New Ohio Tax Credit for Multifamily and Single-Family Housing

Client Alert

August 22, 2023

With economic growth ahead, Ohio’s new biennium budget addressed an expected growing demand for housing within the state.

On July 5, 2023, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed the 2024-2025 state budget, which created a state low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) to be overseen by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA). The credit has a $100 million annual cap and will be claimed over a 10-year period by eventual recipients. The OHFA expect first reservations to be made in early 2024.

The creation of this credit comes at a time when Ohio is poised for continued economic and job development activity with the notable arrival of an Intel large chip plant in Central Ohio. With this economic growth comes increased demand for affordable housing. The credit itself is expected to be used in tandem with other offered state and federal credits to further extend development dollars and create additional units for Ohioans.

LIHTCs provide tax incentives to construct or rehabilitate affordable rental housing for low-income households. LIHTCs were first offered by the federal government in 1986, with an estimated 100,000 affordable rental units being supported through the federal program each year. While program details still need to be developed by the OHFA, the ability for developers to combine state and federal LIHTCs should incentivize development and growing the availability of affordable, low-income housing.

For questions regarding these new low-income housing tax credits or assistance in securing these credits, please do not hesitate to contact BMD Member Jason Butterworth at jabutterworth@bmdllc.com or Attorney Jacob Davis at jrdavis@bmdllc.com.

Posted by Jason Butterworth and Jacob Davis

Ohio's 2024-2025 Fiscal Budget - Behavioral Health Updates

July 13, 2023

Ohio’s 2024-2025 State Budget was signed into law by Governor Mike DeWine on July 3, 2023. Behavioral health is an area that Governor DeWine expressed great interest in supporting and the final version of the Budget does reflect some of those initiatives. The Budget prioritizes growing the behavioral health workforce and increasing research and innovation by building community capacity for care that offers better crisis response services and treatment, increased prevention efforts, and increased provision of residential and outpatient services. Outlined below are notable Budget items geared toward achieving growth and improvement in the behavioral health field as well as some key items that were rejected by Governor DeWine’s veto.

Posted by Ashley Watson with Mercedes Sieg

Supreme Court Rules that Employers Must Show Substantial Increased Costs to Legally Decline Employees’ Religious Accommodation Requests

June 29, 2023

On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in Groff v. DeJoy that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) employers must show, in order to decline religious accommodations, that the burden of granting religious accommodations to employees will result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of an employer’s particular business, thus amending the prior, simple standard of a “de minimis” undue hardship.

Posted by Bryan Meek, with Mercedes Sieg

Recent HIPAA Breach Settlements - Lessons Learned

June 19, 2023

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the consequences for providers may include settlements of $30,000 to $240,000. OCR recently released two settlements for improper breaches of protected health information (PHI) that are good examples of the major monetary penalties that can result from common HIPAA mistakes.

Posted by Ashley Watson

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