[TRANSCRIPT]
0:00:00 - (Doug Jenkins): Coming up next on chamber amplified.
0:00:02 - (Robert Sprague): And it was at a roundtable here in northwest Ohio where one of the farmers said to me, hey, Robert, we buy everything through cooperatives. Now, are the cooperatives eligible for your ag link program? I said, no. So we modified it. And then some of the agribusinesses that also, are you hugely involved with the production and farm production? They wanted to qualify as well, so we actually opened it up.
0:00:29 - (Doug Jenkins): Welcome to the show. I'm Doug Jenkins from the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. On each episode of Chamber amplified, we're examining issues impacting the local business community. Whether it's employee recruitment and retention, marketing it issues. It's really anything that could be impacting your business. Or we'll talk about programs like we do today that can help you with.
0:00:49 - (C): Things like home savings or agriculture savings. We'll get into that in a second.
0:00:53 - (Doug Jenkins): Our goal is to give our members tips each week on at least one way they can improve operations and thrive in the current business environment. So today on the podcast, we are talking about access to capital, both for people looking to buy a home in Ohio and for area farmers who need to buy things like new equipment, among other things. Ohio treasurer Robert Sprague joins us to talk about the Ohio Homebuyer plus program as well as the Ag Link program.
0:01:17 - (Doug Jenkins): Both of them give Ohio residents the opportunity to cut costs on major investments.
0:01:21 - (C): So if you're working in an ag related field or maybe you're looking to.
0:01:24 - (Doug Jenkins): Buy a home or even both, I suppose there's a lot of good information today about how you can move forward in both of those areas. By the way, there's a weird click.
0:01:32 - (C): At time at sometimes in the podcast. I think for some reason I was.
0:01:35 - (Doug Jenkins): Tapping on my desk while I was talking to treasure Sprague. Really not sure why. I don't know.
0:01:40 - (C): It's Friday afternoon as I record this, and maybe I'm a little bit more animated.
0:01:44 - (Doug Jenkins): Who knows? Anyway, when you hear that, that's what's going on there. Thanks again for tuning in. Remember, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you can rate and review the show. It really does help spread the word. Now let's get into it.
0:01:57 - (C): Well, interestingly enough, we just ran each into each other at ribbon cutting about.
0:02:02 - (Doug Jenkins): The Ohio home buyer plus program out.
0:02:04 - (C): At Hancock Federal Credit Union just a little bit ago as we record this. So let's start there. I think what we want to do today is just kind of focus different programs that are available. This is a really cool program.
0:02:15 - (Doug Jenkins): We talk about housing a lot, how.
0:02:17 - (C): It'S a big need in Hancock county, and this is a way to provide people access and more power when it comes to buying a home.
0:02:25 - (Robert Sprague): Exactly right. Let me just frame the problem for our listeners. And this is probably not foreign to anybody, but look, I mean, it's tough to find a house to buy, right? The inventory is low, housing prices are high. And then add to that the increase in the interest rates, you know, so it becomes difficult to afford, plus the inflation and the construction costs and then general inflation in all of our, you, daily lives. And so families are struggling to be able to afford a house, to be able to buy a house.
0:02:56 - (Robert Sprague): And in talking with the realtors, I remember running into one, he said, Robert, he said, the number one reason that I see people not being able to put an offer in on a house is that they don't have the down payment right now, and the financial institutions want to see a down payment. And so we said, well, we could craft something in the treasure's office, tell people, save for that down payment. But what would be even better is if we worked with our financial institutions and did something in conjunction with them to help people save.
0:03:31 - (Robert Sprague): And what came out was the Ohio homebuyer plus savings account.
0:03:37 - (C): Well, I like the messaging there is that save for that down payment. That's, I mean, everybody can say that, but to give people a little extra power and incentive to do that is really what makes this program go. Uh, let's talk about the incentive for using the program and why it's going to be so helpful.
0:03:57 - (Robert Sprague): Well, so what you do is you go into one of these local financial institutions, like Hancock Federal credit Union, that we were just at, and doing the ribbon cutting, and you open up the savings account. The qualifications are very simple. You got to be over the age of 18, a resident of the state of Ohio, and then you have to use the money as either a down payment or for the closing costs on your primary residence here in the state of Ohio.
0:04:24 - (Robert Sprague): So, simple concept. You could put as little as $100 into one of these savings accounts, or as much as $100,000 into one of these savings accounts, and you get the 4%, or whatever it is, the interest from the financial institution, plus you get an additional 2.65% from the treasurer's office. We actually do some financial plumbing with the financial institution and put a deposit there at that financial institution.
0:04:51 - (Robert Sprague): And then on top of that, you get an income income tax deduction. And so you add all that together, and it probably is the best investment that you could make right now in the state of Ohio is opening up.
0:05:04 - (C): One of these accounts with those. Yeah. Those types of interest rates for a savings account are practically unheard of. Obviously, this is, but the thing that's nice about this is it kind of snowballs because you're using this to then put into what is your greatest investment, and that is your home. I mean, that's, we've seen all of the studies that say, know, a great path to prosperity and to financial stability is just that, home ownership. So this is a really good path to that.
0:05:30 - (Robert Sprague): It's one of the best investments you can make in yourself. And the other thing is it's a great investment into Ohio communities. And we were there at Hancock Federal Credit Union and we got to meet Austin and Rachel, who had a, had a little girl on their hip. And in addition, they have one on the way. And they were the first ones to open up an Ohio homeuyer plus savings account. And I asked them, I said, well, you know, are you thinking about home ownership? And they said, oh, absolutely.
0:05:58 - (Robert Sprague): Within the next two years, we absolutely want to own our own home. And, you know, that's, that's the american dream is being able to afford to be able to buy a house. And we're being able to help, you know, we're able to help them do that. And let me tell you, you know, sometimes you create these government programs and they kind of miss the mark. But I was talking with Walt Davis, our director of trust, and I went by him in the hallway and I, this was like two weeks after we launched this in January.
0:06:26 - (Robert Sprague): And I said, wal, they said, how are we doing on the, on the homebuyer plus? He said, oh, we're doing pretty well, sir. We got 50 so far. And I said, that's pretty good for two weeks. He said, oh, no, sir. He said, we have 50 today. Just today. I said, well, wow, how many do we have so far? He said, well, you said, we have 250 total. And so that was phenomenal. For just the first two weeks, we now have over 4000 accounts. And it's just been a couple months into the program and we think that by the end of the week, here will be over 5000 accounts.
0:06:58 - (Robert Sprague): So you can just tell that the people are thirsty for a vehicle for which to save on, on buying a house.
0:07:08 - (C): I like the safeguard that's built into you talk, you know, programs can miss the mark, but I feel like one of the safeguards for that is that it's for your primary residence. So this isn't for an investment property. This isn't, if you want a second home or anything like that, this is where you're going to live. So it is really an investment in families, it's an investment in communities. This way.
0:07:28 - (Robert Sprague): It is. I got to mention something else, because I went to the realordors and I said, look, this is not for first time homeuers. So many of the other programs around the country that are like, for first time homeuers or certain income levels, this is for anybody. And you don't have to be a first time home buyer. So you could be somebody that you're empty nesters and you want to downgrade from a big single family home to a condo.
0:07:51 - (Robert Sprague): And this program will help you save for it. So there's a lot of application. We made it wide open. I think that's why it's so easy to use and easy to sign up for. You just go to the website or www dot Ohio treasurer Dot Gov and you can find on our splash page and open up one of these accounts. It's very easy.
0:08:10 - (C): I found it in one quick Google search that was very easy to find. So, and we should mention that several financial institutions across the state offering this. I know obviously, Hancock Federal Credit union is where we did the ribbon cutting today. But I think locally, I've heard from State bank as well as First national bank, I believe, who are also involved in the program. So you can go and you can kind of pick your financial institution that you want to work with, so.
0:08:35 - (Robert Sprague): Absolutely. And our community banks have been such great partners on this. And, I mean, they're really promoting it. They've got advertising, they've got materials out about it, because they want to try to help their customers and help their members. And so I think that's why it's being met with, with, with such great uptake.
0:08:54 - (C): So another program we wanted to talk about is the Ag Link program, which I feel like it's kind of in the same vein, because we know how important agriculture is in Hancock county. We know how important agriculture, agriculture is across the state. And being able to provide resources to farmers and to people who are running farms, which I suppose would just be farmers. I don't know why I said it that way anyway, being able to provide them resources like this.
0:09:20 - (C): Let's talk a little bit about what the Ag Link program is able to do.
0:09:24 - (Robert Sprague): Well, you know, it's funny you mentioned that, Doug. You said, well, just farmers. Well, actually, the Ag Link program that we have, we modified it recently to make it more applicable because a lot of our farmers came to, as a matter of fact, you know, you and I both go to these roundtables, right? You know, in Hancock county, they sit down farmers. And it was at a round table here in northwest Ohio where one of the farmers said to me, hey, Robert, we buy everything through cooperatives. Now, are the cooperatives eligible for your ag link program? I said, no.
0:09:53 - (Robert Sprague): So we modified it. And then some of the agribusinesses that also are hugely involved with the production and farm production, they wanted to qualify as well. So we actually opened it up two years ago. We went through, and we really modified the whole program, and we blew the caps skyward. And so now you can borrow up to a half a million dollars, and we're thinking of modifying that as well, you know, as need arises.
0:10:22 - (Robert Sprague): And then we've made it applicable to these other entities, and we made it available year round because a lot of our crop farmers would need a planting loan in January or February. And our livestock farmers came and talked to us, and they said, well, that's. That's great, but we really need access to capital year round, you know, whenever we, you know, finish the hogs. I I'm not. I'm a financial guy'm, a debit credit guy, so I'm gonna probably mess this up. But, you know, they need access to the money. You're around.
0:10:52 - (Robert Sprague): And so we made it. Hey, we're. We're gonna have access to this program year round. And let me tell you, it began to take off because we listened to our farmers, and we began to meet their need. And in 2022, we had a record breaking year. And then in 2023, we have an even larger year. Matter of fact, we had $14.1 million, a new record for the state treasurer's office in the Ag Link program. We had that much money saved for farmers around our state through this program.
0:11:24 - (Robert Sprague): A 600% increase in the collective savings for the farmers of the state of Ohio. And it just to describe for everybody that's listening, if you're interested in this program and you're an agribusiness or a cooperative or a farmer, what you do is you go into the local financial institution, qualify for the loan. All right? And then when you sign up for Ag Link, we will actually reduce the interest rate cost by 2.65% this quarter. This quarter, the interest rate reduction is 2.65%.
0:11:55 - (Robert Sprague): And if you're wondering how we do that, we actually put a deposit there at the financial institution, and then we allow some of that interest rate to accrue to essentially the farmer in the form of an interest rate reduction off of their loan from that financial institution. And we're never on the hook for the actual loan. So you got to go get it approved by the financial institution. You know, it's out of the treasurer's office hands. We're not assuming the risk for that. But it's just a great program.
0:12:25 - (Robert Sprague): It's been around in the treasurer's office for 40 years, if you can believe that. And I think it's particularly applicable today just because of all the inflation and all the increased costs that our farmers are facing.
0:12:38 - (C): Well, I think that's the thing of it, is that it is increased pod costs and there are inflationary pressures on it. But I mean, just the cost of U combine is compared to what it was 25 years ago when somebody bought their last combine. U is probably bought it even longer ago than that u then that help is needed for equipment like that. Not only that, people are putting up their own silos. There's just so many different implements that can be used on the farm that a lot of them if, if you bought it 2030 years ago, we know the, the farm spirit is to keep things going, but eventually they're going to have to be replaced and it's not cheap to do so.
0:13:18 - (Robert Sprague): Absolutely. And you know, farming has become an incredibly capital intensive business where, you know, the big farmers are farming, you know, 3000 acres or what have you, which boggles my mind. I can't even comprehend farming that much or having somebody that's able to do that big of a business, but it's extremely capital intensive. You mentioned the combines and the, you know, just. I mean the costs are tremendous in the use of the capital. And I can remember we, we were out at the Hancock s soil and Water district.
0:13:52 - (Robert Sprague): We're having a, one of these roundtables and one of the farmers said to me, he said not only are the capital costs intensive for the property plant equipment, he said the carrying costs are getting to be more. And I'm like, what do you mean by that? He said, well, I'll carry my, you know, my grain O harvested the soybeans or the corn, you know, that October or, you know, probably messing that up, but when, you know, in the fall.
0:14:18 - (Robert Sprague): And then he says sometimes we'll keep them for you said it used to be that we would sell them maybe in February, like we put them in silos and we'd sell them in February or March. He said, now I'm keeping itill August or next October. So he said, imagine I'm carrying all that cost right from a capital standpoint for my planting season, almost an extra year, which is, which is a lot, too. So my point here is that it's a capital intensive business.
0:14:46 - (Robert Sprague): We're providing a capital savings product, and that's why I think it's so applicable to our farmers and why they're signing up for it and why it's such a big help to them.
0:14:56 - (C): Well, it certainly helps stabilize farm incomes, which is great. That's certainly something that we want to do. But back to the equipment side of things. Not only is the equipment more expensive, but it is wildly, it helps farmers be wildly efficient with what they do, whether it's fertilizer application, whether it's where you put your seeds and the gps guided tractors, and just the different, the way the technology has evolved so that farmers can get the most per bushel.
0:15:25 - (C): If you don't have access to that type of equipment, it almost puts you behind the eight ball. So programs like this, I think, help bring all of the farmers to the table, or more farmers to the table when it comes to some of the equipment that can really increase their profits.
0:15:38 - (Robert Sprague): We want to do everything we can to help our farmers, and we think this agling program, which helps reduce the interest rate costs for planting loans, it should be a part of every farmer's portfolio.
0:15:51 - (C): So you can check that out at the state treasurer s website as well at tos dot ohio dot gov dot.
0:15:57 - (Doug Jenkins): It's all right there.
0:15:58 - (C): Again, I found it in one quick Google link, Google Sear search link. It was, it was pretty easy to find. If I found it, I have no doubt that our listeners will be able to find that as well. Robert, we really appreciate your time in doing this today and out of the ribbon cutting as well. Thank you for your time.
0:16:15 - (Robert Sprague): Thank you, Doug, for telling all of our community farmers and also those that are interested in buying a home about these great programs. And thank you for having me on your podcast.
0:16:30 - (Doug Jenkins): Thanks again to Treasurer Sprague for joining us on the podcast. We've got the link to the programs we were talking about in today's show notes. If you'd like to learn more about either program or any other services from the treasurer's office. Chamber Amplified is a free podcast for the community thanks to the investment of members from the Finay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. Because of our robust membership, we're able to focus on providing timely information to the Finay and Hancock county business community, run leadership programs for adults and teenagers, and be an advocate for the area, while also providing tools to help local businesses succeed.
0:17:02 - (Doug Jenkins): If that sounds like something you'd like to be a part of, let me know and we can talk about how an investment in the Chamber of Commerce not only helping strengthen the community, but your business as well. That'll do it for this week's episode. If you have any ideas for topics you'd like to hear covered on other episodes, send me an email djenkinsindlayhancockchamber.com dot remember, if you're listening on our website, you can have every episode of Chamber amplified delivered straight to your phone.
0:17:25 - (Doug Jenkins): Just search for Chamber amplified in your favorite podcast player. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time on Chamber amplified from the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce.