Week in Review: Oct. 13, 2024

FY24-25 BUDGET

Ohio's Office of Budget and Management (OBM) Monday called the $500+ million overage in tax revenue for the month of September "likely due to an overprediction of the revenue loss from the first-ever expanded sales tax holiday held from July 30-Aug. 8." OBM went on to say that, "This overage will be temporary because the future transfer in to the GRF [General Revenue Fund] from the Sales Tax Holiday Fund will be less than anticipated." Specifically, the state finished September with $2.1 billion, $547.1 million or 36% over the updated estimate for the month. The estimated revenue for September had been $1.5 billion.

ECONOMY

Social Security benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments for more than 72.5 million Americans will increase 2.5% in 2025, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced Thursday. On average, Social Security retirement benefits will increase by about $50 per month starting in January. Over the last decade the COLA increase has averaged about 2.6%, the SSA noted. The COLA was 3.2% in 2024.

ELECTIONS 2024

Early voting began Tuesday via mail or in-person at county boards of elections. The early, in-person voting schedule is as follows:

- 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 8-11 and Oct. 14-18

- 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Oct. 21-25

- 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26 and Saturday, Nov. 2

- 1-5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 27 and Sunday, Nov. 3

- 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. from Oct. 28-Nov. 1.

EMPLOYMENT/UNEMPLOYMENT

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday the nation added 254,000 jobs in September though the unemployment rate was again little changed at 4.1%. The August unemployment rate was 4.2%. BLS said the number of unemployed people also showed little change at 6.8 million in September. That measure and the unemployment rate are both higher than they were a year ago when the unemployment rate was 3.8% and there were 6.3 million unemployed people.

PENSIONS

Investment expert Jim Voytko reiterated Thursday his assessment that Ohio's public pension funds are well managed and often perform better than their peers across the U.S., but he dug deeper into their portfolios to highlight the significant difference in their approaches to asset allocation. Voytko, president emeritus of consulting firm RVK, gave his periodic update to the Ohio Retirement Study Council (ORSC), which contracts with Voytko to review the investment performance of the Ohio systems. "The Ohio funds are very professionally managed, their results say so. They perform well versus other public pension plans," he said, using U.S. public pension funds with assets over $1 billion as the peer group for comparison.

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION

The Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC) will recoup more than $120,000 in restitution and over $40,000 in investigative costs from a Geauga County man who was running a business while collecting temporary total disability benefits from the state. Shawn Thompson, 51, pleaded guilty to fifth-degree felony theft following a probe by BWC's Special Investigations Department (SID) and was sentenced to two years of non-residential community control, with mandatory reporting, and 100 hours of community service.