Ohio budget bill cuts funding for brownfield cleanups by more than 40%

As Ohio lawmakers wait for Governor Mike DeWine to sign their final budget bill, some are touting an increase in funding for brownfield remediation — but that program is actually getting a $150 million cut compared to the last state budget. 

The amount of money designated towards the Brownfield Remediation Fund in the final budget language, which DeWine received Friday, is $200 million. This technically represents an increase from the governor’s proposed budget earlier this year, in which he gave no provision towards brownfield remediation at all. The previous two state budgets, however, allotted $350 million each to the fund. 

Brownfield remediation is a costly and time-consuming task: cleaning up old industrial and commercial sites contaminated with dangerous substances. Local governments often depend on state grants to shoulder the cost.

"Brownfield cleanup can be expensive, and it can be a lot for a community to bear alone,” said Debora Flora, executive director of the Mahoning County Land Bank. “Everybody needs some of it, and some communities may need more of it, and so there tends to be a competitive nature to the grant process.”

This is the third biennial budget in a row that lawmakers have allotted money to brownfield remediation, after a 10-year pause that Flora says caused a backlog of projects that need funding. 

That accumulation creates even more competition — as does the fact that according to Flora, private developers will soon be able to pursue grants for brownfield remediation. 

When this change takes effect, Flora, a board member at the Ohio Land Bank Association, said local governments still “need to be in the conversation” regarding local development. 

“A private developer may have a wonderful project in mind that they want to bring here, or they may have a project that maybe isn't going to serve the community at as high of a level as, say, that community project that's been kind of idling for some time,” Flora said. 

Flora emphasized that despite the decreased funding, $200 million towards brownfield remediation is “still significant.”

"There have been some very serious cuts to some very meaningful programs in this budget, and so $200 million for brownfields will still be very helpful,” Flora said. “We know that we're lucky that it wasn't even less than that.”