Week in Review: April 9, 2023

ELECTIONS 2023

Early voting began Tuesday for the May 2 election in Ohio for the 67 counties with local candidates and issues on the ballot. More information about the election can be found at www.voteohio.gov.

EMPLOYMENT/UNEMPLOYMENT

The state of Ohio is near the back of the pack for weekly unemployment claims, according to financial advisory website WalletHub. Ohio ranked 48 for new jobless claims, with "1" meaning jobless claims decreased the most and "51" meaning they decreased the least. Kentucky's (1) jobless claims decreased the most during the past week, while Indiana's (51) decreased the least. West Virginia came in second among Ohio's neighbors at 19, followed by Michigan (21) and Pennsylvania (24).

PUBLIC SAFETY

Using a cell phone or other electronic device while driving -- with some notable exceptions -- will be a primary offense in Ohio starting on Tuesday, April 4. That's the effective date for 134-SB288 (Manning), the distracted driving bill Gov. Mike DeWine signed in early January. "This will clearly save lives. There's absolutely no doubt about it," DeWine said at a press conference to highlight the new law. "It will spare many families the grief and the sorrow that unfortunately many of our families have suffered in the last few years because of distracted driving."

STATE GOVERNMENT

InnovateOhio and the Office of Budget and Management (OBM) announced recently that $7.04 million in duplicate payments have been identified using a data analytics tool launched in 2019. In total, 662 duplicate payments have been found during the January 2019 to January 2023 period, spanning 40 different agencies, boards and commissions.

The Ohio Department of Administrative Services (DAS) announced in its newsletter Tuesday that the DataOhio portal had exceeded 250,000 "dataset views" and is nearing 300,000. The portal was created in 2020 in partnership with DAS' InnovateOhio Platform, and has over 300 datasets from 14 agencies. There were 200 datasets when it first launched.