OHIO LEGISLATIVE SERVICE COMMISSION
Office of Research Legislative Budget
www.lsc.ohio.gov and Drafting Office
H.B. 115 Bill Analysis
135th General Assembly
Click here for H.B. 115’s Fiscal Note
Version: As Introduced
Primary Sponsors: Reps. Miranda and Brent
Effective Date:
Paul Luzzi, Attorney
SUMMARY
Pay equity in public employment
 Requires public employers to establish a job evaluation system to identify and eliminate
sex-based wage disparities among female-dominated, male-dominated, and balanced
classes of employees.
 Requires public employers to submit an implementation report to the Director of
Budget and Management every three years, and requires the Director to submit a
report on employers’ compliance status to the General Assembly annually.
 Creates a penalty for a state agency that fails to submit an implementation report or
that does not make compensation changes to comply with the bill’s requirements.
 Specifies factors regarding compensation that fact-finding panels or conciliators must
consider when settling disputes under the Public Employees’ Collective Bargaining Law.
Equal pay certificates
 Requires a contractor or person submitting a bid or other proposal for a state contract
or a business entity applying for a grant or other economic incentive from a state agency
to obtain an equal pay certificate.
 Allows the Director of Administrative Services (DAS Director) to suspend or revoke a
certificate and a state agency to abridge or terminate a contract or revoke a grant or
other economic incentive.
 Allows the DAS Director to audit a contractor, person, or business entity to determine
compliance with the bill’s equal pay certificate requirements.
 Requires the DAS Director to submit a report regarding equal pay certificates to the
Governor and the General Assembly every two years.
August 28, 2023
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Prospective employees’ past wages or salary
 Prohibits, generally, an employer from requesting information regarding or seeking a
prospective employee’s wage or salary history from the prospective employee or the
prospective employee’s current or former employer.
 Prohibits an employer from requiring that a prospective employee’s prior wage or salary
history satisfy certain criteria.
 Allows an employer to request, seek, or confirm information about a prospective
employee’s wage or salary history when the employee has voluntarily disclosed wage or
salary information or when the employer has made an offer of employment with stated
compensation.
 Allows the Ohio Civil Rights Commission to investigate a complaint regarding a violation
of the bill’s prospective employee wage and salary history prohibitions.
 Requires the Commission to provide notice and a hearing in accordance with the
Administrative Procedure Act if, after the investigation, the Commission determines it is
probable that the employer has violated the bill’s prohibitions.
 Requires the Commission to order an employer to complete a remedial training course
conducted by the Commission if, after the hearing, the Commission determines the
employer has violated the bill’s prohibitions.
 Allows the Commission to refer subsequent violations or failure to complete the
required remedial training by an employer to the Attorney General for commencement
of a lawsuit for any relief the Attorney General considers necessary to enforce the bill’s
provisions, including costs.
Retaliation for discussing wages
 Prohibits an employer from retaliating against an employee that discusses the
employee’s salary or wage rate with another employee.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Public employer pay equity ............................................................................................................ 3
Reasonable compensation relationships .................................................................................... 3
Job evaluation system ................................................................................................................. 4
Public employer implementation reports ................................................................................... 4
Review of implementation reports and notification of compliance ........................................... 5
Penalties ...................................................................................................................................... 6
Report to the General Assembly ................................................................................................. 7
Collective bargaining ................................................................................................................... 7
Settlement of disputes ........................................................................................................... 7
Unlawful discriminatory practices............................................................................................... 8
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Definitions – public employer pay equity ................................................................................... 8
Equal pay certificates ...................................................................................................................... 8
Application .................................................................................................................................. 9
Issuing or rejecting a certificate ........................................................................................... 10
Suspending or revoking a certificate ......................................................................................... 11
Abridging or terminating a contract or revoking a grant ..................................................... 11
Audit .......................................................................................................................................... 12
Report ........................................................................................................................................ 12
Definitions – equal pay certificates ........................................................................................... 13
Prospective employees’ past wages or salary .............................................................................. 13
Retaliation for discussing wages ................................................................................................... 14
Bill title .......................................................................................................................................... 15
DETAILED ANALYSIS
Public employer pay equity
The bill requires every Ohio public employer (a state agency or a political subdivision) to
establish equitable compensation relationships between female-dominated, male-dominated,
and balanced classes to eliminate sex-based wage disparities, subject to the Public Employees’
Collective Bargaining Law (PECBL) and the Prevailing Wage Law (see COMMENT 1). An
“equitable compensation relationship” means that the compensation for female-dominated
classes (any class in which 70% or more of the members are female) is not consistently below
the compensation for male-dominated classes (any class in which 80% or more of the members
are male) of comparable work value. A public employer must make the comparable work value
of a position in relationship to other positions a primary consideration in negotiating,
establishing, recommending, and approving compensation. “Comparable work value” means
the value of work measured by skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions normally
required in the performance of the work.1
Reasonable compensation relationships
The Director of Administrative Services (DAS Director), when establishing a job
classification plan and assigning pay ranges, and any other public employer with the authority
to determine employee compensation, must assure all of the following, as applicable:
 That compensation for positions in the classified civil service and unclassified civil
service bear reasonable relationship to one another;
1 R.C. 142.02 and 142.01.
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 That compensation for positions bears a reasonable relationship to similar positions
outside of that particular employer;
 That compensation for positions within the employer’s workforce bears a reasonable
relationship among classes and among levels within the same occupation group.
A public employer also must assure that the provisions described above occur in
preparation for negotiating a collective bargaining agreement, if applicable. Under the bill,
compensation for a position bears a “reasonable relationship” to another position if both of the
following are satisfied:
 Positions requiring comparable skill, effort, responsibility, working conditions, and other
factors have comparable compensation;
 Positions with differing skill, effort, responsibility, working conditions, and other work-
related criteria have compensation that is proportional to the skill, effort, responsibility,
working conditions, and other relevant work-related criteria required.2
Job evaluation system
Every public employer must establish a job evaluation system to determine the
comparable work value of the work performed by each class of the public employer’s
employees. The public employer must meet and confer with the employees’ exclusive
representative (union) on the development or selection of a job evaluation system. A public
employer may adopt a system already established by another public employer. A public
employer must update the public employer’s system to account for new employee classes and
changes in factors affecting the comparable work value of existing classes. The public employer
must notify the Director of Budget and Management (OBM Director) if the public employer
substantially modifies an existing system or adopts a new job evaluation system.
Every public employer must submit a report on the results of the job evaluation system
to the exclusive representative of the employer’s employees to be used by both parties in
negotiations for collective bargaining agreements. The report must contain information on
(1) the female-dominated classes for which compensation inequity exists, based on the
comparable work value, and (2) all data not on individuals used to support the finding in
(1) immediately above.3
Public employer implementation reports
Every three years a public employer must submit an implementation report to the OBM
Director. The report must contain the following information as of December 31 of the
preceding year:
 A list of all of the public employer’s job classes;
2 R.C. 142.03 and 4117.08(D).
3 R.C. 142.04 and 142.05.
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 The number of employees in each class and the number of female employees in each
class;
 An identification of each class as male-dominated, female-dominated, or balanced;
 The comparable work value of each class as determined by the job evaluation system
used by the public employer;
 The minimum and maximum salary for each class, if salary ranges have been
established, and the amount of time in employment required to qualify for the
maximum salary;
 Any additional cash compensation paid to class members;
 Any additional information requested by the OBM Director.
The OBM Director must adopt rules in accordance with the Administrative Procedure
Act to establish a schedule to stagger the submission of the implementation reports. The first
set of reports is due to the OBM Director by January 31 immediately following the bill’s
effective date.
The bill exempts rules adopted by the OBM Director establishing the report submission
schedule from continuing law requirements concerning reductions in regulatory restrictions.
Currently, the OBM Director must take actions to reduce regulatory restrictions, including, by
June 30, 2025, reducing the amount of regulatory restrictions contained in an inventory created
in 2019 in accordance with a statutory schedule. A “regulatory restriction” is any part of an
administrative rule that requires or prohibits an action.
Without that exemption, the OBM Director must do all of the following with respect to
any regulatory restrictions contained in rules adopted under the bill:
 Until June 30, 2025, and for so long as the OBM Director fails to reach the reductions
required under the statutory schedule, remove two or more existing regulatory
restrictions for each new restriction adopted (referred to as the “two-for-one rule”);
 Refrain from adopting a regulatory restriction when doing so would negate a previous
reduction;
 Beginning July 1, 2025, refrain from adopting a regulatory restriction when doing so
would cause the total number of regulatory restrictions in effect to exceed a statewide
cap calculated by the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review.4
Review of implementation reports and notification of compliance
The OBM Director must review all implementation reports the OBM Director receives to
determine whether a public employer has established equitable compensation relationships as
required by the bill. The OBM Director must notify a public employer in writing if the employer
4 R.C. 142.06(A), by reference to R.C. 121.95 to 121.953, not in the bill.
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is in compliance with those requirements. If an employer is not in compliance, the OBM
Director must issue a written statement to the employer that includes a detailed description of
the basis for the noncompliance finding, specific recommended actions the public employer
must take to comply with those requirements, and an estimate of the cost for the public
employer to comply.
A public employer who disagrees with a finding of noncompliance must notify the OBM
Director in writing. The OBM Director must provide the employer a specified time period to
submit additional evidence to support the employer’s claim that the employer is in compliance.
That evidence may include any of the following:
 Recruitment or retention difficulties;
 Recent conciliation awards made under the PECBL that are inconsistent with equitable
compensation relationships under the bill;
 Information that demonstrates that the employer made a good faith effort to comply
with the bill, including constraints faced by the employer;
 A plan for the employer to comply with the bill’s equitable compensation relationship
requirements.
The public employer must specify a date for additional review by the OBM Director when
submitting the required evidence.5
Penalties
A state agency that fails to submit an implementation report to the OBM Director or
that does not make changes to comply with the bill’s equitable compensation relationship
requirements within a reasonable period established by the Director is subject to a fine of $100
for each day the agency is noncompliant. The penalty remains in effect until the agency can
demonstrate that it is in compliance with the bill’s requirements. The Director may suspend a
penalty for any of the following reasons:
 The state agency’s failure to comply was attributable to circumstances beyond its
control;
 The failure to comply was attributable to the state agency’s severe hardship;
 The noncompliance is due to factors other than the sex of the members of the affected
classes, and the state agency is taking steps to comply with the bill to the extent
possible.
An ag