The Ohio Treasurer’s office announced three proposed investment reforms to assist colleges and universities, hospitals and agriculture businesses when borrowing money.

Called Ohio Gains, the program seeks to invest more of the state’s tax dollars in Ohio, create costs savings for Ohio-based businesses and institutions, and build a strong financial foundation, said Treasurer Robert Sprague.

“The Ohio Gains initiative is an opportunity to be bold and implement new and innovative strategies to secure a more prosperous future for the Buckeye State,” Sprague said.

The proposals would “create significant cost-savings opportunities for our homegrown businesses and institutions,” he said.

Legislation including the three proposed reforms will be introduced shortly in the state House and Senate by four Republicans, including state Sen. Michael Rulli, R-Salem, who represents all of Mahoning and Columbiana counties.

Sprague and Rulli will join Youngstown State University President Jim Tressel and others Tuesday at YSU to further discuss the proposals.

“Putting Ohio’s tax dollars to work in Ohio is something we can all agree on,” Rulli said. “By partnering with Treasurer Sprague, we can employ new financial strategies that go the extra mile to support our farmers, hospitals and universities.”

The three-point proposal, Sprague said, would reduce costs for:

• Ohio’s public universities by allowing them to leverage their State Share of Instruction, an allocation formula based on student outcome, when issuing debt to the state treasury.

By doing that, it enhances a university’s credit rating, which provides savings.

• Hospitals by permitting the state treasury to become the agency purchasing debt if a hospital cannot find investors when it finances capital projects through a Variable Rate Demand Obligation, a borrowing tool used by large institutions.

This will allow hospitals to lower their overall borrowing costs.

• Agriculture businesses by eliminating the cap of $150,000 a year on loans through the state’s Agricultural Linked Deposit program (Ag-Link). Ag-Link provides operating costs by providing interest rate reductions on loans for the agriculture business.

The cap deters many from participating in the program, Sprague said.

Also, agricultural co-ops would be eligible borrowers under this program.