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Senate Republicans override a DeWine budget veto.

Food banks are watching for impacts from a federal government shutdown and more on high electric bills from the chair of the panel that regulates utilities.

That's this week in the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

Starting after this fall's election, schools and other political subdivisions will not be able to pass certain kinds of tax levies, after all.

But two Republicans in the Ohio Senate overrode one of governor Mike DeWine 67 budget vetoes.

The override.

Let's stand a budget provision that eliminates, fix some emergency and substitute emergency levies, as well as replacement levies.

Those replacement levies factor in properties rising valuations unlike renewal levies, which go off a property's value when the initial levy went through even voting to extend a replacement levy at its original rate might result in slightly higher taxes.

Senate president Rob McCauley said.

A lot of districts are taking advantage of that circumstances and they're renewing them in large part because a, it's easier to pass a renewal and it is, any other new levy because people will look at it and say, that's the same thing we've already passed.

But they're also renewing them because they're easier to pass, because they're called emergencies, even though there may not be an actual an emergency.

The school districts also like putting them on primarily because they also, well, maybe not primarily, but one of the reasons that, they're problematic, in my opinion, is because they don't count towards the 20 mil floor, meaning a school district can, when the 20 mil floor was created, it was supposed to be where if you are only collecting 20 mils, you will get an inflationary increase after a reevaluation.

If you are collecting above 20 mils, you don't get an inflationary increase.

This allows those districts to collect above 20 mills, depending on whether they're collecting an emergency levy or a number of other levies, and still get a 20 mil floor increase.

And that's what's leading to some of these unanticipated unbolted tax increases.

Senate Minority Leader Nikki Antonio said she's concerned that the elimination of these levies will mean more struggles and less funds for schools.

Democrats brought up the fact that if we had fully funded the fair school funding formula, we would not be in the place that we're in.

We always get pushback that says we've put more money into schools.

The devil's in the details.

We've put more money.

The legislature, the last budget that all the Democrats voted no on put more money into schools, but it put more money into religious based schools to put more money into charter schools.

It put less money into public schools.

And that's the problem.

So, then there's this tendency to say, well, because property taxes pay for our schools, even though less and less money is coming from the state fund.

It's the schools that get blamed for increasing property taxes.

Not all the other things that are going on, including, you know, the, the, the folks that come in and buy up properties and then inflate the costs.

And, and we see this in my community in Lakewood, certainly seeing across the state of Ohio.

this provision that was overridden takes effect in 90 days.

So after this fall's election, House Republicans had initially planned to override three of DeWine's vetoes in July.

The other two were provisions to allow county budget commissions to be able to lower levies, and for certain levies to be included in the calculation of the 20 mill floor, including emergency and substitute levies.

House Speaker Matt Huffman says those will be taken up soon.

The first of three deadlines and the latest congressional redistricting process went by this week with no action.

That means the drawing of a 15 district map moves to the seven member Ohio redistricting Commission, which has until the end of the month to approve a map with the votes of the panel's two Democrats.

If that fails, the process goes back to the General Assembly, where a map could go through with a simple majority vote needs to happen by the end of November.

Democrats have proposed a map that in most years would yield a congressional delegation of eight Republicans and seven Democrats.

While some national Republicans have pushed for more seats than the ten held by Ohio's Republican congressman, GOP state leaders say right now they have no map to bring forward.

That is correct.

We don't have a final version of the map.

We're working through what that might look like.

a lot of you have asked me people stuff as well.

Where's your map?

Well, there isn't a map until I know what needs to go into it in order to get an agreement.

Governor Mike DeWine, who is on the redistricting commission, said he will not predict whether there will be a map this month.

DeWine also won't say much about his lieutenant governor, Jim Tressel, announcing last month that he would not run for governor, leaving the race open to tech billionaire Ramasamy.

Look, I'm going to endorse the Republican nominee.

And so, we'll we'll cross that bridge, in a while.

the Democratic race for governor still has only one candidate, former Ohio Department of Health director Doctor Amy Acton.

Former Congressman Tim Ryan had said he would make a decision on that race by September 30th.

But in a statement this week, his spokesman said Ryan believes he is the strongest candidate to beat Ramaswamy, but that he, quote, is going to take a few additional days to make his decision.

Wednesday marks the beginning of the first federal government shutdown since 2019, and negotiations between the leaders of both parties appear to be at a standstill.

Governor Mike DeWine said he doesn't see any major impact on the state for at least two weeks, and he hopes by that time that it will all be worked out.

But he also said to expect the unexpected Social Security and veterans benefits will continue, and so will Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Snap benefits, including the women, Infants and Children's Program, known as Whic.

Jory Novotny leads the Ohio Association of Food Banks, which is watching the shutdown situation carefully.

We do partner with several federal agencies, as well as with the state of Ohio, on pass through funding from the federal government and generally right now, we don't have concerns about access to those funds.

Those, in some cases have already been, authorized and approved because a lot of those grants run on different cycles than the federal fiscal year.

So we don't have immediate concerns about access to funds or access to food.

Another big way in which food banks partner with the federal government is by supporting agricultural markets through the Emergency Food Assistance Program, through our Commodity Supplemental Food Program that supplies food to seniors.

And we have deliveries scheduled pretty far out.

So we're not anticipating any delays or disruptions in access to those commodities either.

Let me ask you about populations that you serve.

Many of them are on supplemental nutrition assistance programs.

Snap also on work for women, infants and children.

Those are programs that potentially could be affected by the federal government shutdown.

Are you concerned about that?

I'm not concerned right now.

And I want to make sure that people have a measured approach to this.

Right.

I don't want consumers in the general public to be unnecessarily concerned.

You know, we have very rarely seen long term shutdowns that have led to actual impacts on public benefit access.

So for October, folks should have a normal experience with Snap and with with the other programs that they count on.

They should still be able to access those benefits will be able to be issued.

It's if the shutdown is more prolonged, if we get past that 30 day mark, then there will be different scenarios to take into consideration.

So we're just going to stay in touch with our partners at the state and federal level.

To make sure that we're communicating transparently and at the right point so that folks aren't feeling unnecessarily, concerned about access to resources.

Is the demand that you're seeing still elevated?

We're certainly seeing elevated demand, yes.

And certainly there are pockets in Ohio where there are, you know, major federal workforce.

So there could be some more immediate impacts on our federal workers, in the event of furloughs, or if the shutdown is prolonged enough that, they go without a paycheck and are working without pay.

But generally the, you know, the pressure that we're experiencing is unrelated to the shutdown.

It's, pressure that we've seen building and that has been sustained for years now.

Just because, ultimately, households are facing consistent budget shortfalls, the cost of living has accelerated faster than their wages have kept up.

And that's meaning that they're coming to us.

More of them are coming to us, and more of them are coming to us more often.

You're approaching the time of the year when people will start thinking a lot about food banks donating to food banks, food drives start happening.

Does that help relieve some of that pressure at all?

We have seen our community step up very generously, and certainly we're always looking to broaden, blend resources, always have.

In our decades long history of doing food banking, we're looking to reduce waste, do everything we can as efficiently as possible, support our partners in agriculture and in the food supply.

And we're lucky to have the generosity of volunteers who give their time as well as as well as donors.

So we've seen a lot of generosity in our communities.

It's not sustainable for philanthropic philanthropy to, you know, fill continued gaps in access.

But we're really encouraged by the way in which our communities keep responding and certainly ask them to stay with us.

We just had an outstanding hunger action Month.

Still wrapping my orange from the close of September and Hunger Action Month and saw a lot of real, positive energy.

You know, we had over 100,000 different people in Ohio, volunteered our food banks just last year.

So Ohioans are really generous, really committed to one another.

And I'm sure we'll see that continue again in the shutdown, however long it does continue.

Winter is coming.

And that's concerning for anyone who is worried about higher electric bills.

Electricity costs are up 2.7% nationally over the year ending in July, but they jump 10 to 15% for many Ohio households.

The reasons go back to 1999, when state lawmakers deregulated the electricity market and a 2008 bill that changed the regulatory structure at the Public Utilities Commission.

Those were supposed to bring lower prices and innovation because of competition.

I talked to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chair Jennifer French about that, and I started our conversation with the news of a cap on the cost to reestablish service.

If it's disconnected this winter at $175 plus a reconnect charge, that can't be more than $36.

Some advocates for lower income Ohioans say that's too limited, and they wanted more action.

So we're trying to strike a balance between preventing, disconnects or making them easy to connect, to reconnect, but also not holding all the other ratepayers accountable for those that aren't paying their bills.

So, you know, if you cut off disconnections completely, somebody is going to be paying for that.

And so we're just trying to strike a balance between those two things.

And so that's that's where we came up with these figures.

Another thing you're working on is a statewide reliability report.

That's part of the new energy law, House Bill 15.

It's required under that.

It would require you to publish reliability reports that include frequency of interruption and duration, and also outlining plans to upgrade grid reliability.

So all of that, what do you hope that that report will tell lawmakers, ratepayers, anybody who reads it?

Sure.

Nobody wants to have the lights go out.

Right.

And so it's our job to make sure that we have reliable service, to all the ratepayers in the state of Ohio provided by their distribution utilities.

And so what we're hoping is that if there are glaring issues that we haven't somehow already picked up on that, that we can see it in that report.

And also just everything really is about reliability and affordability.

You know, if the utilities are collecting money from ratepayers for reliability, which they do, we want to make sure that that's what they're doing with it.

And, you know, just to ensure that everybody, all the ratepayers in the state of Ohio have reliable service, it can be easy for ratepayers to think, well, my my electricity goes off all the time.

This will actually show how often it does go off.

Potentially.

It will.

Yeah.

So it would it will allow us and the utilities to pinpoint certain areas.

Okay.

Well we have less reliability here than we should.

And we do keep track of the reliability standards for all of the distribution utilities.

But this just is one more layer of that.

It's my understanding that when the electricity market was deregulated in 1999, and then the regulatory structure of the Puco was changed in 2008, the goal in the hope was that this would bring lower prices and innovation because of competition.

That does not appear to be what has happened, at least when you look at the, people's people's bills.

Why not?

Well, I actually would say that, you know, in Ohio, we are we're number 26 of 51, as far as electricity prices.

So we're right there in the middle.

We are less than all within our surrounding states.

You know, so energy prices do go up and do come down.

And right now we're seeing an unprecedented, amount of growth in that area with data centers and things like that.

So I would say that we actually have really good prices in Ohio.

Are they higher right now than they were two years ago?

They are.

And so, you know, we're working on looking at different ways, working with the, you know, utilities, the auctions, things like that.

The capacity auction that PJM held, certainly increased exponentially.

Again, supply and demand, you have different states that are have different state policies than we do, that might be taking baseload generation offline, instead of putting more online.

So, you know, in Ohio, that's one of the things that House Bill 15 is doing.

I've been at the PTO for four and a half years, and, for four of those years, we really were not seeing any gas fired generation applications because I also cite, I chair the power siting board, too.

So we are in charge of siting generation units, and we hadn't seen any.

It was all renewables, which are great, but we need it all.

And so at any rate since January.

So for whatever, you know, House Bill 15 I think passed in April maybe but it allows it expanded.

The opportunities for behind the meter generation and at the power siting board, we've already approved, I want to say maybe 400MW of behind the meter generation, and we have another 1200 roughly in the queue.

So hopefully with all that coming in, that helps to stabilize the pricing as well.

Know when you have more supply coming in and that can lower the price, is what you're saying.

Basically, I want to ask you about data centers and other high tech facilities, especially Intel and Meta and some of the things that we're seeing in central Ohio.

But around the state, they're not only using a lot of power, but they're expected to use a lot of power in the future.

Are Ohioans paying in advance for the use of that power, even if it never happens?

So what we've done, I'll just use AP because they're the utility that's done this and this is a pending case in front of me.

So I'm just going to give you a wide net.

Basically what happened is that AEP said, hey, we're not sure what is real and what is not.

And, you know, if you're going to build out this transmission system to support these users, high consumers of electricity, we need to make sure that those costs are not borne by ratepayers.

And so the the data center tariff puts more of that cost on the data center, specifically so that if there so that to avoid really stranded costs later if in fact there isn't the materialization of this that we expect.

So AEP has asked essentially to be able to recover those costs.

But you can't talk about that because it's pending right now.

Correct?

Yeah.

It is most of the data centers are here in central Ohio, but you have those all around the state, I think.

I want to ask you, I want to ask you about whether there's any data specific I have to take to.

All right.

Speaking of data, I want to ask if there's any data on whether energy efficiency programs that utilities were doing.

And some still do in some respect, if they could have any impact on these bills.

I mean, House Bill six got rid of a lot of those programs.

Could that be affecting these costs that we're seeing now?

We haven't done any specific, studies on that.

I mean, energy efficiency, demand response, all of these things, they can't hurt, right.

What is the degree upon which energy efficiency helps?

I don't I don't know that I don't have those numbers in front of me.

It's a great question.

But, you know, we and we do approve some energy efficiency, programs.

Are mostly low income at, in rate cases when the utilities come in for those.

So so we do have energy efficiency out there.

And of course people can engage in their own energy efficiency.

But is it really a situation where if you change out your light bulbs to lab LED light bulbs and you turn off, you know, turn down your power or, turn down your electricity, the you know what I mean?

Will that move the needle?

Is that something that can really make a difference for people who are really struggling to try to pay their electric bills?

I think there's probably a lot that goes into that and a lot of variables.

I know I have the thermostat that we control, through our phones and use that, I think the less energy that people are using, the better for all of us.

Probably.

So it can't hurt.

But.

But is it really enough?

I mean, when people are looking at big electric bills, is that going to be enough or are there other things that people could be doing?

I think the energy efficiency things and that runs the gamut to right.

Re insulating your house, changing out your windows, smart meters, all those things, smart thermostats, all those things.

I don't know exactly per household how much that saves.

But again, the less you're using, the less you're spending.

When I ask you about the Apples to Apples website that Puco operates, which allows people to compare, for electric, for gas, that there was this report from Ohio State that said that it really doesn't result in savings to consumers.

So I want to ask you about that.

And and where you stand on that.

Sure.

First of all, you raise a really good point.

So, it is incredibly important that people educate themselves on this topic because there are a lot of different programs out there, and we do have them all on our Apples to Apples website, on our website.

And it's called Apples to Apples.

And what it does is it lays out, you know, is it a variable rate?

Is that a fixed rate?

Is it, green energy?

Is it not so variable?

Right.

So it it lays that out so people can go in and look at and look at it.

We also have our call center.

And our call center explains kind of how that works.

If somebody is confused, we get a lot of calls on our apples to apples, portion of our website.

And it just depends.

So sometimes, you know, you might have this offer, for power for generation that is higher than the standard service offer.

Maybe it's because though it's green energy, maybe not.

I mean, so, you know, at any given time, there's so many offers out there that people really need to educate themselves, or call us to help us to educate, you know, them and, and get that out there.

I can tell you that our, our public relations team is out all the time at different fairs, at different events.

They're really everywhere.

And they're trying to educate people on, on this issue, on their supplier choice, if they should choose to do that.

And just like with anything, you do have to read the fine print.

You have to shop if you're going to change.

There are some offers that are that require a fee if you disconnect early or if you change early or whatever.

You have to look around that these teaser rates and and some of these lower rates may not be what you think they are.

That's exactly true.

I mean, the devil's in the details, right.

And so, you know, again we and sometimes there are offers, you know, oh you'll get this kind of debt credit card or debit card or gift card or whatever it is, and that entices people and that might be a good deal and it might not.

So, you know, we really, really encourage people to go to the website and then to call our call center if they still need some additional guidance.

And there's a big difference between generation cost, distribution cost.

You have to look at all those things.

And just because you switch suppliers, that doesn't mean you eliminate all those costs.

Correct.

You know, and that can I think that that can be what's confusing to people is why are there these different costs and that it was related to the deregulation process?

It is.

Yes.

I want to ask you to I don't know if you can weigh in on legislation at all, but House Bill 427 would allow ratepayers to opt in to programs that would allow electric companies to reduce their power consumption during peak periods.

There was a similar bill last session that would, allow them to opt out this would allow them to opt in.

Is that something that the CEO can, weigh in on based for our position at the Puco, we don't generally, speak for or against, any type of legislation we are here for technical, advice should be be requested to provide any by our legislators or anybody else.

For that matter.

So I don't I don't have an opinion, for it or against it.

I'm very familiar with the bill.

And again though, I mean, it was it's voluntary, I understand that.

So, and that's and that's a good thing.

And, you know, depending upon the volume, it it could help so demand response.

You know, we've seen it with our big industrial users.

It's very effective.

Now, how effective is it at, a residential level?

Well, I think if you have enough residents that are doing it, it could probably be very effective.

So but you know, as far as my position on the bill, you know, I don't have one other than to just be supportive of in your experience dealing with the industrial users.

If this did go into effect and people would opt into it at the residential level, would people have to worry about their their their heat being turned off during peak periods or their air conditioning being turned off?

I don't think so.

I think I think we would probably be talking a few degrees.

I don't think anybody's ever going to have their AC turned off, because the whole point is to keep all that stuff on.

Right?

And so no, I, no, I don't think anybody would have to worry about that.

And finally, as we're going into the winter season, are you concerned about again, these bills that are coming?

There's a lot of people who are very worried about how they're going to make these payments.

Are you concerned about what what's going to happen to some of these folks?

Of course, I will tell you that generally before every heating season, I talk to all of our utilities, our gas and electric utilities, because we have programs for and, you know, they are they have certain income thresholds.

And so we have like the Pip program, percentage of income payment plan, where somebody can only pay up to 10% of their salary for their bill, their electric bill, regardless what it is.

Okay.

And then as long as they keep paying, part of it will be forgiven.

So we have programs, for certain income levels, but there's there's this gap right between people that don't qualify for those programs because they make too much money, but also are struggling.

And so I like to meet with the utilities to see, you know, what other programs do you have, so that our call center is equipped with the ability to say, okay, you make too much for Pip, but we can, you know, AP can offer this, or Duke is offering that or whatever utility that it is, because, yes, we're very concerned and we don't want anyone to not have power in the winter.

And there are also several and there are also federal programs that do help in this area as well.

Right?

Yes.

Are you concerned about cuts in those coming?

I think we're going to have to see, what happens.

Anything that makes, it more difficult for people who are struggling.

Of course we want to be there to help.

If you'd like to see the interview I referenced with Ohio State University Associate Professor of public Policy Noah Darby about his research into high utility costs, including his work looking into the Apples to Apples page on the Puco website.

You can check out our archives at State news.org.

And that is it for this week from my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Media.

Thanks for watching.

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Support for the Statehouse News Bureau comes from Medical Mutual, dedicated to the health and well-being of Ohioans, offering health insurance plans, as well as dental, vision and wellness programs to help people achieve their goals and remain healthy.

More at Med mutual.com.

The law offices of Porter, right, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Porter Wright is dedicated to bringing inspired legal outcomes to the Ohio business community.

More at porterwright.com.

Porter Wright inspired Every day in Ohio Education Association, representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools.

Every child deserves more at OHEA.org.