State Budget Conference Committee
This week, the Ohio House of Representatives voted against concurring with the Senate version of House Bill 33, the state operating budget bill. As a result, a conference committee has been appointed to come to an agreement on the final version of the bill.

The members of the conference committee are:

Rep. Jay Edwards (R-Athens)

Rep. Jeffrey LaRe (R-Canal Winchester)

Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland)

Sen. Matt Dolan (R-Chagrin Falls)

Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland)

Sen. Vernon Sykes (D-Akron)

House Speaker Jason Stephens has warned that, due to the significant differences between the House and Senate version of the bill, the legislature may fail to meet the statutory deadline of June 30 to pass the bill, thus warranting continuing resolutions to keep the state funded at current levels.

OCAAUP Board Opposes Senate Bill 1
The Ohio Conference AAUP Board of Trustees has voted to oppose Senate Bill 1. SB 1 is the proposed takeover of K-12 education. The bill would remove control of elementary and secondary education from the State Board of Education and put it into the hands of a political appointee.

Similar to SB 83, this is a politically-motivated, attempted takeover of public education that also was placed into the state budget bill to avoid further public scrutiny. We join in solidarity with our K-12 colleagues to oppose SB 1.

Take Action
Our partners at the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) have created this Action Network page that you can use to contact your State Representative and State Senator to ask them to support the House-passed version of the state budget, which is free from the controversial education policies that the Senate has buried into the 9,000-page bill.

In addition, please contact the Republican members of the conference committee to tell them respectfully that SB 83 and SB 1 do not belong in the state budget bill, as OCAAUP President Gretchen McNamara called out in this Columbus Dispatch editorial published this week.

Representative Jay Edwards: 614-466-2158; rep94@ohiohouse.gov

Representative Jeffrey LaRay: 614-466-8100; rep73@ohiohouse.gov

Senator Matt Dolan: 614-466-8056; dolan@ohiosenate.gov

Senator Jerry Cirino: 614-644-7718; cirino@ohiosenate.gov

Your actions make a difference. Please help us keep up the pressure!