May 19, 2026 · Workforce and Higher Education Committee · 12,015 words · 13 speakers · 125 segments
It's three o'clock and I call the meeting of the House Workforce and Higher Education Amendment to order. Clerk, please call the roll. Chair Young. Here. Vice Chair Ritter, checked in. Ranking Member Abdullahi. Representative Davila. Present. Representative John. Here. Representative Manning. Representative Miller, checked in. Representative Pickle Antonio, checked in. Representative Richardson. Representative Santucci. Representative Thames. Representative Williams, Representative Workman. We have a quorum and we'll proceed as a full committee. The May 12th minutes are on your iPads. Please review the minutes and hopefully you have. Are there any objections to the minutes? Without objections the minutes are hereby approved. First, we will have a hard stop today at 430. In the testimony, it will be five minutes and with one question and one follow-up in order to accommodate the people who are here today.
I now bring forward HB 698 for the third hearing and call on Representative Davila for a motion.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to amend House Bill 698 with 2721-2.
The motion is in order. Would you please explain the sub-bill? Yes, Mr. Chairman. The proposed substitute bill makes the following changes. On matters regarding compliance and deadlines, makes updates to the deadline requirements for institutions to certify they are in compliance with the law. It clarifies that university presidents may designate a specific employee to oversee and submit certification paperwork to ODHE, allows institutions of higher education to attest to ODHE that they no longer employ anyone who would fall under the bill's reporting requirements. After ODHE approves that attestation, the institution becomes exempt from further reporting. On matters regarding noncompliance, it requires ODHE to provide written notice to a noncompliant institution prior to any other action. For noncompliance determinations made prior to January 1st, 2029, an institution will have a 30-day cure period to rectify any issues. After this period and for occurrences after January 1st, 2029, ODHE will withhold the institution's state share of instruction distributions until they come back into compliance. The cure period does not apply to recklessly false or fraudulent certifications. On matters regarding the redistribution of funds, clarifies that SSI funds withheld from noncompliant institutions are distributed out to compliant institutions per the SSI formula outlined in House Bill 96, the operating budget. On matters regarding regaining compliance, permits a noncompliant institution to request a reevaluation from ODHE once they believe the issue has been corrected and they're back in compliance. Upon determining compliance, ODHE will resume a regular SSI disbursement schedule starting with the next regular disbursement. On matters regarding university governance, it clarifies that the requirement to create a retrenchment policy, plan for reducing expenses or staff, applies to all state institutions, but that only institutions with tenured faculty are required to create a tenure review policy. The language exempts institutions without tenured faculty from any tenure-related requirements in their retrenchment plans. Thank you very much Representative DeVilla By the way this language was in consultation through conversations with IUC the OACC and ODHE Are there any objections to the sub
Hearing none, it will be accepted. Let me see here. There's written testimony on your iPads, and this concludes the third hearing of HB 698. I will now turn the gavel over to Representative Ritter, and I need to make a statement on the next item on the agenda.
Well, good afternoon. I'm not Vice Chair Ritter, but I've done this a ton or two. I will step in and pinch it. So, thank you, Chair. I will now bring forward House Bill 319 for its first formal hearing
and call on Representative Young to provide sponsor testimony. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, Vice Chair Ritter, Ranking Member Abdullahi, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to provide just an overview of what we're trying to discuss today, House Bill 319, the Clinical Teaching Subsidy Reform Act. We've had several IP meetings, and we had an invited person-only lengthy hearing as well. So I wanted to formalize this as we proceed to pass this legislation. This legislation modernizes and brings greater accountability and transparency to Ohio's clinical teaching subsidy program, which has not been reviewed since the 80s. There have been meetings, and it's been so loose that it's affected the success of the program, in my opinion. The bill is intended to ensure that taxpayer-supported funding is directed toward the education and training of physicians and doctors, emphasized here in Ohio's medical programs, rather than being expanded beyond the original purpose into applied health disciplines. Ohio invests significant resources into medical education. It's important that those dollars are aligned with physician workforce needs, educational performance, and the long-term health care needs of our state as a priority. House Bill 319 works to strengthen that process while maintaining Ohio's commitment to high-quality medical training. Thank you, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Chairman. Are there any questions from the committee members? Seeing none, thanks for being here. Thank you very much. Thank you all for your patience at this particular time in regards to HB 319. I now call Dr. William Burke to provide proponent testimony. Whenever you're ready, sir.
Thank you very much and good afternoon. I'm Chairman Young, Vice Chairman Ritter, and the members of the Ohio House Workforce and Higher Education Committee Excuse me could you turn on your mic We want to hear those words of wisdom Oh it green now Thank you very much and good afternoon Chairman Young, Vice Chairman Ritter, Ranking Member Abdullahi, and members of the Ohio House Workforce and Higher Education Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide proponent testimony on House Bill 319. My name is Dr. Bill Burke, and I have served as Dean of the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine at Dublin, and an Associate Professor of Family Medicine for the past 13 years. For those who may not be aware, the Heritage College recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the matriculation of its first class of medical students in 1976. The Heritage College has grown to be the largest medical school in Ohio, and is the only medical school with multiple academic campuses, including the Athens, Dublin, and Warrensville Heights campuses. The Dublin campus is affiliated with Ohio Health, the largest provider of health care in central Ohio, while our primary educational partner for the Warrensville Heights campus is the internationally known Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Over the past five years, Ohio University's Heritage College produced more medical residents for the state than any other Ohio medical school, with 69% of our graduates matching to residency programs in Ohio. Of note, we are the top producer of graduates entering Ohio's primary care residencies at 51% and family medicine programs in particular at 25% over the same five-year period. 26% of our graduates are practicing in Ohio's federally designated primary health care profession shortage areas, and 29% are providing care in Ohio's medically underserved areas. Let me provide just a little background for those that may not be as familiar with the medical education continuum. Undergraduate medical education is a four-year program. The first two years are primarily focused on classroom learning, while the last two years take place primarily in clinical settings, including hospitals and medical offices. This clinical training is essential for medical students because it is hands-on and prepares students to begin residency training and specialty disciplines after graduation. Our nearly 500 third- and fourth-year students are placed in 15 clinical training sites across Ohio, gaining practical experience in hospitals, clinics, community health centers, and other health care facilities. Medical schools without an associated teaching hospital have more challenges finding clinical rotations than those that are part of an academic medical center. The clinical training subsidy offsets some of the costs of clinical training and keeps medical education more affordable for medical students from Ohio, increasing the likelihood that when they graduate, they'll return to their home communities to practice, especially if those communities do not have enough physicians. The subsidy makes it easier for Ohio-based medical education programs like ours to compete with medical schools from other states and those based in other countries that want the clinical training spots Ohio medical students need. Outside schools have the financial resources to pay for these spots, displacing our students. The presidents of the Northeast Ohio Medical University, Ohio University, and Wright State University have been concerned about the inequity of the current clinical teaching line funding model and made their concerns known last spring. The distribution formula, which supports the training of medical students in their third and fourth years, was created more than four decades ago and is unchanged and outdated. The formula which was likely based on student headcount at the time currently allots 52 of the total clinical teaching subsidy amount to the Ohio State University and the University of Cincinnati yet they are educating only 34 of the medical students enrolled in the state public medical schools Through the years, enrollment figures at the state's medical schools significantly changed, but the distribution formula did not evolve, which has resulted in inequitable and unfair clinical teaching line funding levels today. The inequitable funding distribution model financially harms schools that have larger medical student populations and more clinical teaching placement responsibilities by providing them with fewer financial resources than they need in an ever-changing health care environment. Based on current enrollment figures, the Heritage College is the largest medical school in the state but receives the least amount of clinical line funding, just 8.8% of the total clinical teaching line funding allocation. There is no good reason for this discrepancy. By advocating for a shift to an FTE and outcomes-based funding model, Ohio University seeks a more equitable distribution of the state clinical-aligned funds, starting at FY28-29 to better reflect each public medical school student enrollment numbers. This reform helps ensure Ohio's sons and daughters have the best chance at securing clinical training opportunities. As the largest medical school in the state, over 90% of our students are from Ohio, and 60% of our alumni have stayed in Ohio to practice. We are the leader in filling the physician workforce shortage in Ohio. I urge your support for House Bill 319. Thank you for the opportunity to share these thoughts, and thank you for your public service. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Are there any questions from the committee? Representative Workman.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Doctor, for your testimony today. I'm wondering if you are familiar with when this practice started happening, where the disadvantage started to occur, and maybe how it has evolved over the years, or was it something that we've just missed?
I appreciate the question. Thank you. I think that we are not 100% clear on exactly when this started, but it has been quite a while ago, over 40 years, we believe. And, again, there's no documentation that I have seen that states specifically how that funding formula was developed, although we believe it was based on an FTE count at the time when there were fewer medical schools, and those medical schools that were present had fewer students enrolled. As more medical schools came on board, as more medical schools increased their complement of students, that is when this distribution became substantially challenging for those schools like Ohio University.
Follow-up? Any other questions? I have a few. Well, one, obviously. In your statement, you're using percentages.
Yes, sir.
Can you elaborate and talk true numbers about FTEs, productivity, dollars rather than percentages?
I'll need to get back with you with specific numbers in that regard, Mr. Chairman. I do know that as we looked at this last year's match, 2026, you know, again, there were 143 Ohio University students that matched to the state of Ohio. There were 64 from the University of Toledo. There were 89 from Neomed, and there were 60 from the University of Cincinnati. While I don't have a specific number for Wright State, I'm sure my colleagues can provide that, but it was 51% of their graduating class, OSU's numbers are not available yet online.
Why wouldn't their numbers be available and yours are?
I can't answer that question, sir.
Okay, so there's nothing in the rules under CTS of providing data, which is very critical for this committee and the legislature to be able to quantify and create budgets from our GRF to support these programs, and they have not complied is what you're saying compared to everyone else?
I have not been able to find that data online.
Okay, thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Any other questions? Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Dr. Raj Mitra. Whenever you're ready, sir.
Thank you. Chair Young, Vice Chair Ritter, Ranking Member Abdulahi, and members of the Ohio House Workforce and Higher Education Committee, on behalf of Wright State University, thank you for the opportunity to provide proponent testimony on House Bill 319, a bill that appropriately distributes the clinical teaching appropriation, a critical budgetary line item supporting the delivery of clinical experiences for our future physicians at the Boonshoff School of Medicine. My name is Dr. Raj Mitra. I'm a physician specializing in physical medicine rehabilitation with subspecialty expertise in pain management. Today I serve as the Dean of the Wright State University Boonshoff School of Medicine and Chief Academic Officer of Premier Health. Prior to joining Wright State, I held academic and clinical leadership positions at the University of Central Florida, College of Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, and Stanford University School of Medicine. The Boonshoff School of Medicine at Wright State University is a vital contributor to Ohio's physician workforce and a nationally respected leader in community-based medical education. Nearly 75% of our entering medical students are Ohio residents. As a regional workforce-focused university, educating Ohio students remains central to our mission. Equally important, we consistently place more than 50% of our graduates into residency programs within the state of Ohio. These two factors, where students come from and where they complete residency training, are among the strongest predictors of where physicians ultimately choose to practice medicine. This is particularly important as communities across Ohio continue to experience physician shortages, especially in primary care and in rural and underserved areas. Wright State University is proud to be among the top-ranked medical schools in Ohio for producing primary care physicians who represent the frontline care for our countless Ohioans. Our graduates serve patients and communities throughout the state, strengthening access to care in both urban and rural regions alike. Unlike traditional academic medical centers concentrated within a single metropolitan teaching hospital environment, Wright State's nationally recognized community-based model relies upon a broad statewide network of hospitals, clinics, physician practices, and clinical partners. Our students complete clinical rotations in communities across Ohio under the supervision of practicing physicians actively serving patients in those communities. That model not only expands training opportunities but also increases the likelihood that graduates establish long professional and personal ties to the communities where they train and ultimately remain in the practice As the committee is aware, the clinical teaching appropriation was established by the Ohio General Assembly in the early 1980s with a clear and specific purpose, to support the costs associated with the clinical education of third and fourth year medical students. The clinical teaching appropriation remains an important component of Ohio's overall investment in medical education provided by the state's public universities. The legislative intent for this appropriation was to offset instructional costs associated with teaching in a clinical environment. The intent was reaffirmed in the 1991 Legislative Office of Education Oversight Report, which stated that the clinical teaching appropriation is intended to support the clinical educational costs that are an essential part of medical education. As required by the original legislation, each public medical school provides ODHE with reports regarding the residency placement of graduating medical students. That reporting requirement reflects the legislature's clear focus on physician education and workforce development through Ohio's public medical schools. Only schools of medicine, both allopathic and osteopathic, are required to prepare students for residency placement as part of their accredited educational mission. The original legislation would not have included a residency placement reporting requirement had the General Assembly intended the appropriation to broadly support all clinical education experiences across all allied health disciplines. Wright State University believes the clinical teaching appropriation was specifically designed to support the clinical education and residency preparation of future physicians. Like many of our peer institutions, Wright State University also provides valuable clinical learning experiences across a range of allied health disciplines. However, Wright State utilizes the clinical teaching appropriation exclusively for the purpose originally intended by the legislature, to place and support our medical students and clinical rotations at sites across Ohio. These placements are essential and represent a critical component of Ohio's physician workforce development pipeline. Ohio's physician shortages challenges are not theoretical. Many communities throughout the state continue to experience shortage in primary care, behavioral health, and specialty medicine. The state's investment in clinical medical education is therefore directly tied to healthcare access, workforce stability, and economic development. Clinical teaching funds support the very portion of medical education where students transition from classroom instruction into hands-on patient care care experiences under physician supervision. Those experiences are essential to preparing competent physicians and strongly influence where graduates ultimately choose to practice medicine. The clinical teaching appropriation has remained largely unchanged since its inception, except for occasional percentage increases tied to broader state budget adjustments. Looking at the specific appropriations included in the original legislation, the funding allocations appear to have closely correlated to the medical student enrollment levels of each participating institution at that time. Since then, enrollment levels at Ohio's public medical schools have changed significantly, yet the distribution methodology has not evolved alongside those enrollment changes. As a result today allocation model has become increasingly imbalanced and institutions such as Wright State Neomed and Ohio University all of which educate and train a growing share of Ohio future physicians receive disproportionately lower levels of funding relative to the number of medical students they serve. Wright State University is not here today seeking an increase in the overall clinical teaching appropriation, rather we are supporting greater clarity, fairness and alignment in the distribution model and are supportive of Representative Young's proposal. The proposal distributes clinical teaching funding on a head count basis, similar to the methodology already utilized through the Med Model 2 component of state share of instruction. In doing so, the proposal better aligns state resources with institutions educating Ohio's future physicians while currently incentivizing Ohio's public medical schools to attract and retain physician talent within the state. The proposed formula change would modernize a funding model that has remained largely unchanged for more than 40 years. It will align the clinical teaching appropriation more directly than Ohio's strategic interest with Ohio's strategic interest in strengthening its physician workforce while ensuring a fairer and more transparent distribution methodology based on the number of medical students each institution educates. Chair Young, Vice Chair Ritter, ranking member Abdul-Laihai, and members of the Ohio Workforce and Higher Education Committee. Thank you again for the opportunity to provide testimony today. Wright State University supports and urges passage of the proposal to reform the clinical teaching subsidy formula. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you very much. I invite my members to come forward here. Thank you for being here. The member is just joining us. I don't know if you heard all of the testimony, but you hopefully heard some. Are there any questions at all from the committee? Yes, Representative Timms.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much for being here today. Wright State and, frankly, Boonshoft is very close to my heart. I was a Wright-Step student and was supposed to be a doctor, but I decided to fall in love with words, and therefore I went to law school instead. That being said, I have a great deal of appreciation for the work that you all do. I know we've had a number of conversations in the committee about how we increase access to care with the physician shortage, the nursing shortage, just overall shortages. Can you talk a little bit more about why Wright State may take a different perspective or position versus an OSU or UC, for example? I noticed they're interested parties and what that means for Southwest Ohio, for example, in terms of how are we thinking through residence between that corner pocket of Ohio?
The school is in its 50th year. The charter class started exactly 50 years ago, and we've now had 46 years of graduating wonderful students. Fifty-four percent of all of our alumni reside in or practice in the state of Ohio, and that was specifically the goal that the founders of the medical school had in mind. They recognized early on in the 1970s that we simply were going to have a physician shortage, and those shortages were going to be specifically in the communities. Now, 50 years later, we know that we have health care deserts throughout the state. Two of our counties have you know poor access for primary care and a lot of these things are in the community and that specifically what Wright State mission is is to support the communities and specifically the 16-county region around our campus, but the entire state as well. And so I think that that mission, every bit is cutting edge and innovative, but that mission is really, I think, critical as we look forward.
Follow-up? You're good. Any other questions? I have a question.
And I appreciate the fact that you talk about the rural areas, because we do have, we just struggle down in southeastern Ohio, mid-central West Ohio, and those are the things, interestingly, that when the medical students came from Neomed, that was the number one thing on their mind was how are we going to in the future accommodate our citizens in those deprived areas. So when we're talking about the clinical teaching subsidy and we're talking about going into these rural areas, what's the key role that this CTS funding does, and what pluses and minuses do you face today on that issue?
Thank you for the question. This CTS has allowed us and will allow us to further our rural exposure to our medical students. Believe it or not, a lot of our students are extremely interested in rural medicine. We have a late campus. In the last year, I have appointed a new assistant dean specifically of rural medicine in the Lake Campus, so our students can rotate through all of the community hospitals. This is really critical for these students to have that exposure. That exposure will lead to then potentially matching in our rural family practice residency up in Greene County and then potentially practicing in those areas. So the TTS is critical for that.
So one of the key issues of the workforce part of this committee is, and my members are extremely interested in retaining students and especially retaining doctors in our state. What's Wright State doing to accommodate that? I mean, what do you do and what do you think are the key points in retaining doctors in the state of Ohio, especially under your purview?
I think one of the most important things is we choose to take a real good look at applicants from the state of Ohio. Let's just put it that way. 73%, almost three quarters of all of our incoming class this year are from the state of Ohio. They're from the communities of Ohio. They have parents and grandparents and they have ties to the state of Ohio. That makes a big difference. Then we get them into the community. We have 14 student interest groups that are all intertwined in the community. We have community rotations throughout southern Ohio where they get a chance to meet with not only some of the best cutting-edge surgeons and neurosurgeons, but also good old-fashioned family doctors who we need more of. So we try to have an extremely large breadth of community exposure while still having some of the best academic exposures as well.
Thank you very much. Any other questions? Thank you very much for coming. Really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Now I call Greg Postel. Hopefully I pronounced your name correctly, sir. Postel. Postel, okay.
Good afternoon. Chair Young, Vice Chair Ritter, Ranking Member Abdullahi, Members of the House Workforce and Higher Education Committee. My name is Greg Postel, and I serve as the Executive Vice President for Health Affairs at the University of Cincinnati and the Dean of the College of Medicine. I appreciate very much the opportunity today to be here and provide some brief testimony related to House Bill 319. As we focus on making Ohio a more competitive state nationwide, adequate and high-quality health care is essential. It is well known that there is a shortage of physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals in the state and an insufficient pipeline for their development. For this reason, the University of Cincinnati takes pride in the fact that we currently educate nearly 7,000 students, residents, and fellows in health care professions. The training of these individuals takes years, is complex, it's expensive, and it requires clinical teaching as well as classroom training. Because of the huge investment in time and resources, it is essential that we be sure that these students are retained in the state of Ohio, and we take extraordinary efforts to make sure that this is the case. Based on this, we understand and appreciate the intent of House Bill 319, given its focus on the pipeline development for the production of health care professionals and retaining them in the state of Ohio. You may recall some of my earlier testimony about the clinical teaching subsidy from last year. The Med2 SSI dollars and the clinical teaching subsidy dollars that our universities receive have been relatively fixed over the last 10 years. This is despite the fact that there have been extraordinary increases in the cost of providing this clinical training. Some of these costs are related to inflation, particularly wage inflation, which has a compounding effect, increased costs of technology, the need now to pay many of our clinical preceptors, and simply increased costs for supporting students, mental health, the advising of students. All of these costs have increased dramatically over time. And as a result, these subsidies for medical school clinical teaching have become insufficient for all of the medical schools in Ohio, not just certain ones. So I would like to propose the following. First, the Council of Deans in Ohio takes seriously its advising role and is prepared to develop a consensus statement for presentation to the legislature before the creation of the next biennial budget. We would advocate for adequate funding for all of our medical schools with an increase in funding for those that are increasing their pipeline for physician production. Redistributing current insufficient resources does not enhance the overall pipeline, but rather provides funding for students at some schools at the expense of students at other schools. All universities should be funded adequately. Decreasing current funding would result in tuition increases in those schools, which is particularly concerning given new caps on student borrowing. Efforts should be made to incentivize preceptors to participate in the clinical education of our medical students. Pipelines should be better developed for primary care. Medical schools in the state should find ways to explore opportunities to share scarce and expensive resources to contain their costs Specific techniques should be employed to incentivize health care professionals to remain in Ohio These ideas can guide the Council of Deans' discussion of this topic and should result in a robust set of recommendations for your consideration. With this advisory project in mind, we respectfully suggest that it would be premature for this committee to act further until we can provide suggestions to strengthen the legislation. We agree with the need to perform this work and believe that it can be completed well before the creation of the next biennial budget. I thank you for your time and attention and the opportunity to present today.
Thank you. Representative Manning.
Thank you, Chair, and thank you for coming in and for what you do. As you well know, we need our physicians here, and of course I just came from education, and they also say that because of all the costs that have gone up, they need more money too. So we hear it all the time, and I certainly am a big believer in education. So could you give me the number of a percentage of students that you have that remain in the state of Ohio that go to University of Cincinnati, physicians in particular?
Over time? You mean at this point how many of our alums practice in Ohio? Yeah, a percentage a year. Yeah, well, it's well over half of all of our living alums practice in the state. So our three largest concentrations, as you might imagine, are Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, where we have very large alumni groups in those three cities. We also have 1,500 residents and fellows who finish training who all are employed in Ohio hospitals, either in Cincinnati or in Westchester. So the percentage is very high and has consistently been in that ballpark.
One follow-up.
And I like this bill, just to be honest with you, and with the chair. but do most of your dollars just go for physicians or do they go for nurses and assistants and some other people?
No, these are for physicians. We use the money for medical students to defray the cost of educating those students during their third and fourth year of medical school. And the beauty of it for us is this has allowed us to keep our medical school tuition low. So we are at about $35,000 per year in-state tuition, which is the second lowest in-state tuition in Ohio. The range of tuition at medical schools in Ohio is quite broad and goes up as high as $70,000 per year. And so the fact that we have received clinical teaching subsidies has enabled us to keep the tuition low, and we really feel that it's important not to pass costs along to the students whenever possible.
Thank you.
Thank you. Representative Ranking Member, Abdullahi.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you for coming and testify today. I'd like to focus on keeping Ohio students here, but also is there a way that this bill or maybe further additions to it can attract talent as well to come to Ohio along with keeping talent here?
Well, I think the key to keeping talent in Ohio is the kind of exposure that our medical students receive, as opposed to any specific dollars. It's really the experiences they have. So for instance, we now are working with over 20 federally qualified health centers in Southwest Ohio so that our students have an opportunity to go to and work in more rural communities and see what it like to practice medicine in those settings Obviously we have a broad exposure within our own health system and then also our partner system Cincinnati Children Hospital, so that the medical students and residents receive superb experiences in their clinical training. And we feel that this is the most powerful attractor for them to remain in the area to work after they graduate.
Thank you.
Follow up? Any other questions? I have one.
Thank you for coming.
Host Timms, Representative Timms. Go ahead.
Thank you, Chair. I just have a question. First, thank you for coming in today to testify. You mentioned that the CTS has allowed you all to keep tuition low.
Do you have any concerns about the clinical teaching subsidy changing that, especially considering what's happening federally with the cap on student loans for potential future physicians? Well, any process that would reduce funding that we receive today below its current levels would have to be made up in some way, and there's a limited number of ways to do that. Obviously, we have resisted increasing our tuition. That's not what we want to do, but if funding decreases, that might be the only option available. to us, and we're certainly hopeful that that does not become the case.
Yeah, go ahead.
Do you have the numbers in terms of should this bill pass, what that would add to the average medical student's bill?
Yes, the proposal as written would cause us to have a $4,000 per year per student shortfall. So that potentially would be the amount of the increase. We would have to go from $35,000 to $39,000 for tuition.
Okay, thank you. How much of your budget, and you're using CTS dollars, not specifically for doctors, a percentage for doctors, other for allied health or other professions? In your statement, you had indicated that there needed to be clinical training for other factions, in the medical fields aside from doctors. So you're saying that 100% of the CTS that you receive,
only absolutely 100% goes to doctors and physicians, 100% of that allocation? 100%. Every year we are required to submit a budget to the state that shows how the clinical teaching subsidy dollars have been used, And it's a very detailed line item budget. Our point in the testimony is that the language we believe from the LRC would give schools latitude to use these dollars for other things. But we don't do that. In Cincinnati, we use them for our medical school only. The I had a meeting with the IUC and the presidents of the universities. And I encouraged them to put a plan together to double medical students in Ohio. In the testimony prior last fall that we had, I put forward that, and you talked about your council of deans, you kind of hurt yourself in this process, don't you agree?
Because you had very little increases over many years and it fallen way below inflation And I brought this up and I saw no disagreement from any of the deans that were sitting in the room Perhaps you disagree with that but don you think that process has affected and in your testimony you identified the fact that it lagged Because you've abided by some antiquated process that was somewhat made up 20, 30, 40 years ago, Don't you think that that's the main reason why you haven't progressed to get this additional funding that you have in this proposal that you're going to set forth, that you'd like to set forth with your Council of Deans?
So I've worked in my current job just one and a half years, and I really can't account for why there had not been more advocacy in the years prior to that. I think there should have been because the medical school funding has been falling behind inflation for a long time. I agree with your point, Chair Young.
Any other questions? Representative Manning.
Thank you, Chair. Could I just ask for clarification? Yes, of course. So how many students stayed or doctors stayed in Ohio that graduated last year?
For residency or for, I guess...
For good. I want to know how many stayed here in Ohio and how many ended up going to another state to use their talents there?
Sure. So for medical students who graduate, then they have to do residency training. So they either do an internship or a residency, usually an internship first. And so about two-thirds of our graduating medical students stay in our system for their training immediately after medical school.
And what happens after the residency? Do they stay then in Ohio?
Many of them do. So some go on to do fellowships, and many of them stay within our own system to do their fellowship training. Some go into practice. At that point, it becomes more variable the farther out you get from graduation from medical school.
But so when they graduate from medical school? They go into residency, right?
That's their first stop after medical school.
Any other questions? Thank you very much. Dr. John Langell, you're up next. Whenever you're ready, sir.
Thank you, Chair Young, Vice Chair Ritter, Ranking Member Abdullahi, and members of the Ohio Workforce and Higher Education Committee. It's a pleasure to be here this afternoon.
My name is Dr. John Langell. I'm the president of Northeast Ohio Medical University. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of House Bill 319. This legislation addresses a longstanding inequity in the allocation of Ohio's clinical teaching subsidy appropriations and represents an important step in modernizing the subsidy appropriations in a way that will benefit Ohioans, both in training as well as members of our community. You've heard today the history intent and the intent of the clinical teaching subsidy is well documented in a 1991 study that was performed by the Legislative Office of Education Oversight, a committee of the Ohio General Assembly. The gist of that document, which was submitted as part of the written testimony, will note that the clinical teaching subsidy was indeed created to support education and research, but not clinical care of patients for Ohio's public medical schools. The report also notes that the original allocations were determined based on discussions of Ohio's medical schools with the legislature, and its latest iteration appears to have been created based on that study in 1981. The other elements that were listed in that particular study was the reason why the clinical teaching subsidies are provided. And there are really just two main purposes. One is to provide affordable, high-quality educational opportunities for state residents who choose to pursue a career in medicine. That is the from Ohio component. The For Ohio component is to ensure an adequate supply of well-trained physicians to meet the health care needs of the state. As I noted, the allocations were agreed upon in 1981, which is close to the time when the first graduating classes would have come out from three brand-new medical schools started in the state of Ohio in the 1970s, Northeast Ohio Medical University, Wright State University's Boonshoft School of Medicine, and Ohio University's Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. Now, understanding that these likely reflected FTEs at the time, Ohio State University, University of Cincinnati, and University of Toledo's medical schools were rather mature and large at the time. Starting off, Neomed only had 48 students in its first-year class. Wright State, 32 students in its first-year class, and Ohio University, only 24 students in their first-year class. During the ensuing four decades, the more traditional long-term medical schools have stayed relatively stable in the size of their class sizes. However, Neomed has grown substantially. In fact, our class size entering in the first year approximates the size of Ohio State University and is now larger than the University of Cincinnati and the University of Toledo. At that same time, Wright State University has increased their class size fourfold, and Ohio University, as you have heard, increased theirs more than tenfold to be the largest in the state of Ohio. Now, as I mentioned, the critical metrics are how many of those spots go to Ohio residents and how many stay to serve the state. If you look at the data from the American Association of Medical Colleges, the largest provider of clinical training spots, future doctors coming from Ohio, are from Northeast Ohio Medical University, OU, and Wright State University. substantially higher. And if you look at the number who actually stayed to do their residencies in media after training in the state of Ohio, it is disproportionately higher from those three institutions. Now, I think it's important to understand that while we create the larger number of doctors and serve the larger number of residents in the state, we were created under different models. UC, Ohio State University, and Toledo were created under the traditional model where they have a large health center. The others are what we call community-based medical schools. So we have to reach out to clinical partners near us and get them to be willing to work with us and train our students We pay them to do that a substantial amount of money because of the cost for them to train our students While the traditional schools, UC, OSU, and UT, own or partially own their own health systems, because of that, they're able to benefit from a lot more financial support. If you read the publicly audited financials available regarding these institutions for calendar year 25, University of Cincinnati received more than $222 million from its health system for its medical college. University of Toledo received $50 million for ProMedica and notes that they have a net positive contribution to their balance of $400 million from the health system. In Ohio State, health system contributed $270 million to their medical school. Our community-based schools that were set up that way by the state of Ohio do not receive these very large subsidies and at the same time receive a lower proportion of the clinical teaching subsidies by about a third of what Ohio State is able to grab from this. If you look at the impact on students, we have the greatest number of Ohio residents in our three institutions as a percentage joining our medical school, which means the subsidy is providing greater support for out-of-state students who are more likely to leave the state than it is for the state institutions that are focused on providing training spots for Ohio residents and providing Ohio's physician workforce for the future. We stand by and support House Bill 319 and urge you to please move this bill forward so that we can modernize the clinical teaching subsidies in the state of Ohio. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to taking questions.
Are there any questions from the committee? Representative Workman.
Thank you, Dr. Rolangel, for being here with us today. Thank you, Chair. It sounds like there's quite an imbalance here in the subsidy allocations that are going to our medical communities and state universities. We were told in the last testimony that the subsidies were being used appropriately and only for medical students. What is your perspective on that? Do you see those funds going to ancillary programs like nursing programs, pharmacy programs? And how are those funds being used specifically in Neomed as well?
through the chair to the representative. It is not clear to me how other institutions are using the funds. Reviews of their state audited financials really don't go into that detail. I can tell you the way Neomed uses it and what we do is we pay for each of our health systems. In fact, they get $150 per student per week. In addition to that, they get funds to support the program directors who manage the students in those locations, and the individual called the DIO, which is the institutional officer that manages us. All of our funding is utilized to support clinical training. It is not enough as a whole. It is becoming more and more competitive, and in fact, many of the health systems are being approached, or have been approached, by medical schools outside the state of Ohio and outside of the United States, offering more dollars than we generally are able to provide And so it leads to competition and losing some of those training spots Thank you Chair Thank you for that answer Do you feel that if the clinical teaching subsidies were more appropriately balanced that you would have a better advantage in the market
since some of these subsidies are going to providers who already have their own medical centers, and of course Neomed does not, do you feel that the rebalancing of the subsidy would help to provide a competitive advantage for your operation?
Through the chair to the representative, I absolutely do. The numbers are tremendously larger to our organizations. In fact, the subsidies that the other schools receive are actually larger than my entire university budget. So being able to take these and apply them to two elements. One, ensuring we're competing with outside forces to maintain clinical training spots in Ohio and bring those dollars up to a level that's appropriate will help us maintain quality and numbers for training physicians in Ohio. The other element is it allows us to be able to at least hold fast, if not reduce, the amount of tuition that students are paying at our institutions. It's no secret that the community-based schools, without the larger allocations, have a somewhat higher tuition level because we are not subsidized by our health systems. Any other questions? Representative Thames.
Thank you, Chair.
I just have a point of clarification. It's largely based on the last hearing we had on the bill, and I'm getting a little fuzzy. So at NeoMed, if you all are sending students for clinical training or residency, et cetera, to an OSU hospital system or a UT hospital system, how does the subsidy work in practice? Who pays what to who? Can you explain it?
Through the chair to the representative, yes, I can. So the subsidies really offset the cost of the third year of medical school. And I say that because the third year of medical school is the required core curricular years that we have to have, and that's what we pay our clinical programs to support. The fourth year of medical school is an interesting year. Oftentimes, you may have to do one to five to no clinical rotations whatsoever, depending on the university that you're at. You can do research. You can do community-based projects. So that clinical training piece is substantially smaller. Additionally, hospitals use the fourth year to look at, assess, interview potential residents who they want to come there. So there's a national distribution center where students can enter their name because they may want to go get an experience at Cleveland Clinic, University of Michigan, Ohio State, and they apply. And every institution allows any student from any place in the country that they have room for to come in and does not charge them. So there is no cost that's allocated to the schools or to the students for that fourth year of medical school.
Follow up? Yeah. Thank you for that. So to clarify, if Neomed is sending a student in their third year of medical school to OSU for clinical training, you are not required to spend that subsidy and pay OSU for that time?
Through the chair to the representative, We do not send any third students to Ohio State University The liaison committee for medical education ensures that that third year core curriculum not the electives in the fourth year do not take place outside of our professors at our institutions. So Ohio State University, Cincinnati University, Toledo, Wright State University, Ohio University, they do not directly teach any of our students in the third year. So that complicating factor does not exist. Okay, thank you.
Representative Richardson.
Thank you, Chairman, and thank you for your testimony. My actual question was just answered, but I would like to just take this opportunity to just sort of share with you my thoughts, and forgive me because I'm not an expert in this, but my concern would be that the clinical training itself would be similar, so that we're actually comparing compensation apples to apples instead of apples to oranges. So can you reassure me that for those same subsidy dollars, that your clinical training is similar to the clinical training of any of the non-community schools?
Through the chair to the representative, I can assure you that's the case because the Liaison Committee for Medical Education, the National Accreditation Body, comes through and significantly scrutinizes everything we do, including an assessment of the quality of education, which is also reflected in pass rates in medical school and the pass rates in the National Board of Medical Examiners' examinations. Further, we also see a third-party element, which is where they go do their residencies. They only take the best. and Neomed has a 98 to 99% match rate just as Ohio State and the others do. Our students are seen as ultra high quality.
Thank you. No follow-up. No follow-up.
Any other questions? Representative Manning.
Thank you, Chair, and thank you for coming and giving testimony today. As you can tell from my other questions, I feel very strongly that I want to keep our docs here. We need them, and we have some outstanding hospitals here. So why are the three universities so successful at keeping the doctors here and the other ones may not be?
Through the chair to the representative, I can give you my take on this. It's hard to find data to show you facts. One of those we strongly believe is that if we train Ohioans from Ohio communities, that they'll stay in Ohio to serve Ohio communities. And the data that I submitted in my written testimony includes the total percentage of in-state students accepted at each institution. Now, this is drawn from the American Association of Medical Colleges, which does not include the osteopathic schools. So we heard from my colleague today from OU that they take about 90% in-state residents, which is an incredible number. Neomed takes between 80% and 85% in-state residents. For our current year, it's 81% in-state residents. Wright State University is somewhere between 70% and 80% also over the last three years. This last year, 72%. University of Toledo drops down to about 63% in-state. Then University of Cincinnati varies between 57% and 67% for the last three years. and Ohio State University was between 54 and 58% for the last three years. So our substantially higher Higher number of in-state residents joining our institution, I think is one important variable. The other is our focus, our institution anyway, on serving Ohio. Our motto that we've adopted is from Ohio, for Ohio, and for Ohio's future. And so when our admissions committee reviews candidates, it's important that we know that they're either from Ohio or they're very likely to be for Ohio, meaning those who came from out of state and want to stay within our state to practice. We incentivize them to do that. We've created programs with health systems where they can actually get part of their tuition paid for their last couple of years and some special programs if they agree that they will practice with those institutions afterwards. Part of what we've also done is created pathways. So we have a pathway with Kent State University, with Youngstown State University, with Cleveland State University, with Akron, University of Akron, and now with Miami University, where we'll do early assurance guarantees because we're trying to take people in Ohio and bring them to us to stay in Ohio. So every institution likely does something a little bit different, but that has been our focus.
Follow-up? Just a quick comment. Yeah. So what you're telling me, those that have grown up in Ohio realize what a lovely state we have and decide to stay here?
Through the chair to the representative, I'm absolutely telling you that. Yes.
Any other questions? Representative Workman.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Dr. Langell. Really just one quick question. So if I'm hearing you correctly, Neomed has the best retention rates for Ohio, the best recruitment rates for Ohio, the largest class in all medical schools, but receiving the lowest subsidy. Is that correct?
Through the chair to the representative, I have to caveat that by saying of the institutions that provide an MD degree, We are by far the largest from percentage captured from Ohio as well as those who stay in Ohio. We are about the same size in our first entering classes, otherwise largest MD program, which is Ohio State University. But to be clear, Ohio University, the osteopathic program, is the largest in the state of Ohio and has the largest number of in-state residents. They have done well.
Follow up?
Any other questions? In the legislation, a very key point is that Ohio students first. Very critical. Do you agree?
To the chair, I absolutely agree, because as a taxpayer in the state of Ohio, I feel that tax dollars that are being used to subsidize education are there for those two purposes. One, to train Ohio's sons and daughters who choose to get high-quality education and to keep costs down. And two, for the benefit of Ohio's citizens by providing a talented health care workforce to keep all of us healthy and well.
Thank you. It's very clear that this antiquated approach that we've had since the early 80s has affected the entire system that we have. And this is an opportunity to take a hard look at CTS going forward Do you believe that we can pass this legislation and then work if you would make a commitment with your dean and the Council of Deans to work on such a proposal that been submitted by UC and still fund this and then we work pass this legislation and then we work for the next General Assembly The reason why I'm asking this is that we've kicked this down the road so long that it has totally affected and destroyed any integrity in the system. And we know there are more flaws and larger problems than what we've talked about today.
To the chair, I agree. I believe House Bill 319 should be passed and enacted. And I do agree that we should work together. I see higher education in the state of Ohio as a tool for the legislature to be able to serve the community, and it is our role to be able to figure out best ways through which to be able to do that. I will note that in 2009, back when we had a board of regents, the Council of Deans came together and unanimously presented a proposal to redistribute the clinical teaching subsidies much more along the FTE basis. At that time, it was not moved forward by the regents, and I'm unclear why.
Any other questions? Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Committee, please, there's written testimony on this subject today. Please take the time to go back and read those if you haven't done so thus far. This concludes the hearing for HB 319. Right now I bring forward HB 793 for its first hearing and call on Representative Jim Thomas to provide sponsor testimony. Whenever you're ready, sir.
Great. Good afternoon. Chair Young, Vice Chair Ritter, Ranking Member Abdullahi, and members of the House Workforce and Higher Education Committee, thank you for committing sponsored testimony on House Bill 793. This bill seeks to protect the governor's merit scholarship by ensuring that students realize the benefit of the aid that they earn. We had a constituent reach out to us about this issue, and I'm not going to read the whole section, but if you look on the bill where it says revised code section 381.400E, the last line 70 to 72, the sentence says institutions of higher education that enroll students receiving merit-based financial aid grants under this section shall maintain the same level of merit-based financial aid the institution provided in the most recent academic year in the aggregate to all students or on a per-student basis. So my understanding is the language there about in the aggregate or on a per-student basis could be deemed ambiguous. And this is where this bill now focuses. The concern was that some universities perhaps were using in an effort to stretch their dollars or reducing institutional award to these students. this means that the merit award that the student earns would be a credit to the university you know to use as however they would wish to have promised money taken from a student is backwards to the overall goal of this scholarship which is making higher education as affordable as possible to our brightest young minds. House Bill 793 codifies clear language that aid cannot be reduced in reaction to a student receiving a Governor's Merit Scholarship Award unless total aid exceeds the cost of attendance. With this change, the mission of an affordable education for our best students to stay in Ohio can stay protected. And just for your reference, the bill proposes adding the following paragraph to Section E. It's line 73 to 80 of the bill. So again, this bill caps the aid to the federal cost of attendance, which universities are already required to post on their own websites to assure transparency transparency and to increase cost transparency in this area. This bill also asks the Ohio Department of Higher Education to publish institutional cost of attendance figures on a centralized and accessible location on their website. This way students and families can find the information very efficiently. I'd like to thank the Ohio Department of Higher Education for helping us with this draft of this bill, as well as the Ohio Association, I'm as well as the Inter-University Council and the AICUO. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys might have.
Thank you very much, Representative. Are there any questions? Representative Richardson.
Thank you, Chairman, and thank you for your testimony. Could you please, maybe I wasn't tracking it clearly, but could you tell us what happened to your constituent? What was her problem and what precipitated this? Sure.
through the chairman to Representative Richardson. So my understanding is the constituent was a teacher and had contacts in the university, at universities, and through his research found that some universities were perhaps, once in order to kind of spread the money that they have more broadly, they would reduce the funds that that student would get. if they would reduce the institutional funds that that student would get once they saw that they were also getting the merit scholarship. So that was the information that we got.
Thank you. No further questions. Thank you.
Sure.
Any other questions? Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. Really appreciate it. Thanks for your time. This concludes the hearing on HB 793. I'd like to bring forward HB 748 for its second hearing and call on Ralph Vepert. Hopefully I'm pronouncing that correctly, sir, to provide proponent testimony, and thank you for your service.
Chair Young, Vice Chair Ritter, Ranking Member Abdoulaye, yes, sir, you did pronounce it correctly, and I thank you for that. Two syllables, pretty simple, but a lot of people mess it up. I am a retired command sergeant major. I served 35 years in uniform, and I have been serving as an Army Reserve Ambassador for nine years. An Army Reserve Ambassador is a special government employee, which is the government's term for an unpaid volunteer. This particular bill I've been working on for almost eight years now. The seed for this came about with the 22 Marines and Navy Corpsmen that were killed in Anbar Province in 2005 with Lima Company 3rd Battalion 23rd Marines 25th Marines excuse me down at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base Everyone that died, everyone was a reservist. It strikes me, struck me then, certainly does now, that if they can die for their country, we can treat them equally. We don't always do that. The current scholarship program here in Ohio is restricted to the Ohio National Guard. Approximately 15,000 Army and Air. There's approximately 11,000 other reservists of the other branches. Marine Corps, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force. I would like to see that balanced out to include all of those reservists. That's 11,000 and their families. A couple of points. I won't get too much detail on the paper. I know that you can read it. The state budget is approximately $19 million for this tuition assistance. The cost has been analyzed under Representative Willis and Representative Davila's sponsorship has been analyzed to be about $10 million a year for all the other reservists. In addition to that, this is one thing that I found out that many people throughout the state do not know. The National Guard payroll is federal dollars. It is not state dollars. Of the federal dollars, actually of the state dollars that are received, of the $62 million that is provided to the Ohio National Guard, most of that is for things like keeping the lights on, mowing the yard, and things of that nature. It does not take care of payroll. Out of that $62 million, $42 million of that is still federal dollars. So relatively speaking, the state of Ohio is getting the National Guard for pretty minimal cost. Now, one of the reasons there would be argument as far as the National Guard getting this solely is that they have their state asset, if you will, and that's true. But all reserve forces under what's called immediate response authority, And it's actually DOD Directive 3025.18 that allows any local unit to provide assistance in the event of any kind of emergency, period. And they're allowed to do this for up to 72 hours without having to get higher command authority permission. But once you're engaged, who's going to say, no, you can't do that? we haven't had much instance of that here in ohio but i will give you one two instances one is uh early on in covid the army reserve from conception to execution put together 20 urban augmentation medical task forces and sent them to hot spots around the country one of which was the 307th med brigade out in blacklick which is representative of pickle antonio's district They sent a team to the Jacob Javits Center in New York. When they got there, I was told a couple months later when the people returned, that the staffing there cried because they were so happy for the assistance. The Army Reserve put together 20 teams across the country, sent them to Houston, Los Angeles, wherever there was a hot spot. And like I said, they did that in two weeks' time. Another instance, this happened in 2015. Raynell, West Virginia, which is southwestern, excuse me, West Virginia. They had flooding, significant. Several of the soldiers from the 811th Ordnance Company jumped out. trucks and started pulling people out of their houses. Although there was some potential life threatening flooding, the majority of the people there was just the water sloshing around in their ankles. Not exactly a good situation to live in. One truck driver alone pulled out over 100 people. They also provided forklifts to move water around in cots and things of this nature. And they did strictly on the authority of a second lieutenant and were reimbursed later. The state of Ohio can do that right now. We have what are called emergency preparedness liaison officers. There are four of them, actually five, I think. It's right there at the Joint Force Headquarters from each of the branches other than the Marine Corps. So that kind of asset is available to your local township or county or mayor or whatever. and it's a phone call away. And that ties in very much with what happens with the National Guard. With the National Guard, it's basically calling governor, and then it makes contact with the adjutant general, et cetera, et cetera. We can do the same. That's essentially the primary parts of the testimony, and I certainly would welcome any questions.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions from the committee?
Representative DeVilla. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for coming in. Good to see you last week at our Veterans Caucus meeting as well. The main objection that we've heard regarding this bill from folks in the Guard space is that they need additional assistance in terms of recruitment into their force, and that provides an advantage to them the way that it's structured right now. Can you speak to how it might apply to the Reserve Force in a similar way? I've got my own opinion on it that I'm happy to share as well, but I would like yours.
Through Chairman Young to Representative Davila, very much so. I was at the Armed Forces Day Lunch just this last Friday, and General Woodruff and I had a short conversation, and he expressed the fact that I am making him happen to work extra hard. And that's okay. I have no doubts that this bill would impact their recruiting. I also know that the Army Reserve, for example, is definitely struggling. We missing about per year and have for the last five years Now that across the country I also know that there are options available for the National Guard to help beef up their ability to recruit. I think that they, this is just an opinion, I think that they have used this tuition assistance as a bit of a crutch. It's worked to their advantage. They're unwilling to relinquish that. I'm looking at all of the branches. there's an expression of sorts that we're in this sinking boat together. And if we're not all bailing together, we're for darn sure going to sink together. I hope that answers your question.
It does. Just a quick follow-up statement that a rising tide does lift all boats. And I found from, I'm 24 years and counting now in the Navy, 20 of those years in the Reserve. and I find even now as a commanding officer of a unit here in the state, not just in terms of recruitment but retention in the force, that we need to use every available tool that we have. And this is just one more tool in the toolkit that we're looking to provide for Ohioans to have this opportunity. It takes years to qualify under post-9-11 GI to get 100% of tuition assistance in order to get the amount of time that you have to have compiled. Most of our time, of course, is on the reserve side. Only the annual training time, only mobilization time, and so forth gets you to the requisite amount. I think, Mr. Chairman, I was probably well toward 20 years before I got to the requisite number of years to get 100% tuition assistance as I was working through a doctoral program. So in this instance, we're really just hoping to provide additional support for folks either coming in the door or in the reserve force already, whichever branch. We're branch agnostic on this, although we prefer Navy. But we're looking to support everybody. So that's the point of the bill, and I appreciate your testimony, sir. Thank you very much.
Any other questions? Representative Richardson.
Thank you, Chairman, and thank you so much, Sergeant Major. It's good to see you again. You know, as I listen to this, I think about demand. And I've also served on the War Orphan Scholarship Board. I see other sources of scholarships. I taught ROTC. I saw that there was a simultaneous membership program. I'm wondering if we have the data that would help us to understand beyond recruitment incentive what the demand would be or is for these scholarships Is there any data Through Representative Chairman Young to Representative Richardson there is some data
and I have used some pretty powerful AI generation machines to try and dig up some more, and I'm not hitting what I would call a point of success. As an example, the simultaneous membership program, now that is for ROTC cadets, officers. That's not available to the enlisted structure. We actually, a friend of mine who used one of these, her husband has a subscription to one of these artificial intelligence generators. The best that we could come up with is that this would impact the National Guard. the maximum would be about 10%. But the general impression was that it would be relatively negligible. A lot of these people just generally tend, for example, and I will use Representative Davila for the Navy, people will say, I want to join the Navy. They're not necessarily looking at, okay, I want to get my tuition first and then everything else after the fact. They will join the branch of service. There are a number of different tuition assistance programs. The state of Ohio uses the federal tuition assistance first before the National Guard provides the additional tuition assistance. I hope I'm kind of answering your question.
I'm not entirely sure. Just as a follow-up, Chairman?
Yes, of course.
It is a difficult question. It's one that I've been wrestling with myself because there are a lot of scholarship opportunities. And I just think when we consider this bill, it's another $10 million investment into scholarships. And while I do understand, and I care about all, all armed forces, I just think it's a good fiscal question to ask. and I'd be happy to talk with you offline here. Thank you, Chairman.
If I may reply, Chairman Young?
I'm sorry?
May I reply?
Yes, of course.
Thank you. To Representative Richardson, and I'm going to use Representative Manning here, two years ago October 23 actually when I originally testified on this bill she brought up the fact that when she was the chair of this committee that tuition assistance that provided in state some 67 of the people remain in state So to me, this is an investment in the state, not just the armed forces. Something that I did kind of glance off of earlier as well for all of you is that I've never met the bullet that differentiates between the branches and components. I assist and have assisted people to go into the National Guard. I don't. I'm not restrictive to the Army Reserve. There's a position assistant that was at the VA, Central Ohio VA, wanted to join initially the Army Reserve. There was no place. I made a call over to the Recruiting and Retention Battalion at Columbus, or excuse me, with the Ohio National Guard, got him into there. He's happily serving. I don't restrict myself based upon the color of the uniform or the component that's listed on the uniform or anything like that.
Any other questions?
The great thing about living in this state is we are very supportive of our military, our first responders, and we are grateful. I do believe that there is – I'm going to go back and crunch numbers. A lot of times we look at things statically rather than dynamically in the way that we look at budgetary figures. In looking at the legislation, I'll work with the sponsor to get a more realistic budget figure because the range is very broad. and it's the movement of individuals, the pecking order of when funding comes into play in this particular bill plays a role and we haven't been able to get a really good number but I promise you that I will work to see what those figures look like over a period of time. Thank you, Chairman Young.
I do appreciate that. You're welcome. Well, this concludes the hearing for HB 748. Please look at the written testimony that's available to you. With no further business before the committee, the House Workforce and Higher Education Committee hereby stands adjourned. Thank you all for coming today.