Ohio bills introduced

Aside from The Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus Survivors of Abduction Act. (HB 197) introduced Wednesday, readers may want to take note of the following as well.

Ohio House Representatives Terry Boose & Ron Gerberry introduced State Public Defender, HB 186, June 4th., accompanying SB 139, which was introduced on May 29th. seeking to:

- To provide a 50 per cent reimbursement to the counties for their indigent defense costs, increase the guaranteed reimbursement rate for such indigent defense costs, to require the State Public Defender to approve the establishment of county public defender commissions, approve the appointment or retention of the county public defender, and to set a statewide schedule of hourly rates and per case maximums to be paid to appointed counsel, to eliminate the option for a county to operate a joint-county public defender system, to permit the State Public Defender to create state-run regional and district offices that would operate in lieu of the county-run systems, to allow the State Public Defender to use the Indigent Defense Support Fund to pay the state’s portion of costs for the regional and district offices, to provide that the Governor’s next appointment to the Ohio Public Defender Commission be from a list of nominees submitted by the County Commissioners Association of Ohio, and to allow the State Public Defender to contract directly with a municipal corporation to provide representation in municipal ordinance cases.


HB 186 was referred to State and Local Government Committee while SB 139 is currently in the Senate Finance Committee for consideration.

HB190 PREVAILING WAGE LAW-PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT PROJECT, was introduced by Ronald Hood on June 4th. and Referred to Commerce, Labor and Technology Committee. It seeks:

- To increase the threshold to trigger the requirement that the prevailing wage be paid for work on vertical public improvement projects and to allow political subdivisions and state institutions of higher education to elect whether to be subject to the Prevailing Wage Law for a public improvement project.

Provisions relating to minority business enterprises; county commissioners and correctional facilities, port authority educational and cultural facilities, cooperative agreement for sales tax levy and bond issuance for construction, renovation, & operation of professional sports facilities and for educational and cultural performing arts facilities; transportation, convention, coastal management, sewer, water development, and “special improvement districts”; and public works hour & wage considerations were all touched on.