Ohio lawmakers asked to consider legal advertising reform WATCH THE VIDEO
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Highland County Press owner Rory Ryan met with southern Ohio lawmakers Sen. David Daniels and Rep. Cliff Rosenberger Friday, Feb. 4 to discuss possible amendments to Ohio law regarding the publication of legal notices.
Ryan presented a letter to the legislators during their town-hall, open-door meeting Friday afternoon at the Highland County Administration Building in Hillsboro. Daniels, a Greenfield Republican, asked Ryan for a brief overview on the proposal.
"I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage you to amend Ohio law as it pertains to newspaper advertising of public legal notices,"Ryan said. "While some Ohio lawmakers have made recent attempts to address this substantial cost to Ohio taxpayers, their efforts have been, thus far, futile."
Ryan cited recent legislation proposed by Ohio lawmakers such as Kathleen Chandler, Robert Hagan, Raymond Pryor, Tom Letson, Kenny Yuko and John Domenick that would amend Ohio law on legal advertisement requirements. According to Ryan, by reforming the state law and allowing additional publications an opportunity to bid on the legal advertisements, taxpayers across the state would save thousands of dollars each year.
"Hundreds of thousands," Daniels said.
Ryan referenced Ohio House Bill 345 as one attempt to address the issue by allowing certain “political subdivisions” to make Internet publications in lieu of newspaper publication requirements.
"As you may recall," Ryan said, "The newspaper industry successfully campaigned against a proposal in the Ohio budget bill which would have allowed government entities to post small, condensed versions of their respective legal notices in newspapers, with references to the corresponding government website for the full text of the specific legal notice."
Ryan said such a change in the statute could help prevent sizable bills from newspapers that the taxpayers ultimately must pay. Ryan cited a 2005 expense for legal advertising of more than $59,000 in one county alone, after a Wilmington newspaper billed the Clinton County Board of Elections some $59,169.33 for legal advertising costs.
Ryan gave the lawmakers copies of the invoice from the Clinton County Board of Elections.
"This was among the most exorbitant expenses to taxpayers in the entire state that year," Ryan wrote in his letter to Daniels and Rosenberger.
According to public records provided by the Clinton County Board of Elections, that same newspaper also submitted bills for $30,000 for printing costs and $13,275.42 for other legal advertising and inserts.
Last year, Highland County Auditor Bill Fawley informed the Highland County Board of Commissioners that his office had received a bill of almost $13,900 from The Times-Gazette in Hillsboro, a sister publication of the Wilmington newspaper, for publishing the annual delinquent land tax legal notices.
This was a significant increase over previous invoices for similar notices and exceeded the auditor’s budget.
After The Highland County Press reported and editorialized on this expense to taxpayers in its Feb. 20, 2010 edition, the legal bill was reduced by $4,196.40 to $9,632.
Daniels said he hoped that the rising costs associated with legal advertising for all 88 Ohio counties is something that will be addressed in Gov. John Kasich's first budget proposal.
Daniels said this is an issue that he would be "happy" to work on, because he could see it resulting in a savings to the taxpayers, in a time when the state is looking for areas to make cuts.
"We're kind of in a position now where a lot of these issues have been ignored in the past, and they're just thrust upon us. And it's too bad they have been pushed off," Daniels said. "Now we're looking at nickels and dimes to end up making $8 billion. I think that we're probably going to see some proposals come out, hopefully in this year's executive budget. I'm hoping that we see this as it comes out from the administration. If not, I am happy to be working on this issue as it goes through the budgetary process."
Daniels said that as drastic budget cuts are made at the state level, lawmakers need to also provide local governments and agencies with the tools to deal with the cuts.
"I think that everybody realizes ... I know that everybody realizes now what kind of a budgetary problem that we're facing," Daniels said. "Part of what we're going to have to do is find solutions on a local level, because there are going to be cuts coming down, all across, and we don't know how much those are yet. We're going to have to provide some tools to local governments - schools districts, county governments, city governments, whatever - to be dealing with some of these problems, that not only we face, but ultimately they're going to face, because 85 percent of the money we take in ultimately gets passed down through some other unit of local government. We're desperately trying to reach out to people right now to find solutions, so we can help ease the burden. A $1,000 cut is not a cut if we take away $1,000 worth of responsibility.
Ryan asked lawmakers to revisit the issue and volunteered to meet with member of the General Assembly and provide additional documentation and information.
"Like said, I'm happy to try to work on this issue," Daniels said. "I try to be very careful when I talk about what's a relatively small portion of the state budget pie, because it's still a dollar that's collected from the taxpayer one way or another. The issue becomes even larger, when you look at, not so much what state government has to do, but what local government has to do. When you start figuring out that their budget is smaller to begin with, for the most part ... $100,000 or $200,000 a year is a larger percentage. It actually hurts more down on the local level than it does on the state. It still hurts, don't get me wrong. I don't want anyone to think that a dollar saved isn't a dollar earned."
Ryan said that it's a way to save dollars, while still keeping the people informed.
"It seems like the logical next level for this, and the public will still be informed," Ryan said.
"Maybe even more so," Rosenberger said.
"With the generations that are using online medium more than print, I think you're right, Cliff," Ryan said.
Highland County Press owner Rory Ryan met with southern Ohio lawmakers Sen. David Daniels and Rep. Cliff Rosenberger Friday, Feb. 4 to discuss possible amendments to Ohio law regarding the publication of legal notices.
Ryan presented a letter to the legislators during their town-hall, open-door meeting Friday afternoon at the Highland County Administration Building in Hillsboro. Daniels, a Greenfield Republican, asked Ryan for a brief overview on the proposal.
"I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage you to amend Ohio law as it pertains to newspaper advertising of public legal notices,"Ryan said. "While some Ohio lawmakers have made recent attempts to address this substantial cost to Ohio taxpayers, their efforts have been, thus far, futile."
Ryan cited recent legislation proposed by Ohio lawmakers such as Kathleen Chandler, Robert Hagan, Raymond Pryor, Tom Letson, Kenny Yuko and John Domenick that would amend Ohio law on legal advertisement requirements. According to Ryan, by reforming the state law and allowing additional publications an opportunity to bid on the legal advertisements, taxpayers across the state would save hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.
"Millions," Daniels said.
Ryan referenced Ohio House Bill 345 as one attempt to address the issue by allowing certain “political subdivisions” to make Internet publications in lieu of newspaper publication requirements.
"As you may recall," Ryan said, "The newspaper industry successfully campaigned against a proposal in the Ohio budget bill which would have allowed government entities to post small, condensed versions of their respective legal notices in newspapers, with references to the corresponding government website for the full text of the specific legal notice."
Ryan said such a change in the statute could help prevent sizable bills from newspapers that the taxpayers ultimately must pay. Ryan cited a 2005 expense for legal advertising of more than $59,000 in one county alone, after a Wilmington newspaper billed the Clinton County Board of Elections some $59,169.33 for legal advertising costs.
Ryan gave the lawmakers copies of the invoice from the Clinton County Board of Elections.
"This was among the most exorbitant expenses to taxpayers in the entire state that year," Ryan wrote in his letter to Daniels and Rosenberger.
According to public records provided by the Clinton County Board of Elections, that same newspaper also submitted bills for $30,000 for printing costs and $13,275.42 for other legal advertising and inserts.
Last year, Highland County Auditor Bill Fawley informed the Highland County Board of Commissioners that his office had received a bill of almost $13,900 from The Times-Gazette in Hillsboro, a sister publication of the Wilmington newspaper, for publishing the annual delinquent land tax legal notices.
This was a significant increase over previous invoices for similar notices and exceeded the auditor’s budget.
After The Highland County Press reported and editorialized on this expense to taxpayers in its Feb. 20, 2010 edition, the legal bill was reduced by $4,196.40 to $9,632.
Daniels said he hoped that the rising costs associated with legal advertising for all 88 Ohio counties is something that will be addressed in Gov. John Kasich's first budget proposal.
Daniels said this is an issue that he would be "happy" to work on, because he could see it resulting in a savings to the taxpayers, in a time when the state is looking for areas to make cuts.
"We're kind of in a position now where a lot of these issues have been ignored in the past, and they're just thrust upon us. And it's too bad they have been pushed off," Daniels said. "Now we're looking at nickels and dimes to end up making $8 billion. I think that we're probably going to see some proposals come out, hopefully in this year's executive budget. I'm hoping that we see this as it comes out from the administration. If not, I am happy to be working on this issue as it goes through the budgetary process."
Daniels said that as drastic budget cuts are made at the state level, lawmakers need to also provide local governments and agencies with the tools to deal with the cuts.
"I think that everybody realizes ... I know that everybody realizes now what kind of a budgetary problem that we're facing," Daniels said. "Part of what we're going to have to do is find solutions on a local level, because there are going to be cuts coming down, all across, and we don't know how much those are yet. We're going to have to provide some tools to local governments - schools districts, county governments, city governments, whatever - to be dealing with some of these problems, that not only we face, but ultimately they're going to face, because 85 percent of the money we take in ultimately gets passed down through some other unit of local government. We're desperately trying to reach out to people right now to find solutions, so we can help ease the burden. A $1,000 cut is not a cut if we take away $1,000 worth of responsibility."
Ryan asked lawmakers to revisit the issue and volunteered to meet with members of the General Assembly and provide additional documentation and information.
"Like said, I'm happy to try to work on this issue," Daniels said. "I try to be very careful when I talk about what's a relatively small portion of the state budget pie, because it's still a dollar that's collected from the taxpayer one way or another. The issue becomes even larger, when you look at, not so much what state government has to do, but what local government has to do. When you start figuring out that their budget is smaller to begin with, for the most part ... $100,000 or $200,000 a year is a larger percentage. It actually hurts more down on the local level than it does on the state. It still hurts, don't get me wrong. I don't want anyone to think that a dollar saved isn't a dollar earned."
Ryan said that it's a way to save dollars, while still keeping the people informed.
"It seems like the logical next level for this, and the public will still be informed," Ryan said.
"Maybe even more so," Rosenberger said.
"With the generations that are using online medium more than print, I think you're right, Cliff," Ryan said.
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