Gov. Mike DeWine discussing his budget vetoes. (Photo by Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal.)
Last week, Gov. Mike DeWine signed Ohio’s two-year budget into law. Before doing this, he issued 67 vetoes, significantly reshaping the budget that was sent to him by the General Assembly. While he made many changes to the budget, the following three stood out to me as potentially having a significant effect on Ohio’s economy.
Tightening fiscal policy for public schools
Ohio lawmakers have been looking for ways to reduce the impact of property taxes on property owners and renters for a couple of years now. One of their solutions was to impose new rules on school districts that limited the amount of cash they could hold from year to year, mandating property tax decreases to make up for cash not being spent.
The perverse incentives in this policy should be clear to a reader. While it could lead to lower property taxes, it could also lead to school principals making mass purchases of unneeded equipment at the end of the year rather than saving funds for more useful purchases the year after…