List of Pending Higher Education Legislation – 128^th GA

Senate Bill 5 (Buehrer) – Grants For Graduates

Reported by Senate Finance as a substitute bill on 3/24/09 (5 hearings)

• Creates the Grants for Grads Fund in the Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA).
• Funds will be disbursed as down payment and closing cost assistance grants to college graduates who purchase their first home in Ohio.
• Provides for the recapture of grant money by the state for failure of a grantee to comply with certain program criteria.
• Program estimated to disburse up to approximately $2.3 million in grants in each fiscal year.

Senate Bill 52 (Grendell) – Government Reorganization

Pending in Senate State & Local Government Cmte.

• Reorganizes the executive branch of state government.
• Eliminates the Board of Regents and places responsibility for higher education issues under a reconstituted Department of Education.
• Creates the Division of Higher Education for Four-year Colleges and Universities under the Department of Education.
• Makes the new division responsible for:
  • Curriculum and assessment
  • Professor development, and student, family, and community programs
  • Policy and higher education development
  • Investigations and school compliance
  • The higher education-Ohio business compact as it relates to four-year colleges and universities.

• Creates the Division of Education Finance under the Department of Education.
• Makes the new division responsible for:
  • Public school and higher education finance and fiscal planning
  • Student financial assistance programs
  • The Ohio tuition trust authority
  • Federal programs and grant management.

Senate Bill 69 (Cates) – Meningitis Vaccinations

Pending in Senate Health, Human Services & Aging Cmte.

Has had 2 hearings

• Requires students seeking on-campus housing at a public or private institution of higher education to provide proof that they have been vaccinated against meningitis and hepatitis B.
• Requires institutions of higher education to:
  • Inform the student or minor student's parent of the vaccination requirement
  • Provide the information from the Department of Health's web site regarding meningitis and hepatitis B
  • Inform the student or parent that the requirement can be waived for religious or medical reasons.

• Permits a student to receive a waiver from the vaccination requirement for religious or medical reasons.

Senate Bill 83 (Faber) – Retirement Compensation

Pending referral to Senate Cmte.

• Excludes certain compensation when determining retirement benefits under the Public Employees Retirement System.
• Excludes from the definition of “earnable salary” payments made to or on behalf of a contributor that are in excess of the amount determined for that year under division (A)(1)(4) of section 141.011 of the Revised Code as the annual salary of the governor.

Senate Bill 84 (Wagoner) – University Buses

Pending in Senate Highways & Transportation Cmte.

• Requires all buses purchased, leased, rented, or chartered used by universities to transport students or employees to be equipped with seatbelts for all passengers.
• Permits buses that currently are owned by universities and are not equipped with seatbelts for all passengers to shuttle students or employees indefinitely.
• Permits such buses to transport students or employees on trips other than shuttle trips for a period of three years before requiring those buses to be equipped with seatbelts for all passengers.
• Defines “shuttle” as the transport in a bus of students or employees of a university, at a speed not exceeding forty-five miles per hour, to a site that is located not greater than ten miles from the geographic center of the university or on a round trip of not more than twenty miles as measured from the geographic center of the university.

House Bill 1 (Sykes) – Biennial Budget

Pending in House Finance Cmte.

**Comparison House Bill 1 (Biennial Budget) As Introduced Version to Substitute Version

Has had 6 hearings; scheduled for a possible committee vote the week of 4/20/09

• Increases state share of instruction funding by 6%, through the use of federal stimulus funding, to compensate university main campuses for holding tuition at current levels. 

• Imposes a voluntarily limit on tuition and general fee increases of not more than 3.5% for in-state undergraduates on main campuses in the 2010-2011 academic year.
• Recommends the implementation of a new funding formula based on clearly defined outcomes for public higher education institutions emphasizing course completions and degrees obtained.
• Restructures the Ohio College Opportunity Grant Program for public universities to better leverage federal financial aid – the “Pell first” strategy.
• Reduces the clinical teaching line items by 6%.  These line items support medical education by supporting clinical faculty members, laboratories, and other equipment.

House Bill 4 (Phillips) – Distance Learning

Pending in House Education Cmte.

Has had 3 hearings

• Requires the eTech Ohio Commission to develop and implement an interactive distance learning pilot project.
• Requires the project to provide, beginning with FY 2010, access to at least three interactive distance learning courses, free of charge, in each high school operated by a school district. 
• Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Chancellor of the Board of Regents, and eTech to conduct a formative evaluation of the pilot project and to submit this evaluation and any recommendations for changes in the pilot project to the Governor and General Assembly by December 31, 2010. 
• Requires ODE, in consultation with the Chancellor of BOR, to select the courses to be offered by the pilot project and to develop standards for the curriculum for each selected course.
• Requires eTech and ODE, in consultation with the Chancellor, to jointly select the teachers to develop and teach the required courses.
• ODE and BOR may incur additional administrative costs in performing these duties.

House Bill 7 (Harris) – Green Building Standards

Pending in House Local Government Cmte.

• Requires a building or structure erected or constructed using state capital money to adhere to certain sustainability standards.
• Requires the building to be certified as meeting at least the silver standard of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System that has been developed by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).

• To earn LEED certification, a project must satisfy all prerequisites and earn a minimum number of points outlined in the LEED Rating System.

House Bill 12 (Lundy) – Credit Card Marketing

Pending in House Consumer Affairs & Econ. Protection Cmte.

Has had 3 hearings; scheduled for a possible committee vote on 4/2/09

• Prohibits credit card issuers from credit card marketing activities on the campuses of state or private institutions of higher education in Ohio.
• Prohibits any Ohio state or private institution of higher education or people or organizations affiliated with such institutions from:
  • Releasing student directory information for use in a profit-making activity
  • Entering into, renewing, or rolling over a contract or agreement to market credit cards to students
  • Allowing a credit card company to promote or distribute credit cards on the institution's campus
  • Promoting a credit card company or linking to a credit card web site on the institution's official web site.

House Bill 37 (Dyer) – Competitive Bidding

Pending in House Commerce & Labor Cmte.

• Requires the Department of Administrative Services to maintain a web site database including apparent low bidders who failed to be awarded a contract because they were found not to be "responsible.”
• Requires public entities to conduct investigations when apparent low bidders are suspected of failing or fail to meet the "responsible" prong of the "responsive and responsible" competitive bidding threshold.

House Bill 39 (Fende) – Ice Removal

• Requires the removal of snow or ice from special parking locations that are

designated for persons with disabilities within 24 hours after the weather condition causing the snow or ice ceases.

• Applies to parking on public and private land.

House Bill 74 (Weddington) – Nursing Profession Incentives

Pending in House Healthcare Access & Affordability Cmte.

• Establishes the nursing education reimbursement program administered by the board of nursing.
• Reimburses qualified nurses who completes two years of full-time employment in a hospital in Ohio the lesser of the following:
  • One year of statewide average nursing education instructional costs, as calculated for the year in which the nurse completed the prelicensure nursing education program; or
  • The average annual actual costs of the prelicensure nursing education program instructional costs for the nurse plus an estimated amount for the annual purchase of necessary textbooks.

• Creates a refundable credit for nursing professors that can be taken against the income tax.
• Sets the amount of the credit at:
  • Three thousand five hundred dollars each taxable year for four consecutive taxable years
  • One thousand seven hundred fifty dollars each taxable year for two consecutive taxable years after the credit has been taken in four consecutive taxable years.

House Bill 87 (Phillips) – Ohio Energy Resource Center

Pending referral to House Cmte.

• Creates the Ohio Energy Resource Center at Ohio University's Voinovich School.
• Charges the Center to do the following:
  • Act as a knowledge hub for clean energy, advanced energy, and energy efficiency projects throughout the state.
  • Maintain a database of research and development projects in the fields of clean energy, advanced energy, and energy efficiency undertaken by public institutions of higher education.
  • Act as a clearinghouse for information
  • Promote collaboration among public and private entities on federal, state, and private sources of financial and technical assistance for advanced energy, clean energy, and energy efficiency projects.
  • Provide technical assistance to state government and local governments, other political subdivisions, and businesses located in an Appalachian county on clean energy, advanced energy, and energy efficiency projects.
• IUC energy efficiency guidelines  (HB251)