I recently compiled a spreadsheet of every vote taken by the Ohio House of Representatives in 2015. It was extremely tedious and time-consuming, so hopefully someone else out there who needs this information can benefit from downloading my data set here rather than having to sort through all those session journals themselves.
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Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine awarded over $1.2 million in grants to campus sexual assault and rape crisis centers across the state in late December.
After the attorney general’s office reviewed applications, the first round of grants was announced. According to Dan Tierney, a spokesperson for the Ohio Attorney General’s office, more awards could be announced either in a second round of grants or sporadically as grant applications are approved.
According to a press release, the money is a provision of the Victims of Crime Act and will be taken out of the $3 million of federal funding from VOCA set aside by DeWine in 2015. These specific VOCA grants are only intended for crime victim services, not preventative ones.
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After receiving a letter from all members of the Senate Democratic Caucus encouraging him to do so, Gov. John Kasich used his line-item veto last week on a controversial amendment to the state transportation budget that would have affected new and temporary Ohio residents’ voting rights.
This section of House Bill 53 included restrictions that would have required people wishing to drive in Ohio to register for an Ohio driver’s license within 30 days of registering to vote.
While the language directly connected to voting has been removed, the provisions that require drivers to obtain an Ohio license within 30 days of establishing residency in other ways were left in the transportation bill.
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An education bill currently being considered by the Ohio House could clear up some controversy surrounding charter schools and their funding.
House Bill 2, a piece of legislation that was introduced to the Ohio House of Representatives by Reps. Mike Dovilla, R-Berea, and Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson, details proposed changes in how community and charter schools are funded as well as how their progress and standards are measured.
Charter schools are unique because, like public school districts, they receive government funding from tax dollars but are often privately owned and receive additional funding from sponsors. According to William Phillis, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, this has left them in a largely unregulated state since charter schools became legal in Ohio in 1997.
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The state government will dedicate a total of about $5.1 billion to higher education programs over the next two years, according to Gov. John Kasich’s 2016-17 budget proposal, Blueprint for a New Ohio.
The budget would increase funding for certain financial aid sources and create a new debt reduction program, but it would also erase other programs, such as the Co-Op Internship Program.
The largest increase in higher education funding is seen in Program Series 4: Student Access, which has a proposed increase of 25.7 percent in 2016. This program funds direct student aid including grants and institutional subsidies “that help certain campuses maintain lower, more affordable tuition rates,” according to the budget.
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