March 24, 2026 · Ways and Means Committee · 6,533 words · 10 speakers · 53 segments
Committee to Order. Clerk, please call the roll. We have a quorum, so we will proceed as a full committee. Members, take a look at the minutes from our previous meeting on your iPads. I move that we accept the minutes. Any objections? Seeing none, the minutes stand approved. and we will start with, we'll call up Substitute House Bill 503 for its first hearing. Representatives Romer and Workman, welcome to committee.
Thank you. Good morning.
Chairman Blessing, Vice Chair Rogner. I'm sorry, this is the wrong one here. Thank you. Ranking Member DeMora and members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, Thank you for the opportunity to present sponsor testimony on House Bill 503 this morning. House Bill 503 addresses an important issue within Ohio's municipal income tax structure, the question of reciprocity credits. In simple terms, municipal income tax reciprocity refers to the credit a city or village gives its residents for taxes they have already paid to another municipality where they work. The system is meant to prevent double taxation and to ensure that Ohioans are not unfairly taxed by both the city they live in and the city where they earn their income. Ohio is one of 17 states that allows municipal income tax and one of 11 states that allows municipalities to levy income taxes on both residents and non-residents. You have heard hours of testimony on property tax legislation, with Ohio having the eighth highest property taxes in America. Ohio actually has the second highest rate of municipal income tax, with the greatest number of taxing jurisdictions. While many cities and villages in our state provide a 100% reciprocity credit, fully offsetting taxes paid to another municipality, a growing number are reducing or even eliminating this credit altogether. In some cases, residents may find themselves paying income taxes twice, once to the city where they work and again to the city where they live. Over 80% of the municipal income tax in Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland is paid by non-residents who do not get to vote in those cities. The process today allows each municipal council to decide whether or not to grant a credit and at what rate. There is no uniform requirement, resulting in significant variation across the state. Some municipalities provide full credit, others partial, and some not at all. This patchwork creates confusion for taxpayers, compliance burdens for employers, and financial inequities among residents of different communities. From a competitive standpoint, this trend is concerning. As more municipalities move toward reducing credits, Ohio's workers and businesses face higher effective tax rates compared to neighboring states. In many states that have local income taxes, such as Michigan, nonresidents of a municipality are taxed at a lower rate to reflect their limited use of local services. Ohio cities, by contrast, often tax non-residents at the same rate as residents and without guaranteeing a credit in the other jurisdiction. In short, Ohio's municipal income tax reciprocity system lacks fairness, uniformity, and transparency. House Bill 503 seeks to modernize this structure by ensuring that any reduction, appeal, or modification of a reciprocity credit is made with direct voter input at an election, giving taxpayers a voice in decisions that directly affect their take-home pay. At this time, my joint sponsor, Representative Romer, will walk through the specific provisions of House Bill 503 and explain how this legislation restores local accountability and gives taxpayers a direct voice in any decision to change a reciprocity credit.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here as my joint sponsor kind of presented this situation as it currently exists. What we did, and I'm very passionate about this bill, what we did is we looked at what changes could be made to make sure that villages, cities were still funded, but at the same time residents had the opportunity to have input. So what we did is we are requiring voter approval at a general election to reduce, repeal, or modify the amount of percentage of a reciprocity tax credit. We would allow, essentially codify what already exists, the initiative that voters would have if there's a change. They could then vote on that. It would prohibit, and this is a key one, it would prohibit cities or villages from combining a reciprocity credit question with a tax rate question on the same ballot. And I'll explain that a little bit right at the end of my testimony with an example. And it includes a study provision. And this was my ranking member on Ways and Means. Dan Troy really wanted a study commission to study the overall process. We thought that was a great idea. These updates bring fairness and transparency to confusing parts of Ohio's tax system. As Representative Workman explained, many cities offer 100 percent reciprocity, but that's not always true. If you live in Marysville and work in Columbus, you could be paying 4 percent. You could be paying almost twice what you pay to the state to live in Marysville and work in Columbus. That's just one of many examples. House Bill 503 ensures that residents in those situations have a say before their local government changes the credit. One of the principles that we worked on from a property tax perspective is we want a transparency. This would allow transparency. If you're going to see a reduction in that reciprocity credit, your voters vote. This bill also helps Ohio State competitive. As Representative Workman explained, only 17 states have any form of municipal income tax at all. We have the second highest rate and far and away the most taxing jurisdictions in the entire country. Of those 17 states, many of them are only one or two smaller cities. We believe that cities and villages can still change their reciprocity credit. It's just that voters get the final word, And that's the principles that we've always dealt with from property taxes, municipal taxes, and others. We want to make sure that voters have the opportunity. House Bill 503 is about trust, fairness, and transparency, and it gives taxpayers a voice. I would open it up to questions, but I want to just give a real simple example. What we had is we had a situation in a community here in central Ohio. They were offering, I believe it was an 83 and a third percent reciprocity credit. at a 1.5% level. They were taxing their residents 1.5%. What they did, and the reason I talked about combining two things together, they said, here's what we'll do. If you will increase the tax rate to 2.5%, we will increase the reciprocity percentage to 100%. What that does is, though, that says that you have to vote to tax everybody that's working there additional amounts of money. And they said the second thing, if you don't do that, we're going to take your reciprocity credit first to 50%, and then six months later to zero. So that was really that arm twisting that was occurring to get that increase. We think it's important that voters have the opportunity to participate on an individual issue. Did that city justify the rate of increase? If they did, great. Voters have the opportunity to increase. If they didn't, then voters still had the opportunity. So we believe that giving voters the opportunity to have direct input is most important. And that's really what House Bill 503 does, in addition to the study commission. And with that, I would open it up for any questions.
Very good. Any questions to the committee? Senator Schaefer.
Thank you so much, Chairman, and thanks to both of you for bringing this bill forward. I'm a big fan of the bill and the concept in general of having more equality in terms of our local taxes that we pay. and I've had a bill that kind of got to the point in a different way over the years and every time I introduced the bill and every time I was in a Ways and Means Committee for a long time, the larger cities, particularly one city especially with a former mayor, used to always warn leadership oh there will be blood in the streets, we're going to lose control of our cities there won't be any city services, it's going to be catastrophic if the commuting community, commuters get a credit against the big city. So what you're saying is that you're giving the voters control over credit over their hometown city municipality, so the reverse argument might apply. How do you respond to those hometowns saying, oh, it's going to be catastrophic,
how are we going to pay for our city services? Same thing that big cities used to say under my bill. And by the way, as I start out through the chairman, I'm very aware of your bill. I know your bill has been offered over multiple GAs. In fact, I believe you were a Ways and Means chairman in the House at one time. Thank you for doing that. What I would say is that we've tried to take an iterative step. I had people coming to me saying, we need to eliminate municipal income taxes in Ohio to make Ohio more competitive. This doesn't do that. In fact, as it's structured, this changes exactly zero monies that would be received by communities. If you're in a village, if you're in the city, this doesn't change anything. What it does is it gives voters control so that if that mayor and that council, I mean, literally on a seven-person council, you could have four people vote and then the mayor sign to double the municipal income tax by eliminating the reciprocity credit. So this just gives voters control. It doesn't change a single penny that would be currently received by any city or village in Ohio. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question don the citizens in any community right now in Ohio have the ability to challenge or overturn any council action or ordinance including income tax reciprocity agreement Can't we already, I mean, right now in statute, the way I read it, we can do that right now, can't we?
To the senator, the answer would be yes. What we want to do, though, is we want to make sure, because as we know, I actually led a petition drive on redistricting in Summit County. It is a huge opportunity, but it's also a huge undertaking. So what this does is this says that the citizens would have the ability up front to vote. We do include the opportunity to do exactly what you had mentioned, Senator, but that is so much harder to get 10 percent of the signatures of those that had voted in the last general election and then to get that to the ballot. But what this does is it says if there's a change in reciprocity credit, the citizens get to vote on it. If they think it's a great idea, they vote yes. If they don't, they vote no.
So following up on what you just said, though, you chose to make the initiative process different than any other initiative process. So why is that?
What we did is we wanted to just codify the ability to have a 10 percent threshold. There's different reciprocity. There are different processes. We wanted to make sure that it was directly codified in House Bill 503, that if citizens wanted to do something, they would need 10% of the signatures from the last general election. That still is a massively hard process. And having done that personally myself in an entire county, I don't see a whole lot of people undertaking that whatsoever. That's a lesser, much lesser part of this overall bill, rather than combining the reciprocity credit question with the tax rate question and letting voters vote.
One more, Mr. Chairman?
Yep, one more.
So the city of Columbus is in four counties, yet your bill only allows the question to go to one county. So we're disenfranchising city of Columbus voters, theoretically, that live in three different counties. Your bill doesn't address that at all. because right now, the city of Columbus is in Delaware County, Franklin County, Fairfield County, and Pickaway County.
The way I understand this, if there were a change made to the reciprocity percentage in Columbus, every Columbus voter would be allowed to do that. I don't know if there's any restrictions in House Bill 503 that would say that the voters of counties, and I'm aware of a couple municipalities in Summit County that cross county lines. As an example, I think Representative Workman has a portion of Magadar. I don't know that there would be any negative impact of voting across that. I believe it would be the voters of, in this case, in Representative Workman's case, Magadar Village, that is in both Portage County and Summit County. Those voters vote right now on anything. They would still have the ability.
Well, Mr. Chairman, according to the bill, though, you submit the ballot question to one county. That's what the bill says. So, again, and if this is going to be a special election, theoretically, I'm saying right now what the bill says is that the ballot question is only submitted to one county. So, again, there are voters in three other counties, if it goes against City of Columbus, that won't get to vote on it according to what this bill says.
To the senator through the chairman, if that's true, I have no problem going through an amending. That's the first time that that has come. I think we heard this bill five or six times in the House and lots of IP meetings and other things. That's the first time I've heard that specific issue raised. If that's true, I'll amend it tomorrow.
Okay, very good. Any other questions? Senator Liston.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Representatives. I just make sure I know the current process related to the reciprocity agreements. These are put in place by the mayors and or city council members, correct?
So yes. Yes.
So the elected leaders are currently creating the policies. It feels like they already have a recourse if policies are not what they want, right? the normal election process? Is there a reason that this particular thing wouldn't follow normal sort of representative accountability?
Through the chair, I would say two things relative to that. You're exactly correct, but what you could have is if you have a seven-person council, you could have four people vote to eliminate a reciprocity, let's say that they have a 2% rate to make my math really easy. If you have somebody that's making $100,000 a year, that elimination, those four people and then the mayor, could result in an increase in taxation for that specific individual of $2,000. The people on council are elected to four-year terms. That person might not be up for election for four more years. In that case, if the voters remember four years later what happened, that person has already spent $8,000 that they should have had the opportunity to vote upon. So that, yes, there's recourse to vote those people out, but that could be a massively long process. The fact that we're saying at a general election you get an opportunity to vote on something that potentially would change your taxes we think is very important.
Thank you.
Very good. Seeing no further questions, thank you for your testimony.
Thank you so much.
That concludes our first hearing on Substitute House Bill 503. Next up, we will call House Bill 148 up for its second hearing. And we have quite a bit of written testimony. And we have from Ohio Pet Fund, Peggy Kaplan.
Welcome. Good morning, Chairman Blessing, Vice Chair Rogner, Ranking Member DeMora and members of the committee it's nice to see you all again in some circumstances thank you for the opportunity to provide proponent testimony on House Bill 148 my name is Peggy Kaplan and I serve as a director for the Ohio Pet Fund through the sale of the pet friendly license plate we provide spay and neuter grants to county run dog shelters and non-profit rescue organizations in Ohio While we're proud of that work, the reality is that the costs have risen, and what we provide is only a very small fraction of what is now needed to address the scale of pet overpopulation in our state. Shelters consistently report at or near capacity, and intake numbers remain high year after year. This is not a temporary issue. it's ongoing and costly, placing a heavy burden on county budgets, shelter capacity and staff, and the problem grows quickly. One unspayed animal does not stay one for long. A single unspayed cat can lead to hundreds of kittens over time, and a dog can produce dozens more. These numbers quickly overwhelm shelters and drive up costs to taxpayers. If unaltered animals are adopted and reproduced, their offspring often end up back in our shelter system. This revolving door drives costs up for taxpayers and contributes to dog bites, property damage, overcrowding in shelters, and too often euthanasia. A veterinary technician friend of mine at a local shelter shared with me that the hardest part of her job is having to euthanize a healthy, adoptable puppy as it's wagging its tail simply because there is no space for it. We can do better. House Bill 148 offers meaningful support to address this problem. By creating the companion animal fund within the state treasury, Ohio taxpayers will have the option to voluntarily contribute a portion of their income tax refund. This approach does not impact the state's general fund, yet it creates a dedicated funding stream for spay and neuter services. One of the most effective ways to reduce shelter intake and long-term costs, House Bill 148 simply gives taxpayers the option to support a solution. This isn't an animal welfare issue only. It's a fiscally responsible issue. The bill simply scales what we know works, a way to reduce counties that are already paying for it. We can pay on the front end through prevention or on the back end through shelter costs, staffing, and euthanasia. I respectfully urge your support of House Bill 148. Thank you for your consideration, and I would be happy to answer any questions that you have at this time.
Thank you for your testimony. Reading through this, particularly the third paragraph, I was going to say this almost seems like an allegory here for our tax expenditure list, as it grows and grows and grows. But that said, are there any questions from the committee? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony.
Thank you very much.
Up next, we have Tony Seegers, also with Ohio Pet Fund.
Good morning. Appreciate the opportunity here. Chairman Blessing, Vice Chair Rogner. Ranking Member DeMora, Mayor of the Committee my name is Tony Seegers I appreciate the opportunity to provide proponent testimony for House Bill 148 on behalf of my client the Ohio Pet Fund I have a personal connection to the Ohio Pet Fund outside of them being a client A little over 20 years ago, I was a senior legislative aide for the late, great State Senator Bob Shuler. That is where I had the opportunity to meet very two dedicated and passionate people, Higgy Kaplan and Julie Bertini. They had formed the Ohio Pet Fund in 2000 with the goal of ending the overpopulation of dogs and cats. Peggy and Julie came to Senator Shuler and requested he introduce a license plate bill with the proceeds going to the fund to pay for the spaying and neutering of companion animals. Through their tireless advocacy and determined work of Senator Shuler, the pet's license plate bill was passed into law. It's a little bit of an uphill battle because then Senate President Finan had said he didn't want any more license plates, but if you knew Bob Shuler, you knew that somehow this was going to get done. Since then, the Ohio Pet Fund, through its board, has given countless grants to help prepare pets for adoption and to assist organizations to help low-income families and disabled veterans, as well as educating veterinary students about the proper veterinary care of cats and dogs. The HALP Pet Fund and its voluntary board, and I do stress that word voluntary, these are non-paid individuals, have a 20-plus history of success with their license plate and grants. For instance, in 2025, they granted over 99% of the funds they received from license plate sales the prior year were the spaying, neutering, as well as the education of those animals. It's important to note that many local shelters would be unable to spay and neuter services if it was not for the fund. Further, the Ohio Pettent Fund is very transparent about the grants awarded, listing grant recipients and amounts on the fund's website. It's right there, kind of on the front page. I would include a may of the 2025 grant awards for your convenience. With House Bill 148, Ohio will be joining over a dozen states to have a tax checkoff or spay and neuter. And again, this is a voluntary...
The bill passes.
Ohioans, if they get a refund, can voluntarily check a box to donate all or a part of their tax refund to this cause. Other states, such as Oregon, offer a tax checkoff as a way for citizens to donate to a 501c3, Oregon Humane Society, for companion animals. Many other states offer a tax checkoff for 501c3 organizations like Make-A-Wish, ALS societies, and multiple sclerosis societies. These funds will allow the Hyah Pet Fund to grant even more dollars to local shelters to offer spaying and neutering for low-income Ohioans. License plate proceeds in 2024 were about $270,000. Well, this seems like a lot of money. It just doesn't go far enough when there are 200 applicants applying for funding. Ohio Pet Fund does a great job of marketing the pet plates as the second most popular in the state, but the number of specialty plates have increased from 300 or 30 to about 300 over the last several years, another reason why additional income streams are necessary, such as would be provided by House 148. Again, license plate popularity ebbs and flows. We think it's very great that we have such a popular plate, but it's not guaranteed. The checkoff would double the spay and neuter fund income and save the lives of hundreds of dogs and cats. Neutered homeless pets are more likely to get adopted. Appreciate the opportunity to provide proponent testimony. Be happy to attempt to answer any questions we have.
Very good. Thank you for your testimony. Any questions on the committee? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony. Up next, we'll call Dr. Leanne Bertani.
Good afternoon, Chairman Blessing, Vice Chair Rogner, Ranking Member DeMora, and all the esteemed members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. My name is Leanne Bertani, current president of the Ohio Pet Fund, and I appreciate the opportunity to testify. The good news is that we have the opportunity to facilitate some more good works for Ohio. We have this organization that's already in place for 20 years and operates efficiently with significant oversight and without the need for creating an additional bureaucracy. Here's some of the details of the oversight of the Ohio Pet Fund. We have an all-volunteer board, no salaries for 20 years. It represents the Humane Society's shelters and rescues. that includes a veterinarian and a physician. And in addition, we have an advisory board that includes another veterinarian and an attorney. We also are advised by a legal consortium that specializes in the governance of nonprofit organizations. And we file 990 tax returns with the IRS every year. And we're advised by a respected accounting firm. Over the past 10 or 15 years, we've actually given out more funds overall than we've received in license plate income. We file also a yearly report of income and expenditures with the Ohio Attorney General, and that reports online. And House Bill 148 will require us to report to the General Assembly and include the amounts of income that we've received and the purposes for which it's been expended. House Bill 148 will allow us to improve funding to the dog wardens and shelters and nonprofits that depend on us for the spay and neuter funds so that they can assist homeless pets, cats and dogs belonging to disabled veterans, and those belonging to families with incomes below 150% of the poverty line. In addition, we actually make money for the state with our plate sales and save money by decreasing intake and helping to increase adoptions at the county shelters. We attempt to assist every county. For some of our dog wardens, especially in those smaller counties, our grants may be their only source of spay and neuter funds. And if we can't help the dog warden directly for some reason, we attempt to assist the nonprofit groups and the mobile clinics that can kind of support the surrounding area. In addition, we've tried to address some of the veterinary shortages. We've started an educational program to help the fledgling veterinarians become more familiar with the special techniques and procedures for high-volume, high-quality spay and neuter surgeries. We thank you very much for your time and are happy to answer any questions.
Very good. Thank you for your testimony. Any questions from the committee? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony. All right. And then we have former Representative Jim Trachis.
Welcome. Thank you, Senator. I've always wanted to be in the Senate and glad to be here at least this way. Mr. Chairman Blessing, Madam Vice Chair Rogner, Ranking Member DeMora, esteemed members of the committee, my name is Jim Tracus, and I'm one of the representatives of the Ohio Pret Fund, an Ohio not-for-profit corporation before the General Assembly, and I'm offering proponent testimony on Representative Ray and Grimm's House Bill 148 before the committee today and I want to thank Representative Grimm for being here and shepherding this bill today. The reason behind this legislation is straightforward. Ohio's dog and cat population have been growing and exceeding the amount of public dollars available to deal with the care of pets who don't have homes. The Ohio Pet Fund helps to place pets in homes by working with local not-for-profit charities as well as local and county animal shelters and animal control officers. The Pet Fund has a remarkable record of success in spaying and neutering animals to cut down on the population that is on the streets or in shelters, and has an extensive network of government and not-for-profit entities that it works with to place dogs and cats in loving homes and spay and neuter them, striving to relieve the burden on public animal shelters. For 20 years, the Ohio Pet Fund operates the second most popular specialty license plate program. I know Senator DeMora would be happy to know that the Ohio State University has the number one. And for the record, I have the Ohio State plate and my wife has the pet fund plate. So we are covering all bases here. We're number one and number two. Dedicating hundreds of thousands of dollars to local shelters and not-for-profits in every county in Ohio annually. But the need for spay, neutering, and adoptions are even greater than the sale of license plates can provide revenue for. And that's where House Bill 148 comes in. The bill allows for Ohioans to dedicate a portion of their annual tax refund through a voluntary tax donation to this charity, similar to the Breast and Cervical Cancer Project or Military Relief Fund or other worthy priorities under Ohio law. House Bill 148 would allow for the first husbandry, first pet charity to be an option for this practice. So it's a voluntary contribution and donation. And it has no impact on the state treasury. It is not a tax exemption, and it would join other worthy charities that Ohioans can contribute to if they choose. We know the House Bill 148 isn't the most important bill you have before you, but it is important to the pet shelters and charities that are overwhelmed with stray dogs and cats. There is a timing issue that I'd like to call to your attention. If this simple bill can be passed here in the spring and signed into law by Governor DeWine before the summer then the Ohio Department of Taxation will be able to include this voluntary tax donation on the 2026 tax forms So voluntary donations could start flowing in the year 2027. If the bill waits or does not pass, it would take a year and a half to implement. So I hope that this detail could help to prevail upon you if you support the legislation to please support it soon that it may not take overly long for this policy to be implemented. With the need to reduce the stray animal population increasing, the Ohio Pet Fund believes that House Bill 148 can help them to provide more voluntary, non-tax dollar resources to places even more pets and help shelters, particularly in our urban areas and small towns and counties that get overwhelmed by strays. The Ohio Pet Fund is a transparent 501c3 organization, has publicly available open books, and will continue to file regular reports with the Attorney General. House Bill 148 also provides for the Ohio Pet Fund to report on alternative years to the General Assembly, increasing transparency. The group's 990 tax return is available on multiple websites online. The pet fund is a six person board of individuals who are open, transparent, highly passionate and competent and would continue to be excellent stewards of donated funds to help foster animal adoptions to make Ohioans happy and spay and neuter pets and enjoy an impeccable reputation as a superb not-for-profit organization. House Bill 148 is good public policy. It helps alleviate the cost of local and county government. It allows for a well-established, respected, and highly competent charity to work with local pet shelters, animal control officers, and pet charities to provide critical mass to this issue. I ask the committee to favorably consider House Bill 148 and thank the chairman very much for scheduling this hearing. I'm happy to answer any questions at this time and appreciate very much all you do for the benefit of the people of Ohio, and in this case, the dogs and cats of Ohio who love their homes. Oh, and my little cat family, consisting of Sir Winston Churchill, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Penelope, and the newly adopted Field Marshal Montgomery or Monty, thank you as well.
Yes, after eight years in the Ohio house,
I turned into a crazy cat daddy.
Thank you for your testimony. I'm a cat owner myself, but I don't have that many. that's it are there any questions from the committee seeing none thank you for your testimony
thank you so much Mr. Chairman and members of the committee members obviously
there's quite a bit of written proponent testimony here is there anybody else that wishes to testify in favor of House Bill 148 seeing none that concludes our second hearing on House Bill 148 last but not least we'll pull up Senate Bill 307 for its second hearing and we'll start with William V. Shearer
City of Canton as a proponent. Good morning, Senators. My name is Peter Zahurski. I'm Director of Economic Development for the City of Canton. Unfortunately, Mayor Shearer was not able to attend this morning, so I'm here in his stead. Chairman Blessing, Vice Chair Regner, Ranking Member DeMora, and members of the Ohio Senate and Means Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify as a proponent of 7 Bill 307. The city of Canton is a legacy city in northeast Ohio with over 70,000 residents. Like any city in Ohio, public safety is a primary concern. Senate Bill 307 will allow us the flexibility to use funds generated from tax increment financing to address gaps in the administration of safety services. The gap in services results from new economic development projects. While economic growth is great, we cannot ignore the increased need for police and fire services. By amending the Ohio Revised Code to include the construction of safety infrastructure as a permissible public infrastructure improvement that can be funded with TIF proceeds, our local services will keep pace with our increased economic opportunities. Tax increment financing is a powerful and extremely valuable economic development tool that enables communities and private sector developers to work together to fund necessary public infrastructure to facilitate public projects. While the Ohio Revised Code is clear that infrastructure projects, such as roads and utilities, are permissible uses of TIF funds, communities also need to be able to provide safety infrastructure, such as police and fire stations, proximate to new developments for adequate coverage. Senate Bill 307 would amend the ORC to specifically allow TIF proceeds to be used for the construction of safety facilities. In May 2023, Amazon opened a new fulfillment center in Canton that employs approximately 700 workers during the regular year and up to 1,000 during peak season. The building itself is 1 million square feet. Canton used tax increment financing to support the construction of the fulfillment center, specifically repairs and upgrades to area roads owned or maintained by the city, stormwater and flood management, and costs associated with engineering, permitting, and inspection. Since the completion of the project and the opening of the facility, the TIF has generated about $250,000 to $350,000 per year, which has been critical in helping us to continue to maintain the roads around the fulfillment center. The nearest fire station to the fulfillment center is 2.5 miles away. It is one of the oldest fire stations in Canton and is due for replacement, but the city does not currently have the funds for this necessary project. While the ORC contains an extensive list of allowable public infrastructure costs, fire and safety are not specifically mentioned. This creates a legal gray area as to whether or not communities using TIF funding can fund the construction of safety facilities along with other public infrastructure that is necessary to support economic development. In order to address this gray area and bring clarity for both Canton and communities around Ohio, we reached out to Senator Timken and she introduced Senate Bill 307. This bill simply adds the words,
Buildings for Police or Firefighting, to the list of public improvements allowed in Section 5709.40 of the revised code. This change expands local authority while maintaining the spirit and purpose of the law as it was originally written. Current law states, Section 8, public infrastructure improvement includes but is not limited to. While this language could broadly include safety services, we believe that passing SB 307 would make clear that Canton's planned project fits within the projects permitted in the TIF law. In conclusion, I would like to thank Senator Timken on behalf of the City of Canton for her willingness to introduce this bill, not only for our community, but also for communities around Ohio that use tax increment financing. I appreciate your consideration of Bill 307 and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
Very good. Thank you, testimony. Any questions? Senator Schaefer.
Thank you, Chairman Blessing, and thanks again for your testimony. Again, what was your name and your title?
Peter Zahurski. I'm Director of Economic Development for the City of Canton.
Thank you for that. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say I support this bill wholeheartedly. I just met with one of my fire districts in Lincoln County, West Lincoln Fire District. And they described to me, and it's an extremely high-growth area, right off Interstate 70 on the outskirts of Franklin County, Columbus. And they shared with me that if they go the current trajectory with these exemptions in place, where other entities are getting tax revenue but not the fire district, that they have so many communities that are in their district passing TIFs and doing all kinds of these economic development things that deny them any revenue. They're going to have a catastrophic situation in just a few years. So I think while not adding to the tax burden at all of any taxpayer, I think this is a good way to make sure that we have essential public safety services intact when we call 911. Because who wants to call 911 and not get a response? So thank you.
Thank you, Senator. Good. Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony. Very good. Last but not least, we have Sean Kasich with the Ohio Mayor's Alliance.
Welcome to committee. Morning, Chairman. Vice Chairman Wilmer Rogner, Ranking Member DeMora. My name is Sean Kasich, and I'm here and honored to provide testimony on Senate Bill 307 on behalf of the Ohio Mayor's Alliance. While I'm sure you all are delighted to see me in front of the committee, I think what we would like to do is summarize our remarks so you don't have to listen to me read eight pages of my prepared testimony and refer to the city of Canton's testimony. It's a large part of why we're here today. I will say that as a bipartisan coalition of mayors in Ohio's largest cities, both Democrat, Republican communities of all shapes and sizes, public safety is the most important aspect of what we do at the local level. And nonetheless, no surprise, that's where most of our dollars go to fund local services, whether it's fire services, EMS, and certainly police. Communities, both cities and townships, spent roughly $3 billion just on salaries alone throughout the state. So that's a pretty significant investment. So tools like utilizing TIFFs to help pay for things like police and fire infrastructure would be critically helpful as we navigate the growing cost of personnel costs, of services as the economy changes. And we are fully supportive and grateful for Senator Timken to sponsor this bill. You know, like I said, I'm sure you're delighted to see me and potentially grill me, having worked with me for many years, some of you. I am not a TIF expert, but we're happy to provide any answers to the committee through normal course, and we'll come through you, Mr. Chairman.
Very good. Thank you for your testimony. Any questions? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony.
Thank you.
All right. Does anybody else wish to testify to Senate Bill 307? Seeing none, that concludes our second hearing on Senate Bill 307. And with no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.