June 2009

NOCHE Policy Points

Table of Contents

• Ohio Budget Status
  
• The Ohio Co-op/Internship Program (OCIP): A Former Legislator's Perspective
  
• NOCHE Advocacy for OCIP
  

Ohio Budget Status
 

The Ohio General Assembly has been working on the biennial state budget, House Bill 1, since early this year. On May 29, 2009, the Ohio Senate unveiled its version of Ohio’s budget in Substitute House Bill 1. The Senate budgeting process began with a projected shortfall of more than a billion dollars, including a $912 million shortfall for the current fiscal year. The Senate passed its version of the bill on Wednesday, June 3, 2009.

Higher education and K-12 education were protected from major agency cuts. The higher education provisions include a tuition freeze at state four-year schools in FY 2010 with a 3.5% cap on increases for FY 2011, and a continued tuition freeze over the biennium at two-year community and technical schools; an additional $19 million in instructional subsidies over the House version; expanded eligibility for the Ohio College Opportunity Grants (“OCOG”) to include $255 million for students at state schools, $82 million for students at independent schools, and $58 million for students at proprietary schools; maintenance of $29 million for Choose Ohio First Scholarships for STEM students; and authority for the establishment of Eastern Gateway Community College in the Mahoning Valley. The Ohio Co-op/Internship Program (“OCIP”) was eliminated (see below).

The bill will return to the House briefly and likely go to Conference Committee in the next week where the two versions of the budget will be debated and reconciled. The version coming out of the Conference Committee—which should have an equal number of Democrats and Republicans in light of the makeup of the House and Senate—will have to be approved or rejected without change in each chamber.

The Ohio Co-op/Internship Program (OCIP): A Former Legislator's Perspective
 

To help fill the budget hole, Senate Republicans eliminated OCIP, a program to expand co-op and internship opportunities that higher education institutions in Northeast Ohio are eager to begin July 1, 2009. The program was to be funded with $50 million in each of five years to create high quality academic programs with a cooperative education component, retain students in the state, recruit Ohio residents back to the state, build the talent pipeline, and provide Ohio graduates with job opportunities.

Forty-one proposals were submitted statewide, with twelve from Northeast Ohio totaling more than $16 million.

After the program's funding was eliminated, a supporter of the program and member of the Senate Finance Committee expressed the hope to me in an email that the program could be reinstated at some level in Conference Committee.

Senate Republicans were faced with a large task, since the current fiscal year deficit of $912 million was announced on May 5, 2009, just after House Bill 1 reached the Senate.  However, the good news is that a Democrat House and a Republican Senate must agree on the ultimate bill, and the Governor has to be satisfied enough to sign it, or at least not veto everything the Republicans wanted. From comments made by Senate President Bill Harris, he seems to support the concept of OCIP if funding could be found.

For OCIP to come back in the Conference Committee Report, it has to be high enough on the Democrats’ priority lists—legislative and gubernatorial—that it has a chance of being negotiated back into the bill in return for something of comparable Republican importance. For OCIP to gain enough priority on those lists, higher education and business stakeholders need to voice their support (along with all their other priorities!) to legislative leaders and the Governor. In a nutshell, there is hope, but time will tell…

- Ann Womer Benjamin  

NOCHE Advocacy for OCIP
 

When NOCHE learned in mid-May that OCIP was threatened in Senate action on the budget, NOCHE plotted a short course of advocacy. The Executive Director prepared a letter to key Senators on the Finance Committee and in Senate leadership, most of whom she had served with in the Ohio House, stating that “Ohio has a real opportunity to champion experiential learning, a proven economic growth tool; get higher education and business engaged collaboratively in the process; and double the impact of state funding with private match dollars.” The letter focused on the documented economic benefits of internships and OCIP’s leverage of state dollars.

NOCHE was contacted by the media after the elimination of OCIP was announced and continues its general advocacy for the program. Click here for a report by The Plain Dealer on May 30, 2009.

NOCHE has had some preliminary discussions with regional partners about an advocacy strategy for the Conference Committee, and will remain informed about the status of the program through the remainder of the budget process. 

Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education
1422 Euclid Avenue, Suite 840
Cleveland, OH 44115
Phone: (216) 420-9200 
Fax: (216) 420-9292
www.noche.org