Ohio Senate General Government Committee - 4-14-2026

Every committee meeting will honor God and country. I'll start with a prayer and then we'll go to the Pledge of Allegiance. And I would ask you all to silence your cell phones. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just want to give you today. You are mighty, you are powerful, your mercies are new every morning. You are worthy of majesty and praise. Lord, I ask a blessing upon all those gathered here today. I pray that you give the members of the committee wisdom and discernment for everything that we'll be considering and deliberating this afternoon, for our families back at home, for everyone gathered here today in this room that you'll pour out your grace upon us. We give you all our glory, honor, and praise. I pray for revival in this nation. I pray for the leaders. And thank you for the spring. It's right around the corner. Thank you for this glorious weather we're having. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Please rise. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, with that, would the clerk please call the roll?

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Senator DeMora.

Thank you very much, Chair Rogner, Vice Chair Gaviron, ranking member Blackshear, and members of this committee I do thank you for this opportunity to testify on Senate Bill 350 which would then add the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General to the definition of peace officer As this committee is aware the Inspector General office exists to investigate executive employees appointees and government contractors Our Inspector General, Randy Meyer, has done an excellent job in the past 15 years. In that time, his office has released over 800 reports and identified over $300 million in fraud and abuse by state employees and contractors. In order to investigate these reports, the Inspector General is given subpoena power, but lacks the authority to directly petition a court for electronic search warrant. Rather, the Inspector General must go through local law enforcement to obtain the search warrant, thus burdening locals with administrative work and creating unnecessary delays within that investigation. By adding the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General to the definition of peace officers, we can authorize them to directly petition a court for the search warrants. Federal inspectors generally already consider peace officers and do have the authority to obtain such warrants. as our state inspector generals in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Georgia. Furthermore, our inspector general and deputy inspector general are already currently OPATA trained, and this bill would maintain that as a requirement. This was actually an item that was going to be put in the budget in our last cycle, and at the last minute they asked if we could put this in the operating budget as a separate standalone bill, and here we are today doing just that. Chair Rogan and members of the committee, I thank you for this opportunity to testify on this, what I think, important issue, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Patton, I just have one question that was brought up to me earlier today. How is it going to affect their retirement? Which system, does it affect which system they're in because they're switching systems going from a state now to, are they now in the police system? I mean, someone brought that up to me earlier, and I said that was a good question I was going to ask you.

I didn't know that. Thank you. Thank you.

Welcome. Chair Rogner, Vice Chair Gaviron, Ranking Member Blackshear, and members of the Senate General Government Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide opponent testimony on Senate Bill 301. My name is Kevin Schimp. I'm a partner at the law firm Dickinson-Wright, testifying on behalf of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. The Ohio Chamber is the state's leading business advocate. The organization represents over 8,000 companies that do business in our state, and our mission is to aggressively champion free enterprise, economic competitiveness, and growth for the benefit of all Ohioans. In our efforts to champion economic competitiveness, the Ohio Chamber opposes Senate Bill 301 because it undermines at-will employment and freedom of contracting rights for Ohio employers by establishing statutorily mandated terms for non-compete agreements in the healthcare industry. At-will employment is a vital component of many employment relationships in our state. It empowers employees and businesses alike to offer, accept, and end employment for generally any reason. This includes the right of an employer to set the terms and and conditions of employment, and the right of prospective employees to accept or reject the offered terms. Senate Bill 301 diminishes at will employment and the ability of nonprofit hospitals to set conditions of employment by dictating what terms must be in the non-compete agreement that applies to physicians, physician assistants, and advanced practice registered nurses Specifically under the legislation these hospitals can only utilize non that have a duration shorter than six months in a geographic radius of 15 miles from a single hospital. This approach is unnecessary because non-compete agreements are already subject to substantial scrutiny by Ohio's courts. In fact, under existing case law, a non-compete agreement is only enforceable if it does not impose an undue hardship on the employee. Additionally, Certainly courts require non-compete agreements to have the least restrictive terms to protect the interest of the employer and the non-compete agreement must not be injurious to the public. This means that courts are already considering factors such as the amount of time the non-compete is into effect and the geographical limits before enforcing or invalidating the non-compete agreement. The enforcement mechanism of Senate Bill 301 also establishes a new private right of action. of the bill, an employee or prospective employee can bring civil action for damages resulting from a non-compete agreement that does not adhere to the legislation's restrictions. This new legal liability drives up litigation risk for Ohio hospitals and may result in higher operating costs for them. It is also unclear whether the bill's restrictions would apply to a hospital seeking to enforce a non-compete agreement that was entered into before the effective date, but now they're trying to enforce it after the bill's effective date. In closing, the Ohio Chamber opposes Senate Bill 301 because setting standardized terms for many health care non-compete agreements unnecessarily infringes upon at-will employment and employer contracting rights, since the state's courts already consider factors like duration and geographical limits when evaluating the enforceability of non-compete agreements. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I welcome questions from the committee.