🏠 Tax reform group: A special working group convened by Gov. Mike DeWine has completed its review and released a comprehensive report outlining short- and long-term recommendations to improve Ohio’s property tax system.
🗳️ Election 2025: Voters who wish to vote by mail in the Nov. 4 general election can find an absentee ballot request form in this Sunday’s edition of the Dayton Daily News.
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Ohio lawmakers getting paid while trading blame on shutdown: ‘We don’t deserve a paycheck’
As thousands of federal government workers face another day without pay, there were no signs on Capitol Hill of any bipartisan deal to reopen shuttered agencies, as both parties dug in their heels and did their best to blame the other for the government shutdown impasse.
• What Republicans are saying: “Democrats are choosing health care for illegal aliens over paying American troops,” said U.S. Rep. Max Miller, R-Rocky River.
• What Democrats are saying: “Twenty-two million Americans depend on the Affordable Care Act subsidies to help pay for their health care,” said U.S. Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Cincinnati (whose district includes Warren County).
• Congressional pay: One irony of a government shutdown is that while members of the military and regular federal workers don’t get paid, lawmakers in Congress continue to draw their salaries.
• Shutdown history: The last shutdown in 2018-2019 lasted 35 days, when Trump tried to get Congress to give him more money for a border wall. Trump finally gave up, getting nothing in return from lawmakers on border security.
Governor’s property tax reform group proposes 20 solutions
The special working group convened by Gov. Mike DeWine has finished its work and offered a host of short-term and long-term ways Ohio can fix the state’s property tax system.
• 16-page report: The property tax working group submitted a 16-page report, including 127 pages of supporting documents.
• What the group is saying: “We packed a lot into two months, as everybody knows it’s a very complicated subject,” co-chair Pat Tiberi said. “At the end of the day hopefully some of these recommendations see the light of day and make it across the finish line and become law.”
• Recommendations: The group offered tweaks to three of the four items the governor vetoed in July, weighed in on and generally supported six pending legislative measures and provided 11 ideas addressing bits and pieces of the entire property tax system.
• Next move: It is now up to DeWine to choose which of these recommendations he thinks the state should take on.
What to know today
• One big takeaway: Southwest Ohio and the Dayton region are in a drought after having drier than normal conditions in August and September. As of Oct. 1, open burning is banned from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Ohio.
• Dayton Food & Dining: Upscale Italian steakhouse Bistecca has added weekday lunch service and is also open for Sunday brunch.
• Election 2025: Voters wanting to cast an absentee ballot by mail in the Nov. 4 general election can get an absentee ballot request form in the Sunday, Oct. 5, edition of the Dayton Daily News.
• Heads up: The invasive box tree (boxwood) moth has been found in multiple Ohio counties: Here is what to know about this invader.
• Thing to do: Beggars Night, or trick-or-treat night, will be held in many communities Oct. 25-31. Here are the times for various localities.
• Preps Profile: Ava Snow. This Centerville senior golfer is the Greater Western Ohio Conference winner. She also took second place at Beavercreek Invitational and Sycamore Invitational and third place at the Alter Invitational.
• High school football: This week will see seven matchups between conference and division leaders across the Miami Valley.