectively tried and failed to amend the budget on the floor almost a dozen times, voted against HB 96. One member of the GOP caucus broke with his colleagues and voted against the budget, too: Sen. Bill Blessing (R-Colerain Twp.).

Sen. Kent Smith (D-Euclid) said 97% of the tax cut goes to Ohioans who make over $139,000 a year, with the highest earners getting a tax cut of around $10,000 on average incomes of over $1.7 million.

“The last time an Ohio budget received zero Democratic votes in both the House and the Senate was 2001—24 years ago,” Smith said.

Sen. George Lang (R-West Chester), who’s been advocating for elimination of the income tax since he joined the legislature in 2017, hit back, saying he felt bad only for accountants.

“Their billable hours will go down as a result,” Lang said. “Ohio is on a fast track to becoming the most business friendly state in this country.”

House and Senate negotiators will now hash out the differences between their versions from behind closed doors, in conference committee. One of the most glaring is how to fund the Cleveland Browns’ probable stadium project in suburban Brook Park.

“We have three different views on how to finance it. All three parties like the project and see it as a good economic development project,” Cirino said.

The Senate got rid of the House’s $600 million debt and bond structure, instead earmarking it through a performance grant program they want funded by a percentage of money managed by the Ohio Department of Commerce’s Division of Unclaimed Funds. Assets turned over to the division come from Ohioans’ dormant bank accounts and uncashed checks, among other sources.

Among other last-minute tweaks made Tuesday, the latest HB 96 returns county coroners to an election structure. It also:

• Gets rid of automatic cost of living adjustments for local elected officials
• Removes an earlier measure that would have required driver’s licenses and state identification cards to include a resident’s sex at birth
• Restores $20 million worth of funding to the Ohio Department of Agriculture for H2Ohio, the state’s water quality initiative

HB 96 is due to Gov. Mike DeWine by June 30, leaving lawmakers with more than two weeks to harmonize the differences.