Senate Bill 5 would certainly have a financial impact from Senate Bill 5 if it goes into effect as scheduled in about three months. The law would eliminate longevity pay and automatic contractual pay hikes called step increases. And it requires state workers pay 15 percent of their health care premiums. Dan Kaman with the Ohio Department of Administrative Services released a new fiscal analysis of Senate Bill 5, and estimates the state would save $191 million, or around $3,200 for each of the state’s more than 58,000 employees.
“There’s a lot of instant savings just from the health care premiums going up to 15% guaranteed from the state employees paying," Kaman says. "That obviously is the biggest savings, but eliminating step pay increases for the state would save about $75 million, and longevity pay for the state would be about $115 million immediately, and that would be annually as well.”
And Kaman says local governments and school districts would in total save slightly more than a billion dollars. Democratic lawmakers aren’t impressed – Senator Joe Schaivoni of canfield near Youngstown calls the study “a flawed analysis that inflates potential savings”, and that it doesn’t add in the cost of the court battles that are certain to come. Unions have already started their drive to stop the law, which hits some 350,000 of their members statewide. If they gather enough signatures to put a repeal of Senate Bill 5 on the ballot, that would temporary block the law from going into effect. Ohio AFL-CIO president Tim Burga says Senate Bill 5 might help communities at first, but it will hurt them later.
“Senate Bill 5 is going to create significant job loss in our local communities," Burga says. "It’s going to suppress wages, not only for union working families but for all workers, as this will have a ripple effect. And it’s going to make it even more difficult for our local communities to recover from the economic problems we’ve been experiencing.”
And Dale Butland with the progressive leaning think tank Innovation Ohio says he believes the state and local governments could get the savings they need from the unions without getting rid of collective bargaining.
“Teachers, police, fire, state workers have given literally millions of dollars of concessions," Butland says. "There’s no reason to believe that they would not do what was necessary. But by the same token, everyone believes that if there’s going to be sacrifice, there should be shared sacrifice. It shouldn’t be all put on the backs of the middle class.”
And Butland agrees with Burga that the numbers of people who will lose their jobs will be big – a study Innovation Ohio will release this week projects it will be in the tens of thousands. The law would give school districts and local governments more power to cut unionized workers. And while they may like that and the flexibility afforded by the elimination of step and longevity increases, Barbara Shaner with the Ohio Association of School Business Officials says that’s not enough to offset the loss of state funding.
“I think in this biennium it would be premature to think that there would be enough savings to overcome the reductions that we’re seeing as proposed in House Bill 153, the budget bill,” Shaner says.
The studies and predictions about Senate Bill 5 will certainly be prominently featured in the campaign to repeal or keep the law this fall.