Rep. Lett: GOP Budget Chooses the Wealthiest Few Over Ohio's Kids, Seniors, and Working Families

COLUMBUS – State Rep. Crystal Lett (D-Columbus) today voted “NO” on House Bill (HB) 96, the Republican-crafted state operating budget, citing cruel and chaotic cuts and its abject failure to invest in children, public education, healthcare, and basic services.

“As a legislature, it is our responsibility to provide Ohioans with a budget that empowers them. However, this budget does quite the opposite. I voted ‘no’ on House Bill 96 because I refuse to insult my constituents with a ‘yes’ vote. This is not the best we could do. In fact, the State has the capacity to fund childhood education initiatives, workforce development, meaningful property tax relief, and more affordable childcare. To claim that backlash to HB 96 is a simple difference of opinion, or to rely on the notion that ‘no budget is perfect’ is a bleak excuse for underfunding our schools, libraries, and the services Ohioans depend on most,” said Rep. Lett.  

Budgets are about choices, and Statehouse Republicans chose to prioritize private interests instead of making life more affordable for everyday Ohioans. HB 96 protects a broken status quo—leaving local communities, property taxpayers, and families to shoulder the burden alone. Ohio deserves a budget that lifts people up, not one that leaves them behind. 

This budget hurts Ohioans in so many ways: 

• Endangering Public Schools: For decades, the state legislature has failed to uphold its share of responsibility to provide adequate state funding for public education. This budget continues to prioritize billions in vouchers for private schools over the investments we should be making in the public schools where 90% of students in the state go to school. The Fair School Funding Plan is a bipartisan, constitutional solution developed by education experts, and Ohio has the resources to fully and fairly fund it. Yet the statehouse republicans deliberately chose to ignore the evidence and continue to underfund our schools.
• Betraying Public Libraries: Eliminates the century-old commitment to consistent funding that has made Ohio’s libraries among the best in the nation and reduces state support compared to current law. In every future budget, library funding will be at the whim of a legislature that we have seen is hostile to the free flow of information.
• Forcing Schools to Put More Property Tax Levies on the Ballot: This budget passes the buck on property tax relief by trying to raid savings accounts that school districts have diligently invested in, instead of the state stepping up to provide the relief. This will only force more schools to put levies on the ballot more often to stay open, so either your taxes will keep going up or your schools will be closing because the state is failing to act.
• Fewer Childcare Slots to Support Working Ohioans: Families need childcare so parents can work, and kids can receive quality early education, but we continue to lag behind the rest of the country when it comes to access and affordability of childcare. This is a question of who we are prioritizing, and the budget is making the wrong choice when it comes to helping families afford childcare.
• Attacks on Collective Bargaining and Organized Labor:  Prohibits workers from negotiating about their working location assignments both in an education setting and as a state employee. Conversations around work reporting locations are critical so that employees can effectively perform their job duties without wasted time and costs, better serving the people of Ohio and the students in our schools.
• Jeopardizing Healthcare Access: Almost 800K Ohioans will be at risk of immediately losing their health insurance and all Ohioans will see hospitals and providers in their communities at risk of closing. For years, Republicans have targeted Medicaid expansion. Now they're using a draconian and unnecessary trigger law to strip healthcare coverage from hundreds of thousands of Ohioans if the federal government lowers its contribution by even a single dollar.
• Cuts to Clean Water Programs: Cuts $105M (nearly 45% of funding) from H2Ohio which is a successful program to clean up our waterways, address algal blooms and protect our drinking water. H2Ohio also supports local communities to make critical water infrastructure upgrades to protect against lead and PFAS contamination. Recent polling shows that 75% of Ohioans support programs funded by H2Ohio, yet Republicans are using this budget process to cut popular and widely-supported Ohio programs that protect the health and wellbeing of our people and our water sources. 

 HB 96 passed the Ohio House of Representatives by a vote of 59-38 Wednesday. It now heads to Governor DeWine for signature. While the Governor may mitigate some harm through a line-item veto, this budget remains one of the most immoral in Ohio history. This is the first budget to pass without a single Democratic vote in more than a decade.