Welcome to the Weekly Roundup, where we bring you the top stories from today’s Dayton Daily News and major stories from the past week you may have missed.
This week, that includes the launch of a new project looking at how immigrants contribute to the Dayton region, as well as the outcome of a showdown between Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and state lawmakers over property tax reform.
Do you have a news tip or an issue you think our reporters should look into? Contact me at Josh.Sweigart@coxinc.com, or you can use our anonymous tipline.
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Making Dayton Home
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
Our new project, Making Dayton Home, looks at how and why immigrants have come to the Dayton region and their impact on the community. Read the first story in the series by reporter Sydney Dawes here.
• The stats: More than 26,000 immigrants live and work in Montgomery County, making up roughly 5% of the county’s overall population.
• More stats: Ohio has seen significant population growth — a 30% increase — among immigrants in the last decade.
• Demographic challenge: Also, over the last decade Ohio has seen a huge increase in the senior citizen population. People 65 and older now outnumber children in more than a quarter of Ohio’s counties, according to new Census data.
• Workers: Although foreign-born workers made up a small percentage of the county’s overall population earlier this decade, they represented 6% of its working-age population, 5.8% of its employed labor force and 10.9% of its science, engineering, technology and math workers, according to a 2022 report from the American Immigration Council.
• Workforce: Stephanie Keinath, the executive vice president of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce, said Ohio leaders have had success bringing massive economic investments to the region. But this has created workforce challenges that immigrants are vital to overcome.
“I don’t think we can get there without immigrants,” Keinath said. “It’s just not going to be possible.”
• Why Dayton: “At the end of the day, the Dayton region is competing with other parts of the country. We’ll never have the mountains, we’ll never have the ocean,” Keinath said. “We’ll never have a population of one million people, if you’re looking for that big city life. But they’re coming in large part because there are jobs available, and they want to fill those jobs immediately.”
• Challenges: Immigration isn’t without challenges. Continued success will require supporting new immigrants in dealing with things like language and cultural barriers, experts say.
• Desire’s story: A large portion of Dayton-area immigrants came from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sydney spoke to a Huber Heights pastor from Congo about his journey. Read that story here.
Property taxes
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s vetoes of several property tax measures in Ohio’s budget set the stage for a showdown between the governor and the General Assembly. Here’s how that played out.
• The vote: Ohio House GOP leaders previously said they had support to override three of DeWine’s four vetoes on property tax measures. But when the vote came, they only voted on one.
• The one: By a vote of 61 to 28, House members overturned DeWine’s veto of a measure that eliminates replacement tax levies for all taxing bodies and certain school district levies like emergency tax increases. They needed 60 of the 99 House members to succeed.
• Study group: DeWine’s vetoes came with a pledge to create a working group to come up with solutions to residents’ concerns about skyrocketing property taxes. That group had its first meeting last week.
• Ramifications: Legislative leaders fear their perceived inability to do anything meaningful about property taxes will lead voters to take matters into their own hands. One citizen-initiated proposal in the works would do away with property taxes altogether in Ohio.
• Impacts still: DeWine didn’t veto every property tax measure in the budget. One thing that stayed in empowers county commissioners to extend a pair of homeowner tax credits. An analysis by the Montgomery County Auditor’s Office found this could have a potential $32 million impact in Montgomery County.