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Obhof Expects to Fill Bigger Budget Shortfall

Source: The Hannah Report

While revenue results for May aren’t expected for another few days, Senate President Larry Obhof (R-Medina) told reporters he expects the Senate will be having to fill a bigger budget shortfall than the $800 million previously announced. 

“I expect it to be larger than that, and I know it will be larger than that,” Obhof said. 

He gave an update on where the Senate is with its deliberations on HB49 (R. Smith), the biennial budget, saying about 1,500 amendments, including those from Democrats and the administration, have been submitted. He said Republican caucus amendments alone fill about 197 pages in bullet-point form. Obhof said he will be going through the amendments with staff and other members of leadership to decide which will be added to the bill. 

Asked about school funding, he said the caucus said they are still working on what their plan will look like. 

“We are doing as much as we can to make sure that the number of schools that are net losers compared to FY17 get smaller. I think in the current version of the bill it’s a couple hundred, and we’re trying to get the number lower,” he said. 

Obhof said nothing new has come up during Senate deliberations on the budget that wasn’t expected.

He also said Senate Republicans have not settled on whether they will keep a House amendment requiring the administration to go to the Controlling Board for approval of the Medicaid expansion every six months. He said he will be personally involved in negotiations on those items.

Obhof said he believes the House was trying to do something with the Medicaid expansion that was done in the previous budget, when the Senate put an expansion line item in the health and human services budget items and required additional legislative approval for it. The money was never expended, however, as the administration found other fund to pay for the state share of the expansion. He said he believes the House was trying to get to the same setup as the last budget, but noted this time it is more complex because the number is larger. He said the House language may just need tweaking. 

“I don’t want to speak for everybody, but I think several of us who were opposed to the expansion would probably like to see more controls on how money from other funds can be expended. When we moved that money over, our intent was, this is the expansion line item and if you want the money, you need to come ask us for it, and that didn’t happen,” Obhof said. “I would like the Legislature to exercise control as much as possible over the process.”

He said June 21 is still targeted for the Senate floor vote on HB49, with a substitute bill due around June 12. Obhof said he is already speaking with House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger (R-Clarksville), so that when the budget gets to conference committee, many of the bigger issues will already have been discussed.

Story originally published in The Hannah Report on June 1, 2017. Copyright 2017 Hannah News Service, Inc.

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