House Bill 113 Gets Tweaked
Vol. III, No. 248 - State Representative Newman's Bill Gets Fourth Hearing in Committee
Last year, our own State Representative Johnathan Newman, along with fellow Representative Adam Bird, introduced House Bill 113, the largest reforms to the state’s annexation laws in decades. Clearly, much of the thrust of the legislation came from the frustration both county and local leaders here in Miami County were facing with the agressive annexations by the City of Huber Heights in the southern flank of the County.
Throughout 2025, the bill had a couple of hearings and yesterday, the bill had it’s fourth hearing in front of the Local Government Committee of the Ohio House of Represenatives. Orginally, H.B. 113 started as a broad effort to slow down expedited annexations and give local communities more voice when city boundaries shift.
With the fourth hearing, a substitute version was introduced and is now moving through the Ohio House. The substitute bill keeps that basic goal but trims back or redirects some of the biggest impacts on school districts, tax abatements, and county authority.
In its original form, H.B. 113 would have tied school district boundaries much more tightly to city annexations. If land was annexed under an expedited type 2 annexation, the State Board of Education would have been required to move that territory into the school district that primarily serves the annexing city, rather than deciding case by case. That approach promised more frequent school district territory transfers, shifts in tax base, and changes in student enrollment and state aid for both gaining and losing districts. The bill also would have required the “sending” district to let any student from the annexed area who was in ninth grade or higher re‑enroll until graduation, even if that district did not normally take open enrollment students from outside.
The substitute bill removes those school district transfer provisions entirely. Under the substitute, an expedited type 2 annexation does not automatically move school boundaries, and the State Board keeps its current discretion over territory transfers. That change lowers the direct risk of sudden revenue and enrollment swings for school districts and means families in annexed areas will not see their school district change just because city lines move under this bill. It also quietly shifts the focus of the debate back to land use, services, and tax base at the township and county level, rather than school governance.
Community reinvestment areas are another place where the substitute bill takes a different path. The introduced version would have required school boards to review and approve residential CRA tax exemption applications when more than 75 percent of a project’s value was exempted, giving districts direct leverage over large housing tax abatements that could erode their tax base. That structure matched the idea that the entities most affected by lost school revenue should have a firm say in whether deep abatements go forward and what compensation is negotiated.
The substitute bill, by contrast, moves that approval power from school boards to county commissioners. County commissioners must now review and approve high‑percentage residential CRA abatements above the 75 percent threshold unless they waive their right to do so, and the same waiver and percentage triggers remain in place. At the same time, the substitute removes a compensation provision that had been available in the earlier version, potentially reducing the formal tools for guaranteeing make‑up payments to schools when generous abatements are granted.
On annexation law itself, both versions of H.B. 113 require county commissioners to decide whether a proposed annexation serves the “general good” of the territory to be annexed and the surrounding area, and to reject annexations that fail that test. That standard now clearly applies to all three expedited annexation types and to municipal‑initiated annexations of contiguous public property, bringing expedited processes closer to the scrutiny used in traditional annexations. The bill also continues to tighten type 2 annexations by treating a city’s failure to respond as a refusal instead of consent, a change expected to reduce the number of these annexations and give townships more room to push back.
One notable nuance in the substitute bill involves cross‑county annexations. When a city whose population lies mostly in one county seeks to annex land in another county, only the county where the territory to be annexed is located has clear authority to disapprove the expedited annexation under the “general good” standard. This means that if a city based mainly in one county reaches into an adjacent, it is the County Commissioners of the adjacent county who sit in the decision‑making seat for that annexation, not every county where the city has residents.
Both the original and substitute versions demand more from cities in terms of service commitments. A city using type 2 annexation must agree to provide all services that are generally available within the municipality to the annexed area and must either line up agreements with the township, county, or other local governments to provide those services or pay the costs itself. The substitute further clarifies that these services must begin by the date construction starts, tightening the timeline and reducing the risk that annexed areas wait indefinitely for promised water, sewer, or safety services.
Yes, Substitute version of H.B. 113 narrows the bill’s reach in school boundaries and tax policy but keeps and refines its core annexation reforms. For townships like Bethel and cities like Huber Heights, the real leverage points will hopefully now sit with county commissioners on both annexations and major residential abatements, which was an overarching goal of H.B. 113 from the very beginning.
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