Ohio Controlling Board - 9-28-2026

to speak to the late addition. Good afternoon, President DeSantis, members of the Ohio Controlling Board. My name is Eric Vineyard. I'm the Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs for the Ohio Department of Medicaid. You're receiving this late request as the department is working to comply with the mandate for nursing payments as outlined in House Bill 479. We believe that when we realized that we needed an additional appropriation amount, we thought it would be more prudent to get this to you sooner rather than later. We did not want to wait until the October controlling board, so the request was deemed appropriate to come before you for a vote for addition on the agenda today. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any initial questions.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. I would like to hold 36 and 54.

Senator Kaler? I'm going to hold 28 and 29.

Senator Ingram? Thank you, Mr. President. 20 was changed, so I don't need to hold that one. I'm going to hold 21, 22, 23, 29, 38, 47, and 49.

39, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. 22 and 24.

I'd hold item 29, 37, and 22.

Item 21 the Department of Agriculture Items 22 23 and 24 the Department of Administrative Services Item 28, the Department of Development. Item 29, the Department of Behavioral Health. Items 37 and 38, the Department of Transportation. Item and item 36 for Department of Transportation. Item 39 for the Department of Public Safety. Item 47, the Department of Education and Workforce. Item 49, Higher Educational Facility Commission. And item 50 for the Department of Medicaid.

So moved.

second by Senator Serino.

Thank you, Mr. President. Todd Thatcher, Legislative Government Affairs at Department of Agriculture.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President and Senator Ingram, happy to report. Phase three, as described in the request, is the final phase of this project.

It is the final phase, so we are in the end stages of completing this project. And you are correct that this item was previously approved in the previous phases as a sole source item.

Thanks. Are there any other questions regarding this item? Seeing none, are there any objections to this item? Seeing none, the item is approved.

Next is item number 22, Department of Administrative Services.

Thank you. We'll start with Senator Ingram.

$21.4 million. Absolutely. Thank you very much for the question. Given the size of the increase, it may be helpful to provide a little bit more background on the request here. So, sorry, through the President to the Senator. I would first note that over 90% of the fleet's budget goes to pass-through expenses for vehicles, fuel, and maintenance costs for the agencies that participate in the program. And the increase today would go exclusively for those pass-through purchases. None of this would go to support operations. There are two main factors driving this increase. First, we entered this fiscal year short on appropriation to cover current vehicle lease obligations, and this accounts for roughly $9 million of the 21 and a half that we're requesting. We ended up in this situation due to supply chain issues, which caused significant delays between when we would order the vehicles and when we would take possession of those vehicles. Between fiscal year 22 and 24, the state received an average of 190 vehicles per year. In fiscal 25, the supply chain issues were largely corrected, and we received 851 vehicles. This catch-up continued in fiscal year 26, where we received 552 vehicles. So the influx of these new vehicles increases our annual lease obligations, and that's the explanation for $9 million of this request. As you mentioned, we did come to the controlling board in April of this year seeking appropriation to cover this shortfall. We ended up deferring the FY27 portion of the request until we had a more accurate picture of our appropriation needs, which we feel we do at this time. The second main factor driving this request is what you alluded to, and that is the anticipated pass-through costs associated with fuel and maintenance for vehicles within DNR, EPA, and BWC's programs, which are currently outside of managed fleet, and we are planning to bring them on this year. To, I think, answer a specific question you had, these are expenses that will actually show up in both, like for DNR, it'll show up in both DNR's budget and our fleet budget. So monthly, we receive our bills for fuel and maintenance costs for the entire fleet program. We pay those costs, we being DAS, and then we ISTV agencies so that we recoup dollar for dollar the fuel and maintenance costs that are incurred.

No, that's good.

Thank you. Representative DeVilla.

I do not have those figures calculated. I not sure if we have that that we could provide but I happy to investigate that Yeah that would be helpful enough for context if you would send that through the President office Absolutely Representative Sweeney

Thank you, Mr. President. I really don't think I have a question, but I do want to make sure that we have clarification on this being the pass-through, and it still shows up in those other departments' budgets, that they are paying those leases, but they are paying them through DAS. And so this additional appropriation will actually be billed back to those other departments.

Thank you.

Follow-up, Senator?

Are there any questions regarding this item? Seeing none, are there any objections to this item? Seeing none, the item is approved.

Thank you. And we are now at item number 23. You're up again, and Senator Ingram.

I just have a question in regard to, I saw that there were, Are these new licenses that are being added or are these an expansion of departments or divisions or boards that were not previously covered, but they were paying their fees and their license was coming from somewhere else?

That they're new?

That these were new license types that were added to the e-license system. So prior to that, I don't have the specifics, but prior to that, I could follow up for clarification, but I would think they would have utilized a different system outside of the e-license system.

If you could get us that additional license information, because I know right now it says that real estate added, professional real estate licenses were added. I'm trying to figure out what additional license they added. Because right now all of real estate, those folks and brokers, et cetera, are already an e-license. And they pay the fees. So I'm wondering where those other licenses were unless somebody just decided, well, guess what? We're going to have a new license, period. and we're going to add that through to e-license. That makes a difference. And if other departments have done that, then that's fine. But we need to know, because most of those people pay a fee for their license, and so now they'll be paying it online through e-license instead of to wherever else they were paying it. So I just wanted to know, since it is $2.3 million, I just wanted to make sure.

Thank you. Are there any other questions regarding this item? Seeing none, are there any objections to this item? Seeing none, the item is approved.

Next, again, is Department of Administrative Services, Representative Davila.

be accrued from this. Absolutely. Thank you for the question. Through the President to the Representative, we are migrating from the legacy HCL platform to the new contentful migration system, And this will save the state resources over time because the fixed rate that we're currently paying for HCL expires in fiscal year 29, at which time, had we not been migrating off to this Contentful platform, we could have experienced increases of more than 1,000%. So it's important financially that we're able to migrate these websites off prior to fiscal year 29, but beyond those savings, agencies will also benefit from the streamlined ability to update web content, and it also supports federal accessibility requirements. We knew about this issue for several years. It was a component in our fiscal year 25 and 26 capital submission. We, again, requested funding for this through the FY27 and 28 capital bill as well, but we did not ultimately receive resources to support this. So we have identified these funds, and we are able to continue this migration, and we think that we're very supportive of this, obviously. But I apologize if there's other questions I didn't get to there.

Yeah, just one quick follow-up. So even with migration and consolidation, it's technology, so obviously there will be costs going forward. And is there an estimate of what maintenance costs will look like under this new consolidated system?

Got it. Yeah, that would be helpful.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Julie Kirk, Assistant Director at the Ohio Department of Development.

Thank you.

I think this is a simple question, but I'm not sure. We're buying a building. We're buying a crane. The crane is from Wolverine Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Is that crane in the building already, or are we purchasing a crane?

It comes with the building, or is it a separate item that we're paying for?

Follow-up center?

Correct.

We have good makers in Ohio.

Thank you.

Vanessa McMahan Deputy Director of External Affairs for the Department of Behavioral Health Thank you Mr President I not a fan of gambling People know that about me

I think it would be something that would be worth looking at. But in the meantime, our plan is to make sure that we are providing the information and access for individuals so they have the resources and they know what to do when they are starting to see concerns that their gambling behavior may be problematic.

But I am right in saying that you are working with folks who are addicted to gambling, and we have commercial after commercial. We stopped promoting cigarettes on TV. We were promoting, and I just hear gambling commercials all the time about how wonderful it is. And we are going to spend $5 million to help people stop doing what entities associated with the state of Ohio are promoting.

So the Ohio Constitution, back when the casinos were approved by the voters, it requires 2% of the gambling tax revenue, the casino tax revenue, to go towards problem gambling initiatives and research. And the initiatives, treatment, resources, as well as research. So this request is two-part. One million dollars of it will be used for the department to administer a one-year, I'm sorry, a five-year problem gambling survey. This survey has happened every five years since this initiative first started in 2017, I think. And so that is the first part, and the results of that survey are monitored every five years as we get the results, and that information is used to target resources. The second half of this request is the $4 million, and that is using some research that we already have. It is combining some of the current problem gambling campaigns and resources, combining it into one website platform so that people can access it from one place. What we hear is that men, particularly between the ages of 18 and 44, are the ones that are most at risk for problem gambling. And what we hear from them is that when they do start to realize and recognize that there may be a problem and they may need some supports, they don't know where to go. And so by us combining this into one place, we're trying to make that easier. So it's not necessarily that we're trying to go against what some of the Ohio companies are doing or what the voters wanted when they put this into the Constitution, but we are trying to make sure that we are following our constitutional and statutory responsibility to provide those problem gambling supports.

Thank you, Mr. President. I actually just want to know what the increase is for, because there was already an appropriation. We were already doing the survey. So what's the $5 million? Who are we backing up to pull in to target?

Follow-up, Senator?

President DeSantis, Senator Ingram, it's my understanding that there are just more people that are utilizing gambling with increases in gambling, and more people are doing this. And so that is where the increasing revenue is coming from.

No, I'm good. Thank you.

Thank you, President. My first question is just, could you further expand upon how this is going to be integrated into 988? Is, I don't know, the current problem gambling number, but I think it's, you know, that's how it's marketed. Is it going to be marketed as 988? Could you just explain to us, like, that coordination, and is it going to be separate, or, like, how does, are we combining them? I'm just not fully sure on that.

Follow-up, please.

Absolutely. President DeSantis, Representative Sweeney, I will say I don't I am not very familiar with that issue, but I can certainly follow up with you with additional information and work with our team to find out anything that they've considered along those lines or what they're aware of. I will say that because, well, to your point, you're right. You wouldn't want people with complaints to call the line. But as part of consolidating 988 or the problem gambling line into 988, along with the consolidation of the information on the website, we plan to have that as a one-stop shop for the website, at least for information and resources that you might go to now for the Lottery Commission. or you might go to the Casino Control Commission, and to combine everything to put it into one place to make that a little bit less confusing for people as they are looking. As far as for a complaint, to your question specifically about the complaint line, I don't know for sure about that, but I know that we do plan on, through this work, doing some messaging through 988 for problem gambling concerns and resources that are needed that you will call 988. so I think that will hopefully help weed some of that out but I can certainly follow up with you with additional information

Absolutely. President DeSantis, Representative Sweeney, thank you so much for that feedback. I'll certainly follow up.

Thank you, Mr. President. I have to concur with my colleague here, Senator Kaler, on the sort of the interesting comment that we promote gambling in the state, and now we're having to support people who have developed addiction to it in one fashion or another. So correct me if I'm wrong. So we have statutory requirements that a certain percentage has to be of gambling taxes, taxes related to gambling and betting, goes into this fund, right? We are seeing an unusually large amount coming in more than we forecast, right, because more people are gambling and they're gambling in greater ways. And because of that, then we're seeing more people who are producing that increase are problematic gamblers, right? So is gambling addiction considered to be a mental health issue?

I'm just confused as to why we're taking this excess revenue that we're collecting here and putting it towards the abuse of the very thing that is causing us to have that increase in excess revenue.

And I think, you know, we talk all the time here about, you know, not funding mental health the way we should, and that's probably true.

I think we probably need to do a lot more, and this may be one subset of that. But I think we should park the extra money in someplace else in mental health and not specifically try to deal directly with gambling addiction, which, you know, I don't know how somebody on the phone disabuses somebody who thinks that they can just earn extra money by gambling That person needs maybe more than counseling Okay So I have I don know I struggle with this one I think we you know we set aside constitutionally that a percentage needs to go towards certain

But what we do with the excess rather than putting it into these other programs, I think is questionable.

Okay. Thank you. Representative Stewart.

President DeSantis, Representative Seward. So I can answer your question enough just to be dangerous, and then I'll follow up with you with additional information from our problem gambling folks. But, well, and I say just to be dangerous. That was probably the wrong choice of words, given that we're talking about all these. But I can just hit it at a high level, essentially, just that typically when you see someone who is continuing to gamble and they're continuing to gamble money, it's not additional money. It may be their savings. It may be the money that they need to pay their rent or their mortgage or to eat. It's when they are continually doing those things, and if they keep losing, they have a tendency to continue to put more money into that to try to get back the money that you have. And so it becomes a cycle of trying to get that money back, and it also is this kind of reward thing that they're chasing after. And so, but I'd be happy to follow up with you with additional information on some of the more scientific, clinical definitions.

Thank you, Mr. President. we've had a you know it's a little frustrating to me that we have the ability to bet on a baseball game now and it's like some folks think that is a really really large problem we've had a state run lottery system for 52 years we've had people using their paychecks to buy scratchers at the gas station for 52 years and nobody seemed to care does the state have a similar problem lottery abuser line, or do we track that in any way separate from the other gaming that we have now? President DeSantis, Representative Stewart, that's another one I'd have to

helpline, so they will then begin promoting 988. So they certainly do promote those same numbers so that anybody who's using the Ohio lottery that then realizes they need support, they would still call, now they would call the problem gambling helpline. And so, and in the future, we'll call 988. So it still the same mechanisms to reach them It just that I think we just get the focus because the Constitution dedicated 2 of those funds and charged our department with putting out programs for problem gambling.

We do not have a dedicated pot of money to fund 988. That is subject to the legislative process and questions about whether the amount we spend is worth what we're getting for it. This would seem to me a way to sort of prop up the 988 hotline with a guaranteed funding revenue source that was never intended to fund the 988 line.

Well, President DeSantis, Representative Stewart, I think it was more about looking at how can we effectively reach people who are in crisis and are struggling with any range of behavioral health conditions. And the crisis is defined by the caller or by the family. And so we have done that with MRSS, Mobile Response and Stabilization Services for Youth, where they previously had a separate hotline that they would call if they needed those services. We rolled that into 988 because we heard from families that it was really hard to remember or figure out when you're in the moment of crisis, hard to remember and figure out where to call. But 988 is easier. And so we've seen success with that. And so it's really just the same thing we were thinking of this is that when we hear from when we have these preliminary surveys showing that men ages 18 to 44 don't know where to go when they get to a term or when they get into crisis when it's related to gambling, that's when we started thinking outside the box and looking at it to say, okay, but everybody does know, or most people do know 90-day, and it is easy to remember rather than this longer 1-800 number. And so that is really the intention and the goal behind this.

President DeSantis, Representative Stewart, I totally understand that question. That's something that we have talked through with our team and thought through as we came forward with this controlling board item. And we will try to be clear with our messaging. because we don't want to prevent somebody to come for help because of that, because they think, oh, it's a 988 suicide line. But we also know on the flip side that a lot of men in that age population, they don't reach out for problem gambling support until they are at suicidal ideation. And so we hoping to be able while we have the website where you can have resources there that we working on providing information and then also having the 988 line Certainly that something that we have to talk through moving forward as we work with the vendors to make sure that we messaging and sharing the information the right way But yes, that is a consideration that we have talked through and continue to talk through.

Thank you, Mr. President. I thought Chairman Stewart was going to get to my question when he talked about the lottery, then he talked about betting on the Reds, and I was a little bit worried about that. You do have a problem if you're bent on the roads. Am I understanding you don't get any money from the lottery for any of this as it is now?

Could we have the numbers on what the state of Ohio is paying for those programs to detour, to stop individuals from playing the lottery while we're promoting the lottery? Because I know in the end, the only way Ohio wins on these tax dollars is for Ohioans to lose. and that's a concern to me.

Senator Ingram?

President DeSantis, Senator Ingram, certainly we are working with our partners to help fund these initiatives and use these dollars to provide, the dollars that we get to provide treatment for Ohioans to send. We do distribute money from this funding stream out to the local Adam H. board so that they are able to use that as well. So it is a statewide partnership in which we are trying to work through and distribute those funds and resources.

I appreciate the thorough conversation with colleagues on this topic. I want to clarify though, because I was just talking to my colleagues here, are we understanding this correctly that under this proposal, and even with these additional dollars, that all of these calls will be consolidated into the 988 suicide hotline?

Okay. And that, Mr. President, that's where I really have a grave concern with this proposal. I was just out of business last week in Strongsville. It's a medical clinic that provides different types of treatments for post-traumatic stress. And it was emphasized again to me, and I hear this frequently. In fact, this month is just about to end, is Suicide Awareness Month. And so within our Navy commands, we are constantly pressing into our units and reminding them to ask for help if it's needed. We continue to see numbers that are somewhere around 21, 22 deaths a day. It's higher within our military and veteran community, our first responder community. It's a serious issue within the mental health space and the society generally here in the United States and here in Ohio. And I'm just concerned based on the comments that a number of my colleagues have made and from my own experience that melding these two types of things together, it's not even apples and oranges, it's apples and squirrels or some bizarre combination here that simply does not belong together. And so it's my intention if this goes forward to register my objection to this item today. But that's just where I am on this point. Thank you.

President DeSantis, absolutely. We are happy to defer and follow up.

Good afternoon. My name is Greg Vergemini. I'm with the Ohio Department of Transportation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President. Just two quick questions. You could probably dispose of these easily. These additional studies, who are they, and what are the projects? And there's no detailed information on this.

Follow-up?

Are there any further questions regarding this item? Seeing none, are there any objections to this item? Seeing none, the item is approved.

Thank you. Okay. Item 37, Representative Sweeney.

Petroian Burr, President DeSantis to represent Sweeney. Yeah, thank you for that question. This project is, like you said, a safety project focused on an intersection a few miles north of Delaware. It's the corridor that goes to Buckeye Valley High School and also the middle school. we've noticed that there's quite a few crashes in that area, about 36 accidents over the last four years. So it's just for the design. We looked at quite a few different alternatives to look at how we can improve safety, and we did need some additional funding as we've gone to that design because it is a unique interchange that we're going to promote here. But my understanding with that, you know, we're still reviewing all the details from what you've discussed here. is that this would still be able to go forward as a project.

Just one follow up.

Attorney Board of Presidents DeSantis, Representative Sweeney, again, thank you for the question. I know we've received quite a few questions on some of these issues, and I'd be happy to come back and discuss it in more detail, but I don't have any updates at this time, but thank you.

Are there any other questions regarding this item? Seeing none, any objections to this item? Seeing none, the item is approved. Thank you. We are now up to item number 38. Senator Ingram.

Help me with that. Control Board President DeSantis, Senator Ingram, thank you for that question. As you may remember, this actually is our round three. So this program is funding that Ohio has received, about $140 million from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program. So it's federal funds to work with private companies to increase the number of electric charging stations across the state. You know, currently we have 19 operational stations. We have 12 more that are nearing completion. So when we add these 49, we'll be close to 80 electric charging stations across the state that this program has helped fund. It's 80 percent of the funding is federal funds, and then 20 percent is for the private companies. And each of these new stations will have at least four charging portals at each location so that the traveling public if they do purchase an electric or a hybrid vehicle will find that they have an opportunity for a safe reliable efficient opportunity to charge their vehicle And what this does is, and Ohio has been a leader in this program from the very beginning, So it's a great story that we're happy to tell in that, you know, what we're looking to when we review all these proposals is, is the company able to design, build, maintain, and then operate these facilities in the future? So most of these, as you know, are very reliable. You travel and use these stations every day, these companies every day across the state, and this is just adding to that location so that the electric vehicle charging is available at that location. Thank you.

So, controlling board president, DeSantis, Senator Ingram. So the way I understand this is that it's actually each company is using their own funds for that 20%. So there's no state funding that's in this. It's either federal or private companies funding to use for these projects. And, again, it's more for the traveling public so that they know that there's a safe, reliable location for them to charge up with the newest technology, their EV or hybrid vehicle as they're traveling throughout the state of Ohio.

So in that case, and I appreciate that they're using their 20 percent because most of them can afford it. My concern then is what does the state get as far as its tax on that EV station, despite the fact that it was federal money and now there's no state money, but their money is included. what does the state get back for taxes that a traveler stops and gets gas, they're paying our state tax. A traveler stops and gets charged up, they're paying what?

Thank you for that. So if I'm traveling, I'm not registered in Ohio. I'm traveling from Michigan, and I happen to stop in Ohio. I stop at the EV station at the United Dairy Farmers and I get charged, then I'm not paying anything in Ohio at all. Control-A-Loire, President DeSantis, to Senator Ingram.

But if I live in Ohio, Mr. President, if I may, but if I live in Ohio, I've already paid my fee, which we are trying to eliminate according to some people. I've paid my fee, takes me 20 minutes if I need a full charge. I go in and buy some Twinkies or whatever. Then that's how I've contributed. I've contributed on top of my fee that I paid when I registered my vehicle. My concern is that people traveling through don't pay anything. unless they go in a store and buy Twinkies, and then they give the $0.02 or $0.08 or whatever Twinkie costs.

Okay. Okay. So the Lowe's, the dairy farmers, the, I mean, Lowe's. I said Lowe's. You go do your gardening there. So all those other folks are making those dollars and, of course, selling their products. And the state doesn't have a contract that means that we're getting things. It's just doing more business so people will stop. I wish that I could get them to check the quality of our gas, but that's another issue, not your concern right now. But thank you for that. I am concerned with who's getting those dollars. And despite the fact that there are private dollars that are put in, my reality is that the state still should get something, because the whole point of having it on a highway is because we're looking at travelers. So when you get people from Virginia and Pennsylvania and all those other places to stop and to charge their car yeah they paying a fee but we don get any of that If they go in the store and buy a hot dog depending, well, do we get charged? You can't get a hot dog. But if they get something that they have to pay a fee, I mean a tax, then we get a portion of that. Okay.

Staff Lieutenant Rob Sellers, Highway Patrol. Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. President. Thank you, sir, for being here. When I saw that Highway Patrol was buying two planes for $6.8 million, I thought maybe we were buying private jets, but I understand these are Cessnas. We kind of did some looking into prices and such, and it seemed like the base cost of these may be $850,000, $1.2 million. We're going to pay $1.4 million under this bid. Then obviously we've got a lot of $2 million of upgrades on top of that. Was this competitively bid?

Follow up?

I'm going to call him back up. Okay. This is Captain Justin Cromer. He's the commander of our aviation section. He can get in kind of the details on that. Okay. Good afternoon. To the representative through the president, essentially yes, sir, because that was competitively bid, CNC Technologies won that bid,

I guess the main question is, are we – I understand the logic of saying I just want a fully baked aircraft. I don't want to have to go anywhere else and get the stuff. But are we paying CNC a premium for sort of sourcing all the gadgets that go on the plane as opposed to if we did go get them somewhere else?

And for follow-up, please?

And for those watching who may ask the question in 2026, what does the Highway Patrol use airplanes for and how many do we have?

A follow-up. When you say airspeed, that is the signs that say you're monitored your speed driving by aircraft. Is that right?

And last one, I think, when we say violent crime reduction with the airplane, I mean, generally speaking, I know in the past it would be my sheriff say, well, we're looking for marijuana. It's now legal. So what are we doing violent crime reduction with airplanes in cities?

Are there any further questions regarding this item? Any objections to this item? Seeing none, the item is approved. Thank you. We are going to jump ahead to item 54, Department of Medicaid, and we'll come back to 47 and 49. Okay.

Senator Serino.

Yes, through the president to the member. In the simplest terms I can, part of the issue, which was that question here, is because this has been fundamentally a learning experience for the department. We've never had to do something like this. So when we had to basically rerun the calculations originally, one of the things that we had to make sure we did was we thought we had the right data to use in the right way to get the right amount. And then as we started working through the actual process, once we got the approval from the legislature and we received the appropriation, and as we got closer to actually distributing the money, what we wanted to do was we wanted to double check what we were doing, make sure all our I's were dotted and T's were crossed. And when we came back in collaboration with some of the associations to discuss what the framework was going to be, how our calculations were being done, they pointed out something which we realized was at least something we needed to go back to. into our data pool and figure out whether that was actually a mistake or it was something that we question, what we realized is there was an issue. And that actually, partly again, because we've never done this before and we are kind of figuring out how this is going to work, that's when we had to go back, rerun the calculation, we had to identify what that issue with the underlying data was, and that's what we've done. The result is that the number has gone up.

Yes. And again, in simple terms, if these payments would have been made under normal circumstances, they would have been paid prospectively. With everything that we are doing, we are doing retrospective payments. One of the added challenges we have with this is because we now have data over all of these different time spans that's covered by this payment question. So whereas before, you wouldn't have had, I would argue, the concreteness of the information that we have now when we're looking back retrospectively. So that's not the only consideration. That is one of the considerations that as the department was looking at how we do this and how we do this correctly, that was something we needed to figure out. Not to belabor the point, but obviously there are also other considerations with federal funding changes and different payment rates for the feds at different points in time under the period at question. So that was just, again, just one of many considerations that our staff have been working through, which makes this more difficult than just, I would argue, what might be assumed if these payments would have been made under the way they would have always been done.

Yes. One of the reasons we have been so deliberate with our own internal discussions and our external discussions on this topic has been the last thing the department wants at this point is us to release a payment and for it to be wrong. We don't want that for our nursing facilities. We don't want that for the state. We obviously don't want it for the department. So we have been trying to do everything we can to double check, make sure everything is right. Again talk with our partners externally as well to make sure that we aren missing anything potentially And after all of this stuff we been doing this is where we landed So yes it been intentional in that we don want to mess things up when these payments go out because they are so important

when will payments start being made to the nursing homes? So I know that our NIF team, the nursing facility team in the department has received communications from individual nursing facilities on and off over the last few months. I think communications with the individual homes on a case-by-case basis have largely been, we understand you're awaiting payment. We understand you are wanting payment as soon as possible. Please be patient with us as we work through the final logistics. Again, there are other things than just the payment calculations and the total amount that go into making these things a reality for the nursing facilities. So we've tried to make sure that we don't advertise potential payments or, frankly, we don't want to put too much information out that we would then have to retract if it was a mistake to individual homes. That said, especially in this latter stage, what we have done is we've communicated with the nursing facilities and we've tried to bring them in to where we are at, at a more granular level. We've let them know, again, these are the way we've been calculating the payments. We've shared the calculations with them to get their feedback on, again, are we missing anything? Is there something that you can double check to make sure that if you see something that might be off, you let us know ahead of time before the payments go out. But we've tried to work as much as possible through the associations to streamline communications and direct individual nursing homes back to the associations so that they have a unified place to go to to get the same message. They aren't hearing things from one person that might be different from another. So that's been our attempt. That's what we've tried to do. And obviously, as we are getting ready to release the funds, we will be communicating with the individual homes with information on the specific payments.

Yes, we are planning to release funds this week.

We would expect, ideally, one of the considerations which we will still have, and this will be in the communications that go to the individual nursing facilities, if there are questions around the change of ownership, so the change in operators, that is going to be one of those considerations where we won't be able to give a definitive time frame. By and large, you will be finished before the end of October. That is the intent.

Senator Ingram.

Through the present to the member, yes.

Follow-up, Senator?

Are there any other questions regarding this item? Seeing none, are there any objections to this item? Seeing none, the item is approved. Thank you. Item number 47, the Department of Education and Workforce.

Thank you.

President DeSantis, Senator Ingram, the increase in appropriation is a result of increased participation in the program. We recommended these appropriation levels in October of 2024 in advance of the current operating budget. And you might recall we came about a year ago to increase appropriation in about the same amount. And so we're here this afternoon for a similar request. Chose to bring these requests in separate fiscal year, you know, two visits rather than making an assumption about what the need would be this year, a year ago. So it is just a result of increased participation and our estimates during budget preparation two years ago were just a little low.

President DeSantis, Senator Ingram, yes, that's correct. It reimburses and pays out the remaining claims that are pending right now today and will also cover us as we move through the year, including May and June, which will be the beginning of next summer.

Are there any further questions regarding this item? Are there any objections to this item? Seeing none, the item is approved. Thank you.

Item number 49, Department of Higher Education.

Thank you.

So why is it?

I'm going to defer to Kelly Weir. That is one question I did not prepare for. Hi, good afternoon, President DeSantis, Senator Ingram. The dollars that are made through the capital bill are for our public institutions, and so they draw down the funds directly and the state pays for those bonds directly. In this situation, these are for not-for-profit institutions of higher education, and we act as a conduit borrower on behalf. So they are still paying all the bonds. It's not like the state is directly paying the bonds. But because we're a state entity, it enables us to get them lower interest rates because we are a state entity. But we have no obligation to pay those debt service payments or anything. It just allows them a mechanism to get lower interest rates because we're a state entity and the interest on that is tax exempt.

we are assisting in them getting those bonds at a lower rate with no interest. Yeah, well, no, they pay, yes, because we are a state entity. It allows us to kind of be a conduit issuer, if you will. But then once the agreement is done, they'll be able to sell those bonds at a tax-free basis so they get a lower interest rate. But then once the agreement's done, you know, we don't like, in the case of the state dollars and the state capital bill, you know, the state is paying directly the bonds on those. Where in this case, it's completely on the private institution then to pay off those bonds that are issued.

Yeah, through the chairs. Sorry about that. Yeah, it does not go through the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission.

Thank you. Are there any other questions regarding this item? Seeing none, are there any objections to this item? Seeing none, the item is approved. Okay, with no further business before the board, is there a motion to adjourn?

Do I have a second?

We are adjourned.