Ohio Law Muddling Transparency Must Be Fixed
Published on 08 May 2026
Below is an Opinion Editorial column written by Michael Stinziano, Franklin County Auditor. It was first published in The Columbus Dispatch on April 30, 2026.
Across Ohio, residents and lawmakers are asking serious questions about data centers.
How much power will they use? How much water will they require? How much will they cost local communities? How many permanent jobs will they create? And when public incentives are offered to support these projects, how can taxpayers know whether the deal is worth it?
Those are fair questions. They deserve clear answers.
At the same time, there has been growing bipartisan interest in bringing more transparency to JobsOhio, the state’s private economic development organization. Lawmakers have raised concerns that when public resources are involved in economic development, Ohioans deserve stronger oversight and more public accountability.
That makes what happened in House Bill 184 (2025) even more troubling.
In a bill described publicly as a “Christmas Tree” budget correction, the General Assembly added a little-noticed change to Ohio Revised Code Section 9.66. The change took effect March 20 and makes a broad range of economic development information confidential and not a public record.
This isn’t a small change. It’s a major shift.
The new law applies to information submitted to counties, municipalities, townships, port authorities and Tax Incentive Review Councils (TIRCs) regarding economic development assistance. In practice, that could include tax incentive applications, project details, financial information, draft agreements, compliance materials and other records that help the public understand how incentives are being used.
Ohio should be moving toward more transparency in economic development, not less.
When public resources are used to support private development, residents deserve to know what was promised, what was approved and whether those promises are kept. That is especially true at a time when communities are debating large, high-impact projects and asking whether public incentives are producing enough public benefit.
Instead, this new law creates confusion, uncertainty and risk.
The language is so broad that local officials and public employees may not know what can be shared, when it can be shared or what consequences they could face for getting it wrong. The statute says that “under no circumstance,” may certain nonpublic information be disclosed.
So where does that leave public officials trying to do their jobs?
As Franklin County Auditor, I am required by State Law to chair Franklin County’s Tax Incentive Review Councils. These councils annually review the use and effectiveness of tax incentives offered by municipalities.
When I first ran for this office, I ran on transparency. Since taking office, our team has worked to make complicated public information easier to find, understand and use. In 2020, we began issuing an annual TIRC report analyzing tax incentive use across Franklin County. We also created the Tax Incentive Hub, an interactive, one-stop resource on the Auditor’s website that allows residents, journalists, policymakers and businesses to better understand tax incentives in use across the county.
The goal was simple: bring information into the open.
Now, those efforts are in jeopardy.
Can our office continue publishing the same level of detail in our annual TIRC report? Can the Tax Incentive Hub we created when I took office exist? Can a public employee answer a resident’s question about an incentive application without risking a first-degree misdemeanor?
The answer right now is unclear. And that is a massive problem.
Public officials should not have to choose between serving the public and guessing whether transparency has become a misdemeanor. Residents should not have to wonder whether information about public incentives is being withheld because of a legitimate business concern or because the law now casts too wide a shadow.
This is not about opposing economic development. Responsible growth can strengthen communities, create jobs and expand the tax base. But economic development must be accountable to the public.
There are reasonable ways to protect truly confidential business information. But a sweeping confidentiality rule for “any” information tied to economic development assistance goes too far. It risks hiding basic information about public decisions from the people those decisions affect.
The General Assembly needs to act quickly to correct this blunder.
Ohio law should protect legitimate confidential information without shielding public decisions from public review. Lawmakers should clarify what information must remain public, when disclosure is required and how local officials can safely comply with the law.
At a time when Ohioans are demanding more accountability in economic development, the state should not be making it harder for the public to see how decisions are made.
Ohioans deserve economic development that is transparent, accountable and worthy of public trust.