|
ODOT Budget Bill Passes The House In Busy Week At The Ohio Statehouse
This week, the ODOT budget bill, House Bill 26, passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 83-13. Hearings have already started in the Senate’s Transportation, Commerce & Workforce Committee, which is chaired by Senator Frank LaRose (R-Hudson).
The bill contains $5.6 billion in ODOT funding for highway construction and maintenance and $124 million for the Ohio Public Works Commission Local Transportation Improvement Program. The bill also permits a board of county commissioners to levy an additional $5 annual license tax for motor vehicle registrations, which could be used for construction and maintenance of streets, roads, and bridges. The following House Republicans voted against the ODOT budget: Niraj Antani, Jim Butler, Keith Faber (former Senate President), Ron Hood, Candice Keller, Derek Merrin and Nino Vitale. The following Democrats voted no: Kristin Boggs, Janine Boyd, Stephanie Howse, Greta Johnson, David Leland, and Dan Ramos. We continue to work on multiple important issues in the ODOT budget bill as we meet with Senate Transportation committee members.
The general revenue fund budget is also making its way through the House committee process. Several committees and subcommittees are having hearings on the bill, House Bill 49. In addition to being the primary 2-year budget bill for Ohio, the bill contains thousands of pages of policy changes. One of the changes being championed by OCA, as a member of the Municipal Tax Reform Coalition, is centralized collection of the net profits tax. As you know, Ohio businesses must make net profits filings to each city or village where they have provided a service or good, even if a single employee worked there for just one day. Centralized collection and administration for business filers would significantly save taxpayers’ time, expense and effort involved with multiple net profit return filings.
Current Ohio law does allow taxpayers the option to file net profits returns and make payments via the Ohio Business Gateway (OBG), but each return must be filed individually and paid separately, and many cities require proof of the filing to be mailed to them anyway. H.B. 49 seeks to streamline the process by having businesses file just one form and make a single payment online through OBG, with the Ohio Department of Taxation (ODT) processing payments and distributing revenues back to the appropriate local government, just as ODT does for county sales taxes and school district income taxes. If you have anyone in your company who would like to testify about this issue, and how helpful centralized collection would be, please contact Angela Van Fossen, OCA’s Director of Legislative and Environmental Affairs at [email protected].
ODOT Request for Proposals for DBE Business Development
ODOT has undertaken a new strategy to increase the capacity and capabilities of DBEs. Two contracts of up to $200,000 each are being advertised for a team of a contractor, consultant, and a business development firm to work with up to 10 DBEs. The contracts will be divided into the northern half and southern half of the State. The proposals are due April 4, and the contract period will be from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. If you are interested in submitting a proposal for this contract, please follow this link:
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/ContractAdmin/Contracts/PurchDocs/521-17.pdf
|