Saturday Stats

Subscribe to get the newsletter in your inbox.

$645M: New state funding that would be required from Ohio to maintain food assistance for families if the budget passed by the U.S. House of Representatives is enacted as-is. And that’s just to cover SNAP. The House also wants to make the largest Medicaid cuts in history, taking healthcare away from 400,000 Ohioans and shifting even more costs onto the state. This Tuesday, we’re hosting a town hall to share info and answer questions about the attacks on Medicaid in particular, and what you can to do stand against cuts to services Ohioans depend on.

79%: Share of Ohio school districts with cash reserves over the 30% cap proposed in the Ohio House’s version of the state budget, as a misguided and ineffective stab at property tax relief. As Bailey Williams points out in his recent brief, there are a lot of good reasons for districts to carry a balance above that amount — and no connection between districts’ reserves and the property tax rates in the area. A smarter, more effective, better targeted policy is the property tax Circuit Breaker proposed in the bipartisan S.B. 22, which will be familiar to anyone who has been following our work on the issue.

230: Number of current and former Ohio school board members who have signed on to the All in For Ohio Kids (AOK) letter demanding the General Assembly fully implement and update the Fair School Funding Plan (FSFP). Theirs are just the latest voices calling on state legislators to step up for Ohio’s public-school kids, families, and communities. School boards across the state have also taken up the fight by passing resolutions to support the FSFP. If you haven’t already, please take a moment to tell your legislators to protect education for all our kids, and spread the word by sharing our research.

57%: Share of Ohio voters who supported legalizing recreational use of cannabis by people over 18, and required the use of “sin tax” revenue generated by the sale of recreational cannabis to support dispensaries’ communities, the social equity and jobs fund, and mental health and addiction services. The ballot measure they voted for — 2023’s Issue 2 — bypassed a do-nothing legislature to enact the will of the voters. But state legislators are now attempting to undermine the law and take away crucial elements of the people’s policy victory. In their first brief for Policy Matters, Ashley Braxton explains how Ohioans can prevent officials in Columbus from tampering with citizen-initiated legislation in the future.

2 in 5: Number of college students who reported having experienced food insecurity within the previous 30 days in Temple University’s 2023-24 Student Basic Needs Survey. Public policy can fix the problem of food insecurity on campus; House Bill 157 would help. Last week, Policy Matters provided written testimony in support of the bill, which would create the Hunger-Free Campus Grant Program and award grants to implement services like on-campus food pantries, food bank partnerships and emergency assistance for students. With so many terrible bills moving through the legislature, it’s encouraging to see a bipartisan effort to do the kind of work we elect people to do.

$1B: Annual cost of the LLC loophole — an especially wasteful piece of tax policy we’ve long advocated against. S.B. 190, titled “A Good Deal for Ohio Act,” would tighten the loophole, and modernize the state tax code in other ways as well, generating critical public resources for Ohio communities. The bill would close tax loopholes for big tech data centers and pharmaceutical companies, create a refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, increase funding for local governments and public libraries, help more Ohioans secure housing and more kids get healthy meals at school. Get more details here.

PMO History: Medicaid provides healthcare to more than 3.2 million Ohioans, including more than 700,000 through Medicaid expansion. Policy Matters provided research support and advocacy as part of a large coalition of business and human service advocates who worked closely with then-governor Kasich to bring Medicaid expansion to Ohio in early 2014. In its first two years, Medicaid expansion brought over $2.5 billion in federal funding to Ohio. Within the first year, it extended health insurance coverage to 366,000 low-income working Ohioans. Since that time, Policy Matters has demonstrated the benefits of Medicaid expansion, and has provided research to fend off threats time and again: in 2017 and 2018 when Congress tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, in subsequent state budget fights when legislators tried to erect new barriers to care, and right now, as federal cuts, spending caps, and work requirements threaten to strip health coverage from Ohioans. That’s why we’re holding a virtual town hall this coming Tuesday to protect Medicaid!

Watchlist

• H.B. 157 would allocate money to address student hunger on college campuses.
• S.B. 190 would modernize our tax code to put vital public resources into Ohio communities.Titled “A Good Deal for Ohio Act,” the legislation takes important steps to ensure that corporations of all types pay their fair share in state taxes.
• S.B. 22 would create a property tax circuit breaker like the one we proposed and have been advocating for. It would provide property tax relief to those who need it while preserving funding that schools and local governments rely on.

Action Items

• Register for our Protect Medicaid Town Hall, happening this Tuesday, June 3, at 7 PM on Zoom.
• Join the letter-writing campaign by Building Freedom Ohio to support H.B. 29, which would ensure all correctional facilities provide adequate feminine hygiene products free of charge.
• Tell your state legislators to protect public education for all our kids!
• Add your name to the call for a People’s Budget, and let our leaders know what we demand from them.
• Demand legislators protect federal investments in clean energy that expand access to clean, affordable electricity for Ohio’s working families.
• Follow r/OhioBudget to keep up with all the latest state budget news.
• Follow the Ohio Medicaid Matters coalition on Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter. You can also share how Medicaid has made a difference in your life.