House Bill 96, the state operating budget bill, has now had three weeks of committee hearings in the Ohio Senate after passing the Ohio House of Representatives last month.

On May 15, the Senate Higher Education Committee heard public testimony on the higher education components of the budget bill. OCAAUP President Gretchen McNamara submitted this testimony on our behalf, which calls attention to our biggest issues in the bill: inadequate State Share of Instruction (SSI), the elimination of mental health support funding for students, a special earmark for an athletics’ program, and language that seeks to effectively eliminate real shared governance at our public institutions.

The bill will now be under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee, which will issue their version of the bill before the full Senate votes. We likely will see the Senate’s version of the bill the first week of June.

Undoubtedly, there will be a conference committee between the House and Senate to iron out their differences before sending a final version to the governor, who has the authority to line-item veto. We will provide more updates as the process unfolds.