Ohio Senate Armed Services, Veterans Affairs and Public Safety Committee - 4-15-2026

Safety Committee to order here in the Senate. Will you please take the roll, Clerk?

Here.

Present.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Check that. Okay, we do have a quorum. We'll proceed as a full committee. So I won't forget. I'm going to go ahead and do the minutes. They're on your iPads. Are there any objections or discussion of the minutes? Seeing none, they'll stand approved. We always begin with a prayer and a pledge, and I would like to call on my good friend Herschel Craig

Thank you so much, Senator Craig. and Senator Weinstein, if you'd offer the pledge, please.

So in case you didn't notice that, Senator Schaefer had his hand over his heart coming through the door. Not bad. And I'd just like to make a personal comment here about this committee and politics and the things that we go through as legislators. There are things that draw us together. Our faith certainly draws us together. And our love of the U.S. military and the United States of America draws us together. And we strive in this committee to move out in one direction for the best interests of the United States of America and the people of Ohio. So that's why we do those things every time. Fifth hearing, proponent, opponent, IP on Senate Bill 218, Senator Rogner, to exempt Armed Forces Certified Child Care Providers from licensure. Is there anyone here today who wishes to testify on this legislation? Seeing none, I recognize Vice Chairman Wilson for a motion.

The clerk will call the roll.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Seeing none, I recognize Vice Chairman Wilson again for a motion.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Vice Chair Wilson? Yes.

Senator Craig? Yes.

Senator Schaefer? Yes.

Seeing no one, I ask Vice Chairman for his motion here.

Chairman Johnson.

Vice Chair Wilson.

Ranking Member Weinstein.

Senator Craig.

Senator Patton.

Senator Schaefer.

Thank you, Chairman. We're going to get right to this. Chair Johnson, Vice Chair Wilson, Ranking Member Weinstein, and members of the Senate Armed Services, Veterans Affairs, and Public Safety Committee, thank you for allowing me to give sponsor testimony on House Bill 533. So House Bill 533 is a very simple and straightforward piece of legislation that aims to update the vehicular homicide and the vehicular assault statutes to include additional vehicles commonly found operating on our roadways. The need for this legislation was brought forward by prosecutors who found themselves unable to prosecute an individual who had caused the death of another person while operating a golf cart. Golf carts, while legally operated on municipal roadways around the state, do not qualify under the current statute for vehicular homicide and assault. Under current law, these sections are primarily limited to motor vehicles, motorcycles, and a limited list of other vehicles. House Bill 533 corrects this deficiency by including vehicles such as golf carts, motorized bicycles and mopeds, motor scooters, and all-purpose vehicles under the definitions for vehicular homicide and vehicular assault. It is important to note that House Bill 533 does not create any additional offenses or increase penalties. It just ensures that the Ohio Revised Code better reflects the range of modern modes of transportation. Anyone operating these vehicles has the obligation to do so in a safe and a responsible manner, and if they cause injury and or death, they should be held accountable for their actions. House Bill 533 passed unanimously out of the House Public Safety Committee and also on the House floor. I would be more than happy to answer any of your questions today.

Help me with electric vehicles. Are they motorized vehicles?

Okay. Because I presume when this was originally passed, when you said motorized vehicle, you meant in internal combustion. But you answered my question. Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate that. You're very welcome.

Thank you, Chair. I move to amend with AM 0736-4.

This amendment removes the bill's prohibitions against law enforcement using such cameras for civil enforcement, authorizes a specific type of school bus camera, authorizes the entities responsible for the school bus camera's operation, imposes a $300 fine for civil violations, and its distribution authorizes a court to suspend an offender's motor vehicle registration and removes the bill's provisions related to other forms of student transportation.

Breglia.

Think nothing of it. Chair Johnson, Vice Chair Wilson, Ranking Member Weinstein, and esteemed members of the Armed Services Veterans Affairs and Public Safety Committee. I want to thank you very much for allowing me to speak about the wonderful School Bus Safety Act, HB3. First, I'd like to speak about HB3 and establish two points. Number one, seatbelts directly protect children from injury and death from school bus crashes. Signs, lights, mechanical changes to the school bus are indirect changes and may not save children from injury or death. Number two, evidence exists for seat belts and school buses to be a standard of care. And the definition I'm using is a standard of care, is a degree of care which reasonable, a careful person should exercise under the same circumstances and that person would be considered negligent if appropriate action is not taken I'm hoping that these two points will urge school districts to put seatbelts in their school buses. HB 3 provides funds for school districts to start this process. I'm a long-term citizen advocate for lap, shoulder, seatbelts in school buses with particular emphasis today on having the committee consider the passing of the School Bus Safety Act that will substantially improve student and school staff safety during the transport process as well as encouraging responsible vehicle driver behavior. Further, this act will help to fulfill Ohio legislators, Department of Education and Workforces, Department of Public Safeties, and local school districts' shared responsibility for the safety of children. I firmly support using all the bills allowed, school bus safety equipment, including cameras, the regulatory actions, and public awareness components that will undoubtedly save lives and prevent thousands of children's injuries. I know that we are all on the same page, that we want the safest form of transportation for our children, and we all realize that it's better to have a seatbelt on if you're in a crash. A major point of HB 3 is the grant process, and the Department of Education and Workforce should, as a part of this process, remind applicants that priority should be given to the installation of lap-shoulder seatbelts and school buses, since this safety tool directly protects children from injury and death in the event of a school bus incident. Children always need direct protection provided by seatbelts, since traffic accidents will always occur, regardless of how hard we try to prevent accidents by adding preventative measures to school buses. For your information, 60 school districts applied for funds to support seatbelts and school buses from the recent governor's grant program of $10 million. In addition, grant applicants should also be advised that sufficient evidence exists that the practice of having lap shoulders, seatbelts, and school buses has reached the status of a standard of care or best practice. For example, a manufacturer recalling a defective product like a school bus without seatbelts. seatbelts. Since seatbelts and school buses are now being generally recognized as the standard of care, more negligent claims are expected from students and staff for injuries and fatalities following the crash of a school bus without seatbelts. These claims could lead to unlimited compensatory damage awards under the Ohio Tort Liability Act if preventative measures, that is, installation of seatbelts, were not taken by the responsible organizations, including school districts or city councils. The reason I'm here today is the failure of current safety features of school buses to protect children fully, as seen in two school bus rollover crashes. The first failure is when 11-year-old Aidan Clark from Springfield was ejected from his school bus and killed on his way to his first day of class in August of 2023. Aidan died because he didn't have a seatbelt that would have kept him safely in the bus. Many of his classmates were traumatized, injured, and would not ride in the replacement rescue bus following the incident. Another rollover crash and safety feature failure occurred in Chattanooga, Tennessee in November of 2016. Six children, 6 to 10 years old, were killed. Three were ejected from the bus, and 26 were injured. These kids had no chance without seatbelts. I put myself in the shoes of the parents of those kids, getting the news at their front door that their children were not coming home from school. The only one uninjured in the Chattanooga crash was the school bus driver because he had a seatbelt. Ohio school bus drivers have had seatbelts since 1986, which keeps them safer than the kids. In the USA, every year, five to six children are routinely killed, actually 10 in 2018, and many thousands are injured as passengers in school bus crashes and sudden stops. School buses are not safe if children are being injured and killed year after year. Ohio's current school bus safety features are inadequate to protect children fully in accidents. The primary school bus safety theory in school bus transport, that is compartmentalization or the padded seat back theory, has only limited effectiveness and was classified as incomplete in 1999 by the National Transportation Safety Board, one of the federal agencies responsible for school bus safety. since the theory doesn't account for side crashes or rollovers where children have no protection from injury in a crash. As far as Ohio is concerned, between 2018 and 2022, there were 800 injuries in 260 crashes. Compartmentalization theory's effectiveness depends on padded seat backs, absorbing the impact energy of children's airborne bodies that are being propelled forward when the bus suddenly stops in a crash. Imagine the psychological and physical trauma for children hitting the seat back in front of them with their faces at 30 miles an hour. This theory doesn't sound like a very good way to protect children. Compartmentalization is a crude and violent means of protection that is designed to minimize injuries but not to prevent them and routinely fails if the child is not seated properly. When the accident occurs and completely fails with rollovers and side crashes, in these crashes, the unrestrained child will fly around until hitting a fixed structure in the bus cabin or face ejection from the bus. Ohio school districts without seatbelts in their buses are gambling that a school bus rollover or side crash where children have no protection will not occur because of the relatively low frequency of school bus crashes. Aidan Clark died in a rollover crash. Having children flying down the highway at 70 miles an hour with no seatbelt protection represents a risk of foreseeable harm and is a disaster waiting to happen. Further research data from a 10-year North Carolina study has demonstrated that these types of crashes, that is, rollovers and side crashes, represent one-third of all their school bus crashes and accounts for 80% of the cash-related injuries. Since 1,100 school bus crashes occur each year in Ohio, the next serious school bus crash involving these types of crashes is not a question of if, but of when. The $10 million school bus safety fund created by HB 3 will support the purchase and installation of safety equipment, including lap shoulder seat belts, illuminated signage, crossing arms, lane departure warning systems and electronic stability control needed by school districts in new and existing buses to protect their children. However, only seatbelts would have saved Aidan Clark's life that day when he was ejected from the bus. Serious accidents will occur on our roadways, regardless of the number of lights, signs, or mechanical accessories we put on or in our school buses to prevent these incidents. We need to prioritize seatbelts that directly protect innocent children while riding in their school bus. Disparaging comments about the utility of seatbelts from anti-seatbelt pressure groups don't make any sense from a safety standpoint and should not be given serious consideration by school districts or governing bodies. Now I going to start giving evidence for seatbelts and school buses having a standard of care status The first section will be existing seatbelt benefits in a summary statement form.

Okay.

Okay, that's fine. Yes, sir. And I was just going to start a summary statement. Seatbelts are proven effective. They're low cost, $5 a student a year over the lifetime of the bus, which is less than 0.5% of the total cost, which is about $1,200 a year for transporting a student. They're widely recommended, for example, the National Safety Council, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, the other federal agency responsible for school bus safety, the Ohio PTA, and 14 other authoritative safety-oriented organizations. They're required in every passenger car since 1968. Small school buses also have a requirement. New commercial motor coaches required in some states. There are 10 states that have regulations applied to seatbelts. There are cities that have requirements, including Beachwood, Ohio. And many school districts, federal and state specifications allowed. They're safety tested. They're behavior improvers with decreased bullying, decreased driver distraction with a corresponding decrease in driver-caused crashes. Seatbelts are a basic safety tool that resolve the most significant current. School bus safety inadequacy, which is the lack of seatbelts. School districts of Avon Lake, Hudson, and Beachwood are the only Ohio cities that have purchased new school buses with seatbelts for all passengers. And just one other point. The Bluebird Corporation is in 2024. they're a major manufacturer of school buses, made seatbelts standard equipment in all their new buses and no additional cost to their customers. So that eliminates the cost factor for not having seatbelts in school buses. of the, I think, can I give the conclusions?

You're very welcome.

Thank you very much. Chair Johnson, Vice Chair Wilson, Ranking Member Weinstein, and members of the Senate Armed Services Veterans Affairs and Public Safety Committee, thanks for the opportunity to testify in support of House Bill 3. I am with the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, and we do represent Ohio's public school superintendents. I also had the honor of serving on the Ohio School Bus Safety Task Force as an appointee of Governor DeWine. On any given day, hundreds of thousands of students travel nearly one million miles on more than 14,000 yellow school buses. Along those journeys, thousands of motorists illegally pass school buses while loading or unloading children. In 2021, the Ohio Department of Public Safety reported more than 14,000 citations were issued over a four-year period for illegally passing school buses, equating to roughly 3,500 citations per year. But a 2019 survey of school bus drivers conducted by the Ohio School Boards Association reveals the magnitude of these offenses may be much larger than the citations issued. Nearly one-third of Ohio school bus drivers reported that more than 1,500 school buses were illegally passed on just one school day. Clearly, these dangerous incidents are placing children's lives at risk. I would add that I have been an educator in the state of Ohio for over three decades, serving as a middle school principal, a high school principal, an assistant superintendent, and a superintendent for 16 years. I can tell you this is an incredibly common occurrence, and these sorts of behaviors around school buses are happening on a regular basis. This bill would make a number of positive changes. I have listed those in my testimony. Our members want to thank Representatives Willis and Thomas for their steadfast work on this legislation that we believe is going to have a positive impact on student safety through enhanced enforcement, increased equipment capabilities, and additional education for our motorists. We do urge you to support this bill, which we believe will improve the safety of Ohio students during their journeys to and from school. Thank you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon. I'd be happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I move to amend with Substitute Bill 0243-2.

This substitute bill prohibits public entities from purchasing or acquiring an unmanned aerial vehicle system from any country designated as a foreign adversary.

Thank you.

It's good to be here. Chair Johnson, Vice Chair Wilson, ranking member Weinstein, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on House Bill 251. My name is Stuart Mundell. I'm the affiliate professor at Baldwin-Wallace University and project director for something called the Northeast Ohio Flight Information Exchange, or NEOFIX. Many of you are likely familiar with the NeoFix, but quickly, it's a system which allows state and local government to publish key information to UAS operators and industry, giving everyone engaged in public, commercial, and civilian advanced air mobility a clear common picture in the same way that charts do for traditional aviation. It's currently being used in northeastern Ohio, and we are talking to other communities around the state to roll out similar systems. This type of infrastructure is what will make Ohio a leader in advanced air mobility, but also what will make drone use by law enforcement doable and, most importantly, safe. House Bill 251, if implemented effectively, can support the safe growth and development of this market in Ohio for both public safety and emergency response uses and commercial and civilian uses. A key to emphasize is the use of drones in a manner consistent with existing federal, state, and local laws for these purposes, while also recognizing drone as first responder capabilities, which uses drone as an extension of dispatch to collect information for emergency purposes. It has the ability both to produce and reduce safety costs and save lives. Drone as a first responder is a transformational policing method, which has demonstrated the ability to increase officer and community safety, reduce overall police response times, and reduce waste. DFR allows a trained incident commander to virtually arrive on a scene first before officers are in harm's way. The Chula Vista Police Department in California, who's one of the early adopters of the technology for police departments using drones, has sent drones to more than 22,000 calls with an average response time from the call of two to four minutes. By comparison, the traditional average response times using police officers exceeds 20 minutes. In addition to expedited response times, drone as a first responder allows police and fire to better understand an emerging incident, to dispatch appropriate resources and equipment, and to prepare responders for what they will find on the scene. As a method for accomplishing public safety, drone as a first responder leads to more effective public safety response, reduced waste and cost, and saves the lives of responders and the public through better preparation and de-escalation. To illustrate a local case in northeastern Ohio, a man living in an apartment above a shopping center was pointing at his rifle at passerbys from the apartment. This was called into authorities, and a drone was dispatched. Using the drone, the officers were able to communicate with the man, ask him to drop his weapon and exit the building, and he complied with no danger to others. Other use cases include tracking of a man who shot an airsoft gun that a security officer at an outdoor festival. The drone operator was given a description of the person and their vehicle, and within minutes, the assailant was apprehended. At the same time law enforcement was able to find an elderly man with memory issues find his family after he wandered off These are just a few use cases and we are confident there are many more success stories with expanded DFR use Especially as public safety is facing tight budgets, DFR allows for better use of officer time and, most importantly, assists with keeping our first responders safe. In Ohio, House Bill 251 sets the conditions for public safety officials to work within the frame of local ordinances, community use cases for drone operations, and federal law. It also sets the conditions for statewide collaboration, drawing on input from municipalities, giving their voice, engagement, and participation in governance for their airspace. We now have substantial experience with this process in northeastern Ohio, including the use of sensors for drone specific operations and engagement and the partnership input and cooperation of local officials. We are also excited to support the UAS Center and the State of Ohio by bringing our expertise to anywhere in the State where it's needed. Thank you for your time and the opportunity to talk to you about this and if you have any questions, happy to answer them.

Thank you.

Chairman Johnson, Vice Chair Wilson, and Ranking Member Weinstein, and members of the Senate, Armed Services, Veteran Affairs, and Public Safety Committee, Thank you for the opportunity to testify on House Bill 251 today concerning the use of drones by law enforcement. And thank you to Representative Willis for the invitation to speak today. My name is Mike Greenberg. I'm an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which is a nonprofit public interest law firm headquartered in Virginia, but which operates all around the country to secure, protect, and defend ordinary Americans' constitutional rights. And one of the most prominent rights that we have worked with over our 35 years is property rights. And one of the many ways that we work to defend property rights is through our project on the Fourth Amendment, ensuring that Americans are secure in their property. And I'm thrilled to be here in support of HB 251, which we see as a property rights bill in its warrant requirement for surveillance. It's critical that we stay vigilant when new technologies make it possible to erode our fundamental right to be free from unreasonable searches, and this bill has just that in mind. Drones are smaller, they're stealthier, quieter, and they fly at significantly lower altitudes than ordinary manned aircraft. Indeed, they must fly lower than 400 feet and often fly even lower than that. They often come equipped with high-powered cameras and other advanced tech like heat sensors. And for those reasons, drones are a powerful investigative tool. They can capture intimate details of private spaces like the insides of homes and backyards, and they can do so efficiently and surreptitiously. And because they intrude from overhead, they can do so despite a private property owner's best efforts to keep their property private from the rest of the world. And so against that backdrop, HB 251 is a bill we see as modest. It doesn't prevent law enforcement from using this powerful tool, not even close. As we understand its intent, it is only requiring that law enforcement obtain a warrant when searching a private person or private property without the benefit of this modern technology would otherwise require a warrant. And a warrant, of course, is not some mission killer for law enforcement. It just requires going to a neutral third party to explain that there is a decent reason for conducting the surveillance in question, a judge. It prevents private property from becoming the subject of arbitrary fishing expeditions. And when the law presumes that there is a decent reason for conducting the surveillance in question, like when a drone is operating as a first responder, for example, or to survey a crime scene, the bill creates an exception from the warrant requirement for those purposes. The benefit to the security of people's private property is massive, and the burden on law enforcement is quite small. Our expertise in this field comes from the horror story of a property owner in that state up north. Our organization represented a gentleman named Todd Maxson who lives on a five-acre property in rural Michigan. His township's zoning officer for years had a vendetta against him and was trying to pin some violation of the township's zoning ordinance on him. The property was closed off to street-level views like any good private property owner would want, and the official didn't have any good reason to think that there was actually something wrong on the property. He couldn't just come on and trespass and snoop around. And so what did they do? The township used a drone to repeatedly surveil the home and the backyard without a warrant repeatedly for over two years. It flew all over the property taking intrusive, high-resolution photos and videos mapping the entire thing out, photos and videos that it couldn't have gotten from any public vantage point. And we've heard similar stories of abuses of drones in states like California all the way to North Carolina. And no Ohioan, in our view, should suffer the arbitrary snooping around of their property and the invasion of their privacy and their dignity that Mr. Maxson did without a judicial officer blessing it through a warrant. And Ohio would be in good company by saying so. Over the last decade plus, at least 20 states have enacted statutes requiring that law enforcement just obtain a warrant before using stealthy drones to surveil people's private property. That includes Ohio's neighbors to the west and the south in Indiana and Kentucky. The states with the most private property protective laws on this front range from super progressive states like Vermont and Minnesota to conservative stalwarts like Tennessee and Idaho and Florida and Texas. I've talked about the bill's intent, and that's intentional. I'd just like to close by highlighting one area where I've spoken with the sponsor's office and where we feel the bill's intent could be buttressed and where removing a possible loophole could ensure that that intent is fully realized. At lines 183 to 185, there is an exception to the warrant requirement for where a drone is operating, quote, in navigable airspace in a physically non-intrusive manner in order to observe what is otherwise visible to the naked eye. Our worry is that courts could get a little too smart with themselves and interpret that to bless warrantless surveillance of any backyard so long as a drone stays kind of hovering in the air over the backyard without actually touching anything like a fence or a tree or something like that. We don't think that's the intent behind the warrant exception. Our understanding is that it's meant to cover situations where law enforcement is out on a non-investigatory mission of some kind and just incidentally sees some kind of suspicious activity down below. but in our view, clarifying that that exception applies only when the drone is not intending to surveil a particular private person or private property would go a long way toward ensuring that a court can't misinterpret the bill's underlying intent. We'd ultimately love to see the bill passed, especially with its property-protecting mission fully realized. So thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today, and I'm happy to answer any questions to the best of my ability.

Absolutely.

Through the chair. Yes, that's our experience, that this is as much a common thing for non-police as it is for code enforcement, zoning enforcement, things that are, in our view, still law enforcement, but not the kind of thing where they're looking for dead bodies in backyards necessarily. They're looking for more zoning infractions and things like that. That was the case in the Michigan case I referenced and also the abuse in California I also referenced.

I certainly don't have any evidence of any particular official in Ohio doing this, But part of the problem is that drones are so stealthy that if a county level or city level official has some vendetta against someone and they don't find anything, we're never going to learn about it because the property owner can't know. They just silently had their privacy invaded and they'll never find out about it unless someone brings some kind of enforcement action against them. You can also fly these things at night. Certainly at night, certainly not knowing what you're going to see, whether that's some kind of zoning infraction or someone sunbathing in the backyard. And that's why we think it's so important that unless there is a warrant in advance, this powerful tool will not be used for arbitrary purposes.

Absolutely. Thank you.

regards funds provided by county for Memorial Day expenses.