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

COLUMBUS – State Rep. Beryl Brown Piccolantonio (D-Gahanna) Wednesday 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 – all while shoveling billions to the wealthy and well-connected. 

”Budgets are a reflection of choices we make about values and priorities. The majority has chosen to put forth a budget that is unprincipled, undemocratic, and unacceptable. Instead of investing in families, children, our oldest Ohioans, education, healthcare, childhood cancer research (the list goes on); the majority has chosen tax cuts for the wealthy and a plan to take money which is rightly owned by Ohioans out of our pockets to fund a new stadium. Instead of investing in our future, this budget deprives people and communities of the resources they need to thrive.  

This budget will hurt Ohio’s students by putting our system of public education at risk of not being able to withstand the lack of investment, resources, and pressure from the legislature. The fair school funding plan relies on accurate and timely information about the true cost of educating a student in 2025 and beyond. The partial implementation of the Fair School Funding Plan is unfair and shortchanges our local school districts. The 40% carryover balance will further strain district budgets and make it more difficult for them to plan for the future and school levy provisions will make it yet harder for them to fill in the gaps left by the state. At the same time, this budget commits further to a second, unconstitutional system of nonpublic education by funding Educational Savings Accounts, providing millions of dollars to unaccountable non-chartered schools. In higher education, it doubles down on the destructive provisions of Senate Bill 1.

This budget does not reflect my priorities nor the priorities of my constituents in House District 4. Instead, it is a partisan wish list that will set our state backwards. This budget fails Ohioans of all ages, in all communities, and of all backgrounds,” said Rep. Brown Piccolantonio.  

Budgets are about choices, and Statehouse Republicans chose to invest in billionaires and corporations 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 chooses the wrong Ohioans in so many ways: 

• An Income Tax Scam for the Ultra-Wealthy: Republicans call it a “flat tax” but it’s really a fat tax cut only for the wealthiest few. Four out of every five Ohioans will see $5 or less under the bill, while someone making $1M gets a $7K tax break. The choice to include this flat tax will cost the state $1.67B over the next two years. Cutting taxes only for the wealthiest isn’t going to solve the real problems facing Ohioans. It’s not going to make childcare cheaper; it's not going to make the cost of rent or healthcare go down, and it's definitely not going to lower rising property taxes.
• Gutting 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Cuts to Clean Water Programs: Cuts $170M (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.
• 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.
• Overriding the Will of the Voters on Cannabis Funding: Voters overwhelmingly passed Issue 2 and were clear about how they wanted their tax dollars spent. This budget overrides the 57% of Ohioans who made those choices, and instead chooses to redirect most of the tax dollars to a budget that subsidizes billionaire stadiums. 
• Making Our State More Hostile for LGBTQIA+ Ohioans: This budget ostracizes the LGBTQIA+ community and pushes a harmful political narrative. It forces libraries to hide books about LGBTQIA+ people and blocks funding for shelters that affirm transgender youth. We know that a significant portion of homeless youth identify as LGBTQIA+, and codifying these kinds of heartless policies in our budget is unnecessary and harmful to Ohio. 
   
• Putting the State’s Credit on the Line for Billionaire Browns’ Owners: The budget still includes the state fronting $600M by seizing unclaimed funds from Ohio residents for a new Cleveland Browns stadium in a suburb of Cleveland, which would move the stadium from its downtown location, which is opposed by local leaders.  
   
• Eliminates millions of dollars in Mental Health Support for College Students: Campus supports like this matter the most to the students who have to overcome other barriers to go to college. Programs like this provide crucial lifelines to students. They keep at-risk students from dropping out when they run into tough times – and that’s important, because we know the most expensive college degree is the one you don’t complete. The Budget also makes drastic cuts to the Changing Campus Culture program, which has been helping our colleges and universities take an aggressive approach to preventing and responding to sexual violence on campus. 
   
• Eliminates the Campus Community Grant Program: this program was created by the CAMPUS Act, which provided funding to institutionally sanctioned student organizations to support intergroup and interfaith outreach and cultural competency between student organizations.
   

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.