May 19, 2026 · Children and Human Services Committee · 8,351 words · 9 speakers · 56 segments
We got a lot of committees meeting and people trying to get here, so we have a quorum, so we appreciate everybody being here today. Welcome. I call this meeting to order of the House Children and Human Services Committee. Clerk, please call the roll.
Chair White. Yes. Vice Chair Salvo. Ranking Member Lutt. Here. Representative Brewer. Representative Brownlee. Here. Representative Bryant Bailey is excused. Representative Click is checked in. Representative Dieter. Here. Representative Fowler-Arthur Here Representative Melanie Miller Representative Odioso Representative Ray Here Representative Richardson
Okay, we do have a quorum, and so we'll proceed as a full committee. The minutes have been on your iPads. Does anyone have any objections to the minutes? Seeing none, the minutes are approved without objection. We just want to remind you, if you wanted to take photos today, please fill out the forms that should be up there at the stand. And if they're not there, let us know, and we'll bring one down to you. Right now, I wanted to make sure that everyone understands that we have two comp docs and a lot of substitute bills going on with these different bills. Okay? So first off, last week, just to make it clear, we adopted a sub bill for House Bill 647. And I want to emphasize that that sub-bill just took the money we had been allocating from Child Care Cred to support this bill, but the department is going to use existing funds to pay for that. The full $10 million now is in Child Care Cred. That program is fully intact from a financial standpoint, and also, as you recall, late in the General Assembly year last year, House Bill, was it 730, Joe? The Budget Corrections Bill extended child care credit for yet one more year. So this gives families time to go to their employers and say, hey, this is a great opportunity. Can you help me here? It gives employers time to sign up. We really want to prove the business case that that project works. So we encourage you to go out, talk to employers, and let's try to make that program work for our Ohio families and our workforce. So that's that bill. This week we are dealing with House Bill 649, and so that comp doc is on your iPads from last week between the original and the substitute bill. We also have House Bill 649 where Representatives Williams and Swearingen have presented a sub bill. I call on Representative Richardson. Please, if you wanted to, give us some information on that.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I move to amend HB 649 with L1362560-12.
Okay. The sub-bill is in order. Please explain.
This sub-bill comes from the sponsors and makes changes with regard to the Inspector General's requirements on investigations concerning waste, fraud, and abuse. The sub-bill allows the IG to work with DCY to gather additional information and to pause the investigation while this work occurs. Finally, the sub-bill changes the requirements that the IG notify the Speaker of the House and the Senate President at the beginning and conclusion of an investigation. to notification only at the beginning of full investigation.
All right. Thank you very much. Are there any objections to this sub-bill? Seeing none, the sub-bill is accepted. All right. So this concludes the fifth hearing on House Bill 649. And I did, I now call it and I conclude it. So I think I forgot to mention that at the beginning. All right. Right now, we're going to move to the acceptance of sub-bill 635 for its third hearing that we call that bill and I call on Rep. Richardson.
Madam Chair, just for clarification, is that HB 865? So just skip ahead to the next page.
We have a lot of people missing and so Rep. Richardson graciously agreed to fill in as
Vice Chair Salvo. Okay. Madam Chairwoman, I move to amend HB 635 with L1362075-3.
And that sub-bill is in order. Please explain.
This sub-bill makes the following changes. One, restricts the disclosure of child welfare information to the specified agency to information that is permissible under the Federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974. Two, it removes the responsibility for law enforcement to directly input alleged domestic violence incidents to SACWIS and instead requires them to work the PCSA to input those events. And three, makes changes to the reporting requirements to the Child Welfare Electronic Dashboard by adding a placement-type category of children who are placed in a different state. And fourth, prohibits DCY from publishing data if the number of children in a reporting category is fewer than 10 children.
Okay, are there any objections to the sub-bill? Seeing none, the sub-bill is adopted So what we would like to clarify, my office did not receive any in-person or written testimony on this bill Is there anyone here who would like to provide testimony on 635? Alright, seeing none, this concludes the third hearing on House Bill 635 Now we will move back to House Bill 865 and I will turn the gavel over to Rep. Richardson to go up and present testimony with Representative Ty Matthews.
Do you need to say something?
No, ma'am. Just speak loudly and clearly.
Thank you, presiding Chair Richardson, ranking member Lett, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to provide sponsored testimony on House Bill 865. This bill aims to protect children in Ohio's adoption system by helping keep their information private and ensuring they are presented with care and dignity. House Bill 865 creates a password-protected database for qualified adoptive parents so sensitive information is not left open to the public. It also limits what can be included in a child's profile, helping safeguard children from people who may try to misuse that information. The bill further clarifies adoption-related advertising and calls for greater accountability from agencies involved in the process. These changes help ensure the system serves the best interests of the children and keeps their information in responsible hands. House Bill 865 also promotes a more respectful and secure adoption process for children. By limiting unnecessary exposure and maintaining appropriate safeguards, the bill helps protect vulnerable children from exploitation while still helping them connect with safe, qualified families. Just wanted to say this bill originated from a constituent in my district, just speaking in generalities here, that saw some concerns on local databases on how they were potentially being matched with qualified families. families. That got me looking into this issue and linking with Representative White and through our research, pointing to one study in particular out of the Children and Youth Services Review in 2024, authored by Amy Kressman, points to a couple different notes on the process that we see not just here in Ohio, but across the United States. And I want to just give a quick shout out to the David Thomas Foundation who helped us with all this research. This study specifically notes that children in foster care are already highly vulnerable due to trauma, abuse, neglect, and family separation. Publicly displaying their images online can create embarrassment, stigma, and emotional harm. Youth interviewed about recruitment practices described some methods as being humiliating and uncomfortable. Researchers warned that online photo listings must carefully consider the child's right to privacy, consent and dignity. Some critics have compared these recruitment methods to cattle markets or speed dating for children. The study emphasizes once a child image is online, it can be copied, shared, and misused permanently. Foster youths deserve the same privacy protections we would want for our own children. There is insufficient evidence proving that public online images are the best or safest recruitment method, and that recruitment efforts should prioritize relationship building, family preservation, kinship placement, and carefully vetted child-specific advocacy rather than a broad public exposure. The heart of this bill is to protect the children, not to restrict their access to be finding their forever homes. This time I'd like to pass it over to my joint sponsor, Chair
White. Well, thank you, Rep. Matthews, and thank you, what shall I call you? Rep. Richardson for filling in today and all the committee members and ranking member Lutt. We're very happy to be here. I've got to tell you, when Representative Matthews brought this bill to my attention, this issue, I was immediately concerned, and I thought, I want to work with him, and we've got to do better for our foster kids. Kids in foster care, as you know, already face tremendous difficulties in their young lives. They often enter custody care because of findings of neglect, physical or sexual abuse, parental drug or other substance use, human trafficking, to name a few, according to the Children's Bureau. These children face a higher risk of developing lifelong negative health and social outcomes because of what they witness or they experience, whether it's chronic abuse, violence, poverty, exposure to substances, and cumulatively a disproportionate number of adverse childhood experiences. And there's numerous studies that recount this. The data is pretty clear as well for kids who age out of foster care without the support and safety net of a permanent family. They face an uphill battle. One in five youth will be homeless after age 18. Only 50% will be employed by the age of 24. Less than 3% will earn a college degree. And I want to commend Representative Ray, Representative Gerald's, and the Higher Ed Committee for their work in trying to promote advanced pathways for kids and working with the foster system and all of the parties. So hopefully that number will increase in this state. Seventy percent of former female foster youth will be pregnant by age 21, according to data that was cited by our friends at Wendy's Wonderful Kids. What's also clear in Ohio is that we need to do more to build the capacity for adoptive homes, foster homes in this state. Ohio just joined the Home for Every Child initiative federally. We're hoping that's going to help. But we've got to come up with ideas working with people around the state to do better. And that way to do that is encouraging and funding methods that are research-backed and more likely to help youth find a permanent home. It's time we do a thorough review of the methodology and practices being utilized in our state for adoption, recruitment, and for us to educate and incentivize best practices to safeguard a child's private information while connecting them with the right families at the right time when they're fully screened, they are trained, and ready to find their forever family. As Rep. Matthews, in the bill, it talks about once you're at that process, then you will have access to a portal that will allow you to help match and then children to help match with families. I believe House Bill 865 will help us do that. After Rep Matthews shared the bill I spoke with Melinda Haggerty of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption who serves with me on the Ohio Children Trust Fund board And I asked her you know do you know about the effectiveness of these different strategies She said they have been involved in national level conversations on this and most importantly is to be looking at best practices to be recognizing the voice of foster youth in this process. What they say matters, their privacy rights and things like that. She also shared that allowing youth to give developmentally appropriate consent for profile creation and other content designed to help them in their journey is where we need to be. And then other types of adoption recruitment, while they can be successful, the child-focused recruitment has been proven and studied to be the most effective way to achieve permanency. In fact, a rigorous five-year evaluation of their particular program, and then there's others like this, is up to three times more efficient and effective at finding permanent homes for children in its population than other methods. So Melinda Mervet and others from the Dave Thomas Foundation have been very helpful. We've talked to other groups and interested parties, but we're just beginning the process, so we wanted to get this bill introduced. We look forward to making improvements through the process, and I want to thank Rep. Matthews and all the individuals who brought this to our attention. We look forward to any questions you may have. Well, thank you both for your passionate testimonies and meaningful. When we think about our respectful and secure adoption process, I think your message is clear that we need to dig a little deeper and hopefully support via this bill. Are there any questions for the sponsors? Seeing no questions, this concludes the first hearing on HB 865. Thank you. Okay, so this will conclude the first hearing on House Bill 865. Next, we turn our attention. It's been a while. We had a break. We look forward to revisiting House Bill 712 with its second hearing. I now call up our first witnesses, and that will be Lisa Falloway. She will be providing a component to the vocal test.
Good morning. Thank you. Good morning.
Chairman White, Ranking Member Lett, members of the Children and Human Services Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide proponent testimony on House Bill 712. As you may recall, my name is Lisa Folliway, and my son Casey is disabled. Casey could not be with me today. He's currently in Canton City Schools teaching several kids about wheelchair basketball. So he says hello to all of you. But as I've shared in prior testimonies, Casey lives in a world that's not created for him. And that means with a person with a disability that requires the use of mobility aid or a wheelchair, everything takes extra effort. Everything's extra. And so we take for granted just going to the store, running to the store, jumping out of our car and getting a few things that we need. But for someone with a disability, that can be overwhelming. And that's unfortunately a lot of that has to do with lack of accessibility in our communities, but also the lack of enforcement. And that's what House Bill 712 talks about. So we're very thankful for the ADA and all of the laws that people with disabilities and advocates of people with disabilities have instituted decades prior to us. But unfortunately, despite those bills and the length of time they've been around, there's still a lot of progress that needs to happen to make life easier for our folks with disabilities. So as you are aware, I did work with Representative Wiggum over three legislative cycles to try to introduce some reform to accessible parking. I'm very thankful to Representative Craig, who has taken advocacy of people with disabilities seriously and has reintroduced this. and I'm excited to talk to you a little bit more about the bill, address your questions, and anything we can do to help move this forward would be greatly appreciated. You know, when people without disabilities are parking in an accessible parking spot, they're looking at that as a matter of convenience. For someone with a disability, it's a matter of access. The same spot that may be available 10, 30 spaces out in a row can still be used by someone without a disability, But for a person with a disability, they cannot move 30 spaces out because the space is not wide enough or it's a risk for them from a safety perspective. So House Bill 712 does not change who is eligible for accessible parking. We are not dealing with changing what the law has said, who can qualify for an accessible parking plate or placard. This is just dealing with the enforcement. and included in my testimony, which I won't touch on everything, but it is available for you, is that enforcement is declining, and we need to do what we can to help improve that. So some of the changes that we're looking at, as Representative Craig already talked about, is just reorganizing legislative language, moving it all together, making sure it's modern and up-to-date, also removing the allowance of a health care provider to issue a prescription or a statement that someone is eligible. We want the form to be standardized. We want them to mark off the qualification that the person that's requesting the accessible parking has. So making that form required. Revamping the accessible placard. I did include a picture of the placard in the testimony, but this is an expired placard. I don't know, can you tell that this is expired from there? So what we're asking is that this get modernized and make that expiration date. for those that are applied, there are some that are permanent for folks that will always qualify to have accessible parking. Make it a little bit more obvious that someone is using a placard that is expired. Making it clarifying that it's illegal to transfer place and placards, that's already in the law, but we're just clarifying that. Requiring public entities to keep those accessible parking spaces free and clear. A lot of times, if you've watched over the winter months, the first place that the access snow goes and the handicapped spots in the access aisles. So we're asking that public entities keep that free and clear for people with disabilities, and they have 24 hours to do that, and also not to use those spaces for construction zone working areas. We added into this bill, which is consistent with bills across the country, is that it's illegal to block an accessible route of travel, and an accessible route of travel just means I get out of my car, I'm using a wheelchair and mobility device, there is a path that leads me up the sidewalk perhaps or into a curb cut so that I can access the building. Sometimes folks park in front of those curb cuts so we're clarifying that that is also a violation under the law that you should not be doing that. Also stating that you need to be using the parking privileges for whom they're intended so if I have my son Casey with me and I'm getting him in and out of the car then I can park in that handicap spot. If Casey is not with me I should not be using that placard. That seems pretty straightforward, but unfortunately we still have a lot of abuse of that. Moving on, enabling the BMV to track violations. Right now it's not recorded anywhere whether or not you're getting a handicap parking violation. The purpose of recording that ties into the second component, which is just the tiered fine. So first time you're getting that fine of $250 to $500. As you continue to violate that, the idea is that the tiered fines are in place, and the only way to be able to know if someone has a repaid offense is to be able to track that. So that's the goal for the tiered fences. Again, crack down on enforcement, but also have a way to track those prior violations. Allowing a citation to be left with an unoccupied vehicle. If you write a citation right now under the ORC, not a city ordinance, but under an ORC, the law enforcement has to wait for that person to arrive at their car. So we're just making it easier again for enforcement. And the last and the biggest component of this bill is the volunteer enforcement program. So included in my testimony, I referenced that there are ORC privileges or laws right now that say a local entity can establish an auxiliary police department. They can also establish a parking enforcement unit. And within that provision, as it currently stands, it says that people with disabilities can be assigned to be a parking enforcement and that they can receive a nominal fee. So what we're trying to do is bring this current with what is happening across the country, too, with volunteer enforcement programs, which would be specific just for accessible parking, standardize the training of it. this helps grassroots organizations or activists or advocates be able to work with their police department not to try to create something on their own but have a standardized training program that they can adopt rather quickly and then the enforcement of that of a volunteer it's going to be on unoccupied vehicles so they're not going to be confronting someone that's in a car and there's only certain things that they would be able to write a citation on that would be a a visible plate, the lack of a plate, blocking an accessible route of travel, or blocking an access aisle. So there's no vigilante justice here. The goal is unoccupied, non-confrontational. They're taking photographic evidence, returning that to the police department, and then the police department, similar to a red light camera or a bus violation, can decide whether or not they're going to issue the citation for that offense. But what we know is that, again, just based on the evidence that I've submitted here in my testimony, violations are still present. I've given you over 60 examples of that. Just last month, I was at one parking lot, and there were three cars at the same time parked in the access aisle. And I was just like, oh, okay, more evidence for my testimony. But I did include that for you. But it's not going away. It's not getting better. Enforcement has not changed. I don't fault our police department for that, but what we're trying to do is create a way that we can make life a little better for people with disabilities. So I thank you for the opportunity to submit our testimony today, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Well, thank you very much, Ms. Folliway, for coming in and for your persistence on this bill and your work on sports for people with disabilities and things like that. I do want to point out, we had heard testimony last year on the bill related to pregnant persons with, you know, pregnant women with parking. And I wanted to commend Representatives Matthews and Workman for bringing the issue because we heard a lot of great ideas of how to fix the problem that surfaced. And you've included several of those in your changes to the bill. So we're very happy that we were able to see people came forward and testified on that bill and some of those changes. I'm sure you've heard those same things over the years, too, but we were able to see that incorporated and changed. And I've seen this bill evolve, and I think we really appreciate you coming. So do we have people who would like to talk?
Yes, we do.
All right, so right now we'll start with Ranking Member Lett for a question.
Thank you so much, Chairwoman. Thank you so much for coming in today. It was a pleasure to hear your testimony before, and thank you so much for providing such thorough testimony today. I am absolutely in favor of this bill. I like this bill. My only question, I'm a little hung up on the volunteer enforcement, you know, portion of this bill, in particular that members of the general public might not understand that there are volunteer enforcement, folks happening in the parking lot, and it would be kind of jarring to see someone photographing a car randomly, and especially if that is someone with a disability that's part of that volunteer enforcement program. I fear that their safety could be in jeopardy, and their ability to remove themselves from that situation should it become tumultuous could be, you know, that could be very serious and cause them harm. So I just wanted to openly ask your thoughts on that and if you had any recommendations for how we can just you know bolster the enforcement aspect and not necessarily rely on volunteers and put you know the general public in a situation
where they don't understand what's going on. Thank you so much. Through the chair, ranking member that, thank you. Obviously, over eight years, that's been a common question. I think the key part of the volunteer program is that it's an unoccupied, non-confrontational. And so that means someone's not going to be with the car, they're not leaving a citation, they don't have any interaction with the car besides taking a photograph of the violation, and then submitting that on to law enforcement. I think there are ways that we can increase enforcement, and I did work at the Highway Patrol many, many years ago, and one of the things that would happen, too, is that there would be grant funding that would be available for a blitz. Maybe it's OVI weekend, maybe it's a holiday reporting period. you're just looking at those opportunities where grant funds can be available to focus on a specific issue. And I think with the redirection of fines, with a portion of that going to the Department of Public Safety, that that could certainly be a component of this as well. And I would love that, right? I mean, relying on law enforcement to enforce laws that are already existing would be wonderful. We also know that they're constrained on their resources as well as everybody is. So, again, this would not replace what they're doing. We would certainly encourage those blitzes to happen and encourage increased enforcement. Some of the things that we're doing will help with that just organically, too, but also just that component. And again, there already resides within the ORC a provision to have a parking enforcement unit. So not much different except unoccupied, you know, non-confrontational and collecting evidence. That will help a lot.
Follow-up? Real quick. Yes, agree. I think I'm not so much worried about them taking a picture of the unoccupied vehicle. It's the other folks and the business owners that I worry about seeing that happening and then intervening as if, you know, someone is doing something wrong. So I wonder if there's an opportunity maybe to have like a badge or, you know, I don't know, a uniform of some sort to show if asked, if there's a confrontation that occurs that that person is allowed to do that volunteer enforcement. That's just a suggestion, but wanted to kind of comment that it's not just the vehicle owner that's illegally parked, but also the passersby and business owners that could intervene not knowing that that person is volunteer enforcement.
Through the Chair, Rick and Member Lett. Yes, I agree. And I think that would also be something easy for the Department of Public Safety to create. I think that would be a great idea.
Thanks so much.
Thank you. I was thinking the same thing. You see in cities, people have like a bright green T-shirt that says parking enforcement or some standardized badge or something. So that's a good suggestion. All right. Next, we go to Representative Fowler-Arthur.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for your testimony. I share the same concern as my colleague across the aisle on the enforcement side, and I just was wondering, I know you've been observing this nationally for a while, have other states addressed concerns around the due process aspect? I know you emphasize a lot in your testimony about ability to enforce, and in my limited experience watching the legal process and not being a lawyer, it seems like a lot of times cases are not referred to prosecution, even if they have repeat offenses, perhaps because of the way information was collected. And I'm just wondering if having a volunteer force opens that gap where due process may not actually be taking place and where a prosecution for multiple offenses would not actually happen.
Through the chair, Representative Fowler-Arthur, thank you for your question. I've not, it's been some time since I've looked at all the different volunteer enforcement programs across the country, so I've not specifically looked at the due process. I just know that year over year those volunteer programs still exist, and I would suspect the ORC does currently outline the procedures for taking the photographs of the parking violations and turning those into law enforcement. those steps are laid out, I would expect that if there were, once this got introduced, that as those situations come up, that there would be room to do an amendment or something to help it. I also think that the Department of Public Safety has a lot of room within the bill right now to help with the training and the development of the program itself, that that could be addressed under administrative privilege.
Representative, do you have a follow-up? Yes, please. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for that. So don't take this as advocating for a traffic camera, because I don't know that anyone loves them. But I'm just going to ask from an objective standpoint, volunteer versus a camera violation. If the ORC is already saying that there's a process for taking pictures and reporting that to law enforcement, would the due process side and the actual enforcement side potentially benefit from having a more objective way of collecting that data than necessarily a volunteer force?
Through the chair, Representative Fowler-Author, I think then the challenge would be, are you suggesting that we would have cameras that could enforce some of the parking?
Well, I would love that, first of all. I think that would be great. I can just hear a business owner saying, who's going to pay for the camera? And right now one of the issues that we have with accessible parking is the law clearly states where a sign needs to be, how high it needs to be, what the space needs to look like, how the stripes should be painted in the access aisle. And we can go to one parking lot and see three different versions of handicapped parking marks correctly and incorrectly. So I could see that the question would become, well, who would pay for that? I would definitely support it. I feel like that would help us a lot if there were cameras catching people. Yes, so I would be supportive of that. I just think from a business owner's perspective, it's who is responsible for monitoring those and paying for them and making sure that they're in working order.
Representative Brewer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just going to echo the concerns of my two colleagues, again, about the volunteer enforcement. as far as the camera piece I know some of these larger stores Walmart have those mobile cameras that do security so maybe that could be also an option as well but I'm still concerned about the volunteer enforcement now my mom is an auxiliary officer so I can see an auxiliary officer do it but an extra volunteer I look at Instagram every day where there's so many instances where someone is harmed hurt, even killed because they became the volunteer traffic enforcement person. And so that is my concern when it comes to the volunteer traffic enforcement piece. How do we make sure that, and we need to maybe look at these other agency cities that did it, that no one doesn't get hurt? Because I can really be hurt if someone who is doing godly duty of making sure that something, is correct, hurt or harm someone or someone you hurt or harm. I'm just very concerned about the volunteer and also the recording. Maybe record something and put it on Facebook, Instagram. How would you satisfy someone who has those concerns?
Through the chair, Representative Brewer, thank you for your question. I know that there can be some trepidation about volunteers taking pictures, collecting evidence, turning it in, But I would just point us to the models that already exist. There's over 32 programs in the country, different states, and of those, only seven of them collect the evidence. So the rest are acting as volunteer enforcement agents. So they are actively engaging with people leaving those tickets. So Ohio would be a more conservative model. And I would just point back to if we have concerns, could there be an investigation into the situations that you're talking about? How prevalent are they? Is that a genuine concern? Have they disbanded the program for that? Those are definitely suggestions, but I just point to the history, and some of these programs have been in place since 1990. So they've been doing it a lot longer than we have, and they've had a lot of success. So I think that we can lean in on that experience too, certainly.
Did you have a follow-up? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And once again, I just have to make that concern. You know, like you said, Ohio would be more conservative. And being more conservative would be more implicit bias towards people. And the reason I say that is because I can, once again, I look at Facebook and Instagram, and I see people who want to be the police try to call a situation who look just like me and lose their life. Once again, or be recriminalized because they are trying to enforce something. That is my concern. My concern is to make sure people who look like me, who may be out there recording, doing something good, and the story is going to be skewed because it's on video. It's going to look one way to one. They're gonna be criminalized. And then another way, when they get in, they have to really fight to make sure they clear their name. That's one of the only things that I wanna make sure. And the second part of that, if I could follow up just a little bit about your fines. If you look at the fines, once again, you said Ohio's very conservative. If you look at your fine structure, a lot of these fines include community service. Why wasn't Ohio compelled to include community service as part of those fines? And, you know, I have a bill now that looks at fines, but once again, I understand what we're talking about, but maybe community service, and also we'll be one of the highest if we buy Nevada, but also Nevada does offer community service. Why was community service looked into our fee structure? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Through the Chair, Representative Brewer. Again, back to the volunteer program too. So just one thing I'll put out there, there's certainly, you can't remove all risk that something could happen. I think the benefit definitely outweighs the risk, meaning we need to increase enforcement so people with disabilities can access parking, and this is one of the solutions for that. It's not going to be fail-proof, I'm sure, and there'll be some learning along the way. You know, the second part of what you were saying regarding the community service, I'm 100% supportive of that too, and actually in the prior legislative session, that was one of the things someone in the Senate had requested, is that we add community service. One of the reasons that we didn't put that was we felt that the pushback against, again, more financial responsibility from a local law enforcement agency to need a follow-up on that community service and for have that report back. But I love the idea of community service 100%, especially if it could be tied to working in some organization with people with disabilities to teach some empathy and understanding and awareness. And I would definitely support an amendment that would include that if the committee would be supportive of it as well.
All right. Representative Brownlee. Through the chair, thank you. Thank you for your testimony. With the presentation of what other states are doing with these volunteer enforcement courts, the enforcement has increased, but have these programs actually been successful in reducing violation? I'm assuming that is the end goal. And, you know, if whichever way you answer, I mean, is the reason that law enforcement are not engaging in this is because it very difficult to prove I mean sometimes people are because of the way the business has it marked or doesn have it marked or they just on a busy city street they just miss it and it's accidental. And, you know, how is it impacting the actual outcome that you're looking for?
Through the chair, Representative Brownlee, thank you for your question. Regarding the impact, I know that the increase, there has been an increase in enforcement of it. I've not looked year over year to see if there is a reduction of occurrences. I just know that there's been an increase in citations initially from when they started. But that would be something worth looking at to just prove that that is effective from, or maybe just people don't care and they'll do it anyway and hope they don't get caught. I think that's part of it. Regarding the enforcement from local law enforcement, I think it's priority too. I don't think they look at handicap parking and say this isn't something we care about. It's just not something that's high on the priority list. And also to your point, which is some things that we've included in the bill, there are reasons that a ticket could get thrown out if the sign wasn't at the right height, if it didn't have the fine amount, if it wasn't marked correctly on the pavement or the asphalt. And so part of our bill says if a reasonable person, we'll let the judge decide what reasonable is, but if a reasonable person could determine that that was an accessible parking spot, then that citation should stand. So we're trying to make that better for them and easier. And I certainly think, too, as we were talking earlier about grant funding for increased enforcement, that a department perhaps would apply for funding through the state and try to ramp up enforcement against parking abuse within their community as a special initiative. So I think that's an opportunity, too.
Did you have a follow-up? Yes. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for that. And I'm wondering if another, besides, you know, and taking into concern, particularly what Brett Burrow was saying about potential misuse or not being able to administer this equitably, could some more education maybe be added to this? And I'm thinking if the BMV is brought into this as being able to track these violations, could we also put in or add in some questions on the driver's exam, perhaps, about disabled accessible parking and helping educate people as they become new drivers rather than just increasing fines on this?
Through the chair, Representative Brownlee, I recently looked at the Ohio BMV law that they give out to folks that are looking to take the driver's test, and there is a section that talks about it, but it's one of many. So certainly I'm all for public service campaigns that can help highlight, again, from a perspective of someone with a disability actually trying to navigate their community. I think that would go a long way. but again, education is great and I would think, and I was thinking about this on the way down I think our community would be a lot better if human to human we just took better care of each other and this is exactly one of those situations where if we just thought of others a little bit more highly than we think about ourselves maybe this wouldn't be an issue at all but unfortunately, here we are, so I'm all for education and I think there's little pieces and parts of that here and there but I think we can still do just a little bit better
Are there any other questions from the committee?
Representative Richardson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for your testimony. I've been listening carefully, and early on in your testimony, you talked about the standardized form regarding the physicians. Can you elaborate a little bit? It makes me think that a checked box or something could be heavily restricted to only the most severe disabilities, and I think that may be disingenuous to some of the disabled communities, possibly. So could you talk a little bit to that?
Through the chair, Representative Richardson, thank you so much for your question. I actually included one of these in my testimony, but not both, so I apologize for that.
In my testimony, I included the application for removable windshield, and this is what a person would fill out with a disability. On the second page of it, it says what the requirements are. And again, this is set by ORC currently, and there are seven different qualifications for them. They take this along with a prescription from their doctor, but their doctor doesn't have to say where they qualify under these seven categories. So they can fill out this form and take it. The prescription doesn't indicate it. But then on the placard, or excuse me, that's the placard, this for the plate, It also, again, lists those seven criteria, and the doctor has to certify, but the doctor doesn't say which criteria they fall into. So it's already listed there. We're just trying to improve it to say, okay, force you, which one would they qualify in on this form for the plates, and then for the placard, just adding it all together and getting rid of a prescription or a statement will help cut down on the number of placards in distribution and help make those spots available. A follow-up? Yes. And I think I'll have a conversation with you offline on this if possible, so I thank you. The other concern or the question I have is we've moved significantly from criminal to civil charges. And I understand one of the benefits for the disabled in prevention would be the increase in fines to $750. But there's a whole litany of a lot of other changes. And I'm just wondering, why is it better to be civil over criminal? Through the chair, Representative Richardson, that wasn't one of our requests for the Legislative Service Commission when we first asked them to draft the bill. And so I did ponder that quite a bit. Why would we remove, you know, the minor misdemeanor charge from a violation? And when I looked at it a little bit deeper, if you look in the code as it currently stands, it says that there's no jail term. It's not reportable for license or employment purposes. So it's a minor misdemeanor with no teeth. I mean, yes, you're going to get a fine, but there's really no benefit of it being a criminal offense if it's not going to be reported for employment or for driving purposes. So my belief, and I don't know this 100 percent, I've asked a couple people, and I need to ask the Legislative Service Commission directly, is did we take it from a minor misdemeanor to a civil for the purpose of being able to leave it with the car that's unattended? And that's what I think, and that's what I believe, but I don't know that 100%. And so my only thought is, if that's what we needed to do to be able to increase enforcement, I mean, there's really not much criminal penalty as it is, as it stands. Thank you, and if you do follow up with the LSC, I'd be interested in hearing what they have to say. Absolutely. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Yes, and we have the highly capable Chen Wei Zhang here in the audience from LSC, LSC, so she will be able to follow up with us on that. Thank you so much for all your support of this committee. I did want to, anyone else? Okay, I did have a couple questions for you. So some of us have been around Rep. Richardson, this is her fourth GA. Some of us has been around three GAs. We've seen this bill before. I guess I have a couple comments and questions. The community service issue, you have to be, as Sharon Ray, and I know, serving in municipal courts for years, you have to have a community service department. If you're doing criminal, if it's completely civil, like typically the court would have to have community service. It's not that we shouldn't explore it, but we have to keep that in mind. Another thing I wondered about is, did you always have 75% of the fines going to the adaptive sports program each iteration, or is that new this General Assembly? I cannot remember.
Representative White, it has always been. So 50% – ORC currently says 50% stays local, 50% can go into funds within the community for supporting people with disabilities. So since the introduction of the bill, it has been that way. So 50% comes back to the state. Of that 50, 25% is for the training program and for DPS to use as it sees fit, and then the remaining 75 for adaptive sports. Again, the idea is helping fund the program that's already supported by the operating budget. However, I would just like to say, too, that I think from a fiscal impact statement, we don't know how much that will actually be because citations can be written on city ordinances, and hopefully that will continue and even increase. So I'm not sure what the actual contribution will be to the state fund. That's probably another LSC question.
Okay, and thank you, Ms. Follaway, for coming in and clarifying that. I think putting an actual dollar amount when we don't know that is a little bit, I think we need to look further into that. And if, in fact, we are trying to incentivize good practices, I'm wondering if we should consider, and if any other states, do anything tied with incentivizing best practices for enforcement. If we're giving local grants, shouldn't there be something that actually, if you're getting more tickets or you're generating more things or you have ideas, you know, maybe those very busy spots do qualify for a grant for a camera or I don't know. But perhaps we could look at, and are any other states doing that, incentivizing good practices with their grants.
That's great.
I think that's worth looking into, too. My end goal at the end of the day is to make life better for people with disabilities. And if that's one of the things that works, or maybe Ohio is setting the bar for that, I love it and happy to explore that. So thank you for those comments. All right. Are there any further questions for the witness? Yes, Representative Ray.
Thank you very much for coming in today. And I think that everybody very much admires the spirit of the bill. But I, like Representative Brewer, have some real concerns with a volunteer enforcement group on this. And I'll give you an example. I have a resident in my district who has what is considered an invisible disability. Frequently, with the handicapped placard, she parks appropriately and then is confronted on the way in or out of the establishment for somebody who says, you're not handicapped. This has created a lot of strife in her life, and I guess my concern is, how do we expect a volunteer to be able to make that determination, or will they go above and beyond their training to try to make that determination in an enforcement capacity?
Through the chair, Representative Ray. The volunteers don't have the authority to make determinations whether someone is eligible for a plate or placard accessible parking space. That's not what they're doing. Again, they will only be able to enforce blocking accessible routes of travel, parking in an access aisle, whether you have a placard or not. Those are violations. And expired plates or placards, well, not an expired plate, an expired placard, and then also not having one displayed at all. So they're not determining whether the person that has it or is using it is eligible. That's not what they'll be looking at. That's law enforcement's job, and we're going to leave that to law enforcement. They have the authority and the ability to run plates to see who they're assigned to and to check the identity of the person that's using it. That's not the volunteer. Again, four very specific situations that would not include determining whether or not someone's eligible.
Do we have any data from the states that have used the volunteer enforcement on any aggression towards purported volunteer enforcement agents?
Through the chair, Representative Ray. I did reach out to two of the states back, this has been years ago, and they did not report any issues. One of the things that they said right away when I asked them about that question is they have the right to vet the volunteers. So if they have a volunteer that's acting inappropriately, it's up to the law enforcement to say you're not involved in this program anymore. They have the right to refuse volunteers and to renew volunteers. That will be all within their administrative privilege.
Thank you very much.
Are there any other questions for this witness? Okay, that will conclude the second hearing of House Bill 712. Thank you. Anybody else have any business before this committee? Seeing none, we are adjourned. Thank you.