Before I get into the details of our budget, I want to say THANK YOU! So many advocates took the time to come to the Statehouse, make phone calls, write letters, send emails, and engage their communities in conversations about the importance of the Ohio budget.

It is clear that our grassroots advocacy made a difference in this budget, so THANK YOU!

However, while we had some very positive wins in this budget (school meal expansion) lets be clear - this budget favors the wealthy and well-connected. We fought like hell to get $8 million for a small school meal expansion while we are spending $2 billion on school voucher expansion for millionaires. While we are spending a few more million on food banks, we are cutting large corporation taxes by $700 million over the next two years.

I encourage us all to celebrate our victories, but remember that the overall direction of this budget is still taking Ohio down a path of fewer resources, less investment, and a lack of commitment to solve Ohio’s most pressing needs.

What Brought us Here:

The State budget must be passed every 2 years, and it sets the direction for the state for the next two. The Governor introduced his proposal on January 31st and then the Ohio House began its review. They produced a new proposal in late April in a bi-partisan vote, sending that to the State senate. The Senate passed their proposal in mid June along party lines. The last two weeks of June saw a House Senate Conference Committee work through hundreds of issues between the three budgets.

As hunger advocates, each of these issues below relate to the root causes of hunger. (For example, affordable higher education equips people with more learning capacity and less debt).

Public Education:

School takeover by the Governor: The Conference Committee adopted language that will shift the authority of our public schools away from the State School board to a political appointee by the Governor.
Fair School Funding Plan: The FSFP continues to be slowly implemented. In four more years, it should be fully in place and properly funded! (And then we can really see how it works and begin to adjust as needed). We are excited to see that they updated the ‘inputs’ into formula to reflect current expenses compared to 2018 levels. This was an additional nearly $1.1 billion dollars for K-12 education over the next two years.

Higher Education:

State Share of Instruction (SSI) only saw a 1.1% increase over current funding levels - well below inflation. SSI is the funding source that helps to establish tuition rates at Ohio’s public colleges and universities. Over the past generation, the state has cut SSI, flat funded it, or kept it well-below inflationary levels. This leads colleges and universities in a position where tuition increases are inevitable.
“Higher Ed Destruction Act”: The Conference Committee did remove extremely problematic language that would have broken higher education labor unions, banned free thought and discourse among students and faculty, while also forcing ideological think-tanks into our universities.

Direct-Hunger Related Issues:

School Meals: The Conference committee adopted the House proposal to expand free meals to all students who currently are paying a reduced price for their meal. This will reduce bureaucracy and school meal debt. However, it still leaves many children without food. A good step, but only a step.
Food banks: The Ohio Association of Food banks in January said they need to increase their funding to $50 million a year. The House proposed $40 million, the Senate up to $25 million. The final result was a guaranteed $32.05 million a year.
SNAP PHOTO ID: Three General Assemblies in a row, we have been threatened with this harmful provision and it was removed by the conference committee.
Bans on SNAP waivers: The Senate proposed tying Ohio’s hands in requesting federal waivers from bureaucracy when communities were dealing with high unemployment. That was removed by the conference committee.

Healthcare:

Doula services The Conference Committee restored policy changes to cover doula services under medicaid. The Governor vetoed a provision that would have limited this to a five year expansion pilot project.
Medicaid Work Requirements: New policies will expand work requirements for household on Medicaid.
Healthy Beginnings at Home Program: Reduces funding from the House ($15million ) to only $2.5 million
Medicaid til 19: Removed a provision supported by the House that would have expanded medicaid to pregnant women and children until they were 19 who earn less than 300% of the federal poverty level. (About $59,000 a year for a mother and child).
Medicaid coverage for newborns: Allows continuous medicaid eligibility for kids and mothers until the child is 3. About 40% of all births in Ohio are covered by medicaid.

Childcare:

Some extra funding: Increases the childcare infrastructure amount by $7.5 million a year (House passed amount).
Removes expansion of eligibility: The House and Governor proposed expanding publicly funded childcare to 160% of the federal poverty level. This would have expanded eligibility for 15,000 children and cost about $200 million over the two years. The conference committee set the level of eligibility at 145% of the federal poverty level. (Current law is 143%).

Housing:

OHFA: The Senate wanted to gut the Ohio Housing Finance Authority’s ability to guide our states housing and homeless service investments. This highly problematic language was removed.
Development tax credits: $150 million ($100million for multi-family housing, $50 million for single family housing) in tax credits were authorized for developers. This is far less than the Governor and House proposed and will likely help support 3,500-4,000 new rental units coming onto the market. Advocates for this proposal call it a ‘down payment’ on the lack of affordable housing in Ohio.

Vouchers:

Universal vouchers: Creates a universal voucher program in Ohio. (families will receive a full voucher for private school if they earn 450% of FPL or less (135,000 for a family of 4). This will cost the state about $2 billion over the next two years.

Tax Cuts:

Commercial Activity Tax: This is Ohio’s primary business tax and the new cut will cost Ohio $700 million. Small businesses (revenues less than $150,000) pay no CAT already. Medium size businesses (less than $1million) only pay a flat fee of $150 a year. The vast majority of this cut will go to businesses making more than $500 million a year.
Rate Reductions: This will be the 11th time Ohio cuts income tax rates since 2005. Yet, Ohio’s economy continues to underperform the nation and we are already down about $8 billion in revenue (primarily taken from social services, schools, and higher education). These tax cuts leave social services under resourced, our schools without enough teachers, and our parks struggling to maintain our natural beauty. This proposed tax cut is by far one of the largest in recent memory and costs more than $1 billion a year in lost revenue and primarily go to the wealthy.
The Tax Cliff: Because of a lack of understanding in drafting tax policy over these repeated tax cuts, the General Assembly created a tax cliff a few years back. If a person has $26,050 of taxable income, they pay no state income tax, but if they earn $26,051 they owe $360.69. This is NOT how a tax system should work. The budget will authorize the state to end this initial tax cliff payment for all taxpayers beginning in 2025. However it is likely that this tax penalty on low income earners will not be fully addressed, because it is contingent on surplus revenue being available. After the other massive tax cuts, it is unlikely.

State Workforce:

Work from home: Senate added language that would have required state employees to work 4 out of 5 days in the office was removed by the conference committee.