COLUMBUS, Ohio – Two Republican state lawmakers want to throw a roadblock in front of any future attempt to use an obscure state panel to circumvent the General Assembly, as Gov. John Kasich did in winning approval of his plan for Medicaid expansion.
Representatives Christina Hagan (R-Alliance) and Ron Young (R-Leroy) say they will introduce legislation to limit the spending authority of the State Controlling Board, a seven-member panel that oversees expenditures approved by the House and Senate.
Republican legislators and two anti-abortion groups have already taken their case to the Ohio Supreme Court, seeking to block the state Medicaid expansion, which would cover 275,000 more Ohioans. The expansion was jettisoned from Kasich’s budget request in the spring, but the Controlling Board approved the expansion, using federal funds provided by the federal Affordable Care Act.
Hagan and Young argue the board’s role is to appropriate excess funds received from the federal government, but is limited by the “legislative intent of the General Assembly.”
Hagan and Young say they will introduce their bill this week designed to place caps on the amount of money the Controlling Board may appropriate. “Since legislative intent is in some cases subjective, another mechanism to limit the power of the Board must be created,” they said in a joint press release.
The measure will place the following limitations on the Controlling Board’s expenditure authority:
For funds received in excess, the bill limits the Controlling Board to authorize up to only 3.5 percent of what has already been appropriated by the General Assembly.
For unanticipated funds, the bill limits the Controlling Board to authorize only 1 percent of the total appropriation for the agency that will be responsible for administering the fund.
In emergency cases where the Controlling Board must move quickly, the bill also allows a unanimous vote of the Board to allow the appropriation of funds above the caps.