Senate Passes Clean Workers’ Comp Budget Bill

This week, the Ohio Senate unanimously passed a stripped-down version of House Bill 80, the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) budget bill. During the committee process, the Senate removed all controversial provisions added by the House, returning the bill to its appropriation roots. Among the items the Senate removed were an employee misclassification provision, expanded Workers’ Comp coverage for PTSD, and settlement provisions that were harmful to Ohio’s manufacturers.

The House has yet to vote on concurrence of the Senate amendments. If the House does not concur with the changes, a conference committee will be appointed and would face an extremely tight deadline to reach final approval by 11:59 p.m. Sunday, June 30.

Late Thursday, Speaker Larry Householder (R-Glenford) said the House would prepare a continuing budget resolution — a temporary funding measure — in case House and Senate conferees failed to reach a timely agreement on HB 80 and the mainline state budget (House Bill 166). 6/27/2019