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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — 6:00 p.m.
A state Senate panel has approved a sweeping budget proposal that would increase Ohio's tobacco taxes, boost higher-education funding and eliminate state taxes for certain small business income.
Passage of the two-year, $71.3 billion state operating budget came Wednesday after the Republican-dominated Senate Finance Committee inserted a change that would make permanent the elimination of certain collective bargaining rights for child-care and health-care workers. Other revisions included new restrictions on abortion providers and pay increases for locally elected officials.
The budget bill would freeze tuition at state universities for two years and ease concealed handgun rules for active military. It maintains a 6.3 percent cut to the state income tax that the House passed in April.
The full Senate plans to vote Thursday.
The legislation faces a June 30 deadline.
5:00 p.m.
The leader of the Ohio Senate says a floor vote on the state budget won't come Wednesday.
Senate President Keith Faber (FAY'-bur) had said earlier in the day that his chamber would be willing to work late into the night on the two-year, $71.3 billion spending plan, including holding a floor vote if possible. The Ohio House had informed its members to wait in the wings for a possible late Wednesday or early Thursday vote on Senate changes.
The Senate Finance Committee vote on the bill was still expected Wednesday, but it won't reach the floor until Thursday.
Faber said time had to be allowed to draft a final bill that includes changes added in committee.
4:30 p.m.
The one remaining abortion clinic in Toledo couldn't operate under a change that senators have added to the Ohio budget.
An amendment accepted by the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday says a "local" hospital used in emergencies can't be more than 30 miles from an ambulatory surgical facility. The hospital used by Capital Care Network is in Ann Arbor, Michigan, about 50 miles away.
The change was among dozens being added to the two-year, $71.3 billion spending plan as it neared final votes in committee and on the floor.
Capital Care signed an agreement with the University of Michigan Health System after Ohio required such facilities to have a patient-transfer agreement in place with a local hospital and banned public hospitals in Ohio from signing such agreements.
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