State lawmakers are on a tight deadline to make the multi-billion dollar capital infrastructure bill happen, after finally getting the go-ahead from Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman earlier this month. The spending plan puts money funded by state bonds toward buildings, universities, parks and many local projects.
Though Gov. Mike DeWine and Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) had wanted a capital budget, Huffman had concerns whether there was the money for it. The state was ordered by the Ohio Supreme Court to pay nursing homes up to a billion dollars after they sued over the formula used to calculate Medicaid payments to them from the state.
Sen. Tom Patton (R-Strongsville) said the requests are always more than the money that’s available, so decisions have to be made carefully.
“You have to take a look—what do you think this will be down the road? How certain? This is not something that's a wish," Patton said in an interview. "And if we get this money and if we able to do that, maybe we might know it's it's got to be something that we're pretty sure is going to be a successful investment when we're bonding it out. This is money that the state bonds out and pays the bonds back."
Patton said lawmakers’ lists of local requests are due on March 12. And he said the goal is for House and Senate leaders to work together to develop the capital budget so it can pass by the summer, instead of each chamber putting out its own version.
“This year—different than before—we are going to work with our House members to see if we can't come to an agreement on what we both feel will be," Patton said. "So the House will tell us what they think they would like to see, and then we kind of tell them, and we've never done that before.”
The last capital budget in 2024 was $4.2 billion, the largest in state history. The House and Senate had a pot of $700 million to spend, and didn't consult with the other chamber in proposing their lists.
Previous capital budgets have included requests for professional sports stadiums. The operating budget passed and signed last year created the Ohio Cultural and Sports Facility Performance Grant Fund to be used to pay for major sports facilities. It was intended to be funded by up to $1.7 billion in unclaimed funds, but a battle over that continues in state and federal courts.
