Marijuana advocates called bills to change Ohio’s weed laws “a slap in the face” to voters.
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws hosted a webinar last week about two bills that are trying to change Ohio’s marijuana laws.
“Whether one believes that cannabis ought to be legal or not is almost a secondary issue,” said NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano. “The primary issue ought to be that elections have consequences, and the results of elections should matter.”
“Ohio looks like it has been rolling along very smoothly, and implementation has been going well,” said NORML Political Director Morgan Fox. “There have been no major complaints from Ohioans, and it’s premature for the legislature to try to interfere with it.”
“It’s not as if this pushback is coming because there have been negative or adverse consequences of Issue Two being implemented,” Armentano said. “The law is working just fine, and Ohioans are happy with it. Lawmakers are trying to meddle with it and act as if there are issues with the law, when in fact, we’re seeing the laws playing out the way voters intended.”
These bills would be dangerous for cannabis users in Ohio, said Cat Packer, director of drug markets and legal regulation at Drug Policy Alliance.
“There are so many ways that if you are a cannabis consumer in Ohio, with either of these bills passed, you should consider that the law will consider you a criminal,” she said.
S.B. 56 would cut the number of Ohio’s home grow plants in half from 12 plants down to six, reduce the THC levels in adult-use marijuana extracts from a maximum of 90% down to a maximum of 70%, and require marijuana can only be used in a private residence.
THC potency caps are a solution in search of a problem, Armentano said.
“Voters, by and large, don’t like potency caps for cannabis,” he said. “If we simply remove these products from the market, we’re not going to get rid of the demand, but what we’re going to do is drive the production of these products to the unregulated market.”
S.B. 56 does allow someone to apply to the sentencing court to have their record expunged, but they would have to pay a $50 filing fee. The bill would require marijuana to only be transported in the trunk of a car when traveling and would limit the number of active dispensaries to 350.
The Ohio Senate passed S.B. 56 last month, which would ban Ohioans from using marijuana that is not either from a licensed Ohio dispensary or cultivated at a consumer’s home — meaning it would be illegal for Ohioans to drive up to Michigan to buy marijuana and bring it back over state lines. The bill has yet to have a hearing in the House.
“If you were to pass a joint or share your home grown cannabis, or share your cannabis with your spouse or your roommate, you would be a criminal again,” said Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at Marijuana Policy Project.
House Bill 160 would keep home grow and tax levels the same, but reduce THC levels and redirect most of the tax revenue to the state’s general fund.
The current tax revenue is divided up in several ways — 36% to the cannabis social equity and jobs fund, 36% to the host community cannabis fund, 25% to the substance abuse and addiction fund and 3% to the Division of Cannabis Control and Tax Commissioner Fund.
“My concern is we wouldn’t be dedicating those monies where voters decided that the money should go,” Packer said.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s budget proposal would increase the tax on marijuana from 10% to 20%. The Ohio House is currently working on the budget, which is due July 1.
Megan Henry is a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal and has spent the past five years reporting in Ohio on various topics including education, healthcare, business and crime. She previously worked at The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Jael Malenke (left) and Kevin Ely, standing next to their solar array. They’re supposed to get reimbursed for half of the system’s cost, but that funding is in limbo after USDA halted payments pending review. (Photo by Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal.)
Wooly Pig Farm Brewery sits on a gentle rise above Highway 36 and the Tuscarawas River in Fresno, Ohio. It takes its name from the Mangalitsa pigs covered in coats of thick curly wool, that roam the pastures nearby. Kevin Ely and Jael Malenke are the husband-and-wife team that run the brewery — Ely handles the beer and Malenke manages the business. They met in Utah and moved back to the area in 2014 when a farmstead near Malenke’s childhood home went up for sale.
Ely is a tinkerer. Two work gloves stick out of one coat pocket and the fat carpenter pencil in his chest pocket has left graphite stains where it’s rubbed against the jacket. He’s constantly looking for ways to make the brewery more efficient and even does talks for other brewers looking to streamline their operations.
Kevin Ely and Jael Malenke with a few of the Mangalista pigs they raise at the Wooly Pig Farm Brewery. (Photo by Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal.)
From his experience at other breweries, he said, “solar comes last.” There are too many other strategies to reduce energy consumption that are simpler and cheaper. That could be reducing water use or rigging up a cheap DIY system that takes advantage of the steam generated by the brewing process.
“You can reduce your energy consumption by like, 5, 10, 15, sometimes 20, 25%,” he said.
“But we’ve done those things,” Malenke cut in.
So that’s why they were so interested in the Rural Energy for America Program. The initiative, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, offers loan financing or grant funding for farmers and rural businesses that invest in renewable energy projects to improve their energy efficiency.
At Wooly Pig, that’s a roughly $300,000 solar array on a hill above the brewery. In all, the roughly 100 kilowatt system includes more than 200 panels.
“They’re ranged in a double row on each of these six arrays — sets of arrays,” Malenke said as half a dozen pigs rooted around in the grass or played with their dogs. “They’re all high enough that we can have sheep grazing underneath them,” she added.
Under their REAP agreement, Ely and Malenke are expecting federal officials to cover $143,000 of the total investment. “That’s more than we pay in payroll here,” Malenke said, “and that includes what we take home.” But they’re currently in limbo, following the Elon Musk-linked Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts at the USDA.
For Ely and Malenke, as well as others expecting REAP funding, those dollars are “indefinitely suspended,” and subject to review by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins.
“I welcome DOGE’s efforts at USDA because we know that its work makes us better, stronger, faster and more efficient,” Rollins said on her first day in office. “I will expect full access and transparency to DOGE in the days and weeks to come.”
Jael Malenke and Kevin Ely in the Wooly Pig Farm Brewery tap room. (Photo by Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal.)
The stakes for the brewery
Ely and Malenke have apps on their cellphones that monitor the amount of energy their array generates in real time.
“I’m probably looking, depending on the day, between four and six times a day,” Malenke said with a grin.
“Yeah, I might be doing — well, I might be eight or 10,” Ely said.
He’s tracking it closely because he’s looking for ways to stretch that power past sunset. They don’t have a battery system, so Ely said he’s working on running a boiler during the day and then using a heat exchanger to make use of that hot water in the evening.
Malenke said the brewery spends between $1,500 and $2,500 a month on power. The new solar array is designed to cover half of that, and with a few tweaks here or there, Ely is hoping they can push that to 60%.
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Saving about $12,000 a year on energy costs would make a big difference for their business.
“I mean, that’s pay raises for our employees,” Ely said.
But losing out on the REAP reimbursement would be a major setback.
“And that’s it,” Ely explained. “The thing is, is that we probably wouldn’t have built — we would not have built an array for this price. We would have built something half as big or maybe we would have done it ourselves.”
Although working with a reputable contractor was more expensive, they went forward because it would leave them with a better built and longer lasting system while allowing them to focus on doing their actual jobs.
“There was very little risk associated with this project,” Ely said.
“We thought it was a risk-free project,” Malenke cut in.
“If we knew there was significant risk …” Ely broke off. “I mean, there was no evidence of it being risky.”
Rich Mushrush, owner of Gemstone Gas & Welding Supplies. (Photo by Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal.)
Gemstone Gas & Welding Supply
About half an hour from Wooly Pig in New Philadelphia, Rich Mushrush runs Gemstone Gas and Welding Supplies. In addition to gear for welders, they pump their own gases, “oxygen, argon, nitrogen, CO2, all the mixes,” he said, before his phone started ringing. He’s been calling around, twisting arms, to get a mechanic out to fix the muffler on a delivery truck.
“We pride ourselves on service,” he explained after securing a visit. “That’s how we kind of get over with the big companies. They can’t do what we do.”
Mushrush qualified for the REAP program and construction on his solar array started this week. Based on the project plans, he thinks the system will save him about $1,000 on his electric bill each month. If that back of the envelope math holds, the system would pay for itself in about two and a half years. But without the federal subsidy, Mushrush explained, that timeline stretches to more like 12 or 13 years.
“I thought s—, I might be dead by then,” he chuckled. “I’m 65 years old.”
Mushrush is frustrated about the financial pinch he’ll feel if the REAP funding doesn’t come through. “It’s a stinger to me,” he acknowledged, “and a lot of other small businesses — farmers.”
But his biggest objection is a moral one. If the federal government has decided the program is too generous, he argued, there’s nothing wrong with dialing it back going forward. “But the ones that are already in it,” he argued, “I think they should be grandfathered.”
“I just go from a commonsense standpoint,” Mushrush said. “How can they renege or back-claw on you, on a contract that is signed, sealed and delivered?
Broader picture
Both Wooly Pig and Gemstone worked with Paradise Energy Solutions to install their solar arrays, and company CEO Dale Good said their stories aren’t unique. The company operates in eight states and Good said Ohio is getting hit particularly hard by the suspension of REAP funding.
In an average year, he said, they handle around 40 or so solar projects with REAP contracts, and USDA’s funding halt has affected nearly three quarters of their projects.
In a written statement, a USDA spokesperson blamed the funding delay on the Biden administration for “exploit(ing) Congressional intent” by misusing funds from the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure and Jobs Act.
REAP has been around since 2014, preceding both of those pieces of legislation. And far from exceeding congressional intent, the Inflation Reduction Act specifically appropriated additional funding for the program.
The spokesperson went on to suggest that with a flurry of last-minute funding decisions, the Biden administration was “making promises they knew the department would not be able to keep.”
But for the Wooly Pig project at least, they submitted their initial application in September 2023 and got notice of their award more than a year ago in February 2024. Gemstone’s application went in last June and got approved in September.
“Fortunately,” the USDA spokesperson continued, “President Trump is taking strong action to rein in reckless spending, cut needless regulations and make the entire federal government more effective at serving the American people, including our farmers.”
“As part of this effort,” the spokesperson added, “Secretary Rollins is carefully reviewing this funding and will provide updates as soon as they are made available.”
And at the end of the day, everything might work out fine. Wooly Pig has had their array up and running for about two weeks, but they need proof of it running for a month to make their final submission to release the funds they’ve been awarded. With the Gemstone array still under construction, Mushrush is a few months behind them.
But Ely and Malenke are nervous and already working on contingency plans if the funding doesn’t come through.
“Because, I mean, even if it does,” Ely said, “maybe it’s going to be, like, a lot longer down the road.”
“Our safety net — our cushion is gone,” he added. “So, right now, like nothing else seriously bad can happen.”
“Yeah, that’s our other plan,” Malenke laughed. “Have no more bad things happen.”
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Nick Evans
Nick Evans has spent the past seven years reporting for NPR member stations in Florida and Ohio. He got his start in Tallahassee, covering issues like redistricting, same sex marriage and medical marijuana. Since arriving in Columbus in 2018, he has covered everything from city council to football. His work on Ohio politics and local policing have been featured numerous times on NPR.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Another bill has entered the Ohio General Assembly in an attempt to address student hunger in schools, this time in the form of a Democratic measure that would still hold households accountable for student meal debt, but keep the child from feeling the consequences.
State Reps. Darnell Brewer, D-Cleveland, and Ismail Mohamed, D-Columbus, introduced House Bill 97 in a Tuesday hearing of the Ohio House Education Committee. The bill would require public schools to provide a meal to any student and bars districts from requiring “chores” or other activities from students due to outstanding meal debt. The bill also requires the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce to “provide guidance” to districts and schools about the collection of student meal debt.
“It’s a really common-sense solution to something that has been happening for so long and has such a negative impact on kids,” Mohamed told the committee on Tuesday.
Brewer and Mohamed pointed to statistics in their testimony to the committee that show more than 1.6 million Ohioans are considered food insecure, with 1 in 6 children in the state living in poverty in 2023.
Brewer said ideally, the “most sustainable and compassionate way” to address the problem would be with mandatory participation in the federal Community Eligibility Provision – a program that allows schools with large numbers of low-income children to serve free breakfast and lunch to all students in the school – or with a universal breakfast and lunch program in the state.
The Community Eligibility Provision’s future is uncertain as federal budget reconciliation continues. Back in January, a document from the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee listed potential cuts to the national budget through reconciliation, which included raising the threshold for school districts to qualify for the provision.
Eligibility is based on the amount of households in a school and district that receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funding. The document release in January proposed raising the eligibility from 40% of students in a school who receive the program assistance, to 60%.
The Food Research & Action Center has said the changes to the provision, which it found served more than 23 million children nationwide in the last school year, would “worsen childhood hunger, hurt struggling families and create unnecessary burdens for schools and districts.”
“Community eligibility is a proven success, ensuring tens of millions of students have access to nutritious meals while easing burdens on families and schools,” said Crystal FitzSimons, interim president of FRAC in a Tuesday statement on the provision’s uncertainty. “Instead of cutting community eligibility, (federal) lawmakers should be expanding it to allow more high-need schools and districts to adopt the options.”
Ohio-specific data on the impact of the provision from the Food Research & Action Center and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found the cuts would mean 728 schools in the state would not be able to provide free school meals, and more than 287,000 children would no longer have access to free meals through the provision.
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Columbus Public Schools alone would see 110 schools and more than 44,000 students impacted by the changes, if implemented.
The sponsors said Ohio’s H.B. 97 wasn’t a way to allow parents and guardians to be released from the debt they owe, considering districts have to pay the debt whether the parents are accountable or not.
“We’re not letting the parents get away with the debt, what we’re saying in this bill is that the student will still be served,” Brewer said.
The bill is a way to get food that is already ready to be served to the students to those kids without the recognition that a student is part of the federal National School Lunch Program, or any other program that provides students from low-income households access to lunch at no cost or a reduced cost.
“All it does is just refocus where our priorities lie,” Mohamed said.
Schools would be prohibited from discarding a meal because the student isn’t able to pay for it, and it would ban “publicly identifying or stigmatizing a student who cannot pay for a meal or owes a meal debt,” according to an analysis of H.B. 97 by the Legislative Service Commission.
Guidance from the ODEW about school debt would include “best practices” and information on the establishment of an online system to allow payment of the debt, under the bill.
The bill comes shortly after comments were made by House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, rebuffing efforts to create a universal school breakfast and lunch program. According to reporting from the Statehouse News Bureau, Huffman made comments last week that a program like that would have a “huge amount of waste,” and many Ohio parents can pay for breakfast and lunch already.
A member of Huffman’s own party is part of a bipartisan effort that would do just that, and the public has expressed support for such a program. The legislature seemed to be somewhat swayed as well, at least in the previous state operating budget, when eligibility for free lunches was raised to include those who qualified for reduced-price lunches. It fell short of hopes for a universal meal program, but was praised as progress when the measure was implemented in the budget.
State Sen. Bill Blessing, R-Colerain Twp., who is a co-sponsor of the bipartisan bill to create a universal school meal program, said he wants to push for the language of his bill to appear in the new state budget, which is currently in the legislature, pushing toward a July 1 deadline.
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Susan Tebben
Susan Tebben is an award-winning journalist with a decade of experience covering Ohio news, including courts and crime, Appalachian social issues, government, education, diversity and culture. She has worked for The Newark Advocate, The Glasgow (KY) Daily Times, The Athens Messenger, and WOUB Public Media. She has also had work featured on National Public Radio.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Ohio’s “private” economic development corporation boasts that even though it’s legally private, it practices the “highest standards of accountability and transparency…” But when it comes to how much the agency pays its employees in what used to be public dollars, its disclosures are far from complete.
It doesn’t name the employees receiving salaries as the Ohio Checkbook does for all state employees. Instead, it uses vague and redundant job titles only. It doesn’t distinguish between full and part-year employees. And it refused to provide the information on a searchable spreadsheet, although it maintains it on one.
Created in 2011, JobsOhio has been controversial from the start. It’s exempt from open records law and its website proclaims it engages in “complete public reporting of how it spends private dollars.”
But it’s a corporation that was set up by the state legislature and it was allowed to make the only bid to run the state liquor franchise while paying the state far less than it’s worth.
The “private dollars” it spends all used to go into the state treasury. And JobsOhio “complete public reporting” doesn’t lay out the contracts for more than $1 billion in incentives it’s given to businesses, what was promised, or whether the beneficiaries kept those promises.
Despite that, the Ohio Controlling Board last month extended the agency’s liquor franchise another 15 years — to 2053 — without requiring it to pay taxpayers anything in addition to the $1.41 billion it paid for its initial 25-year franchise. It’s not as if the state doesn’t need the money. House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, says Ohio can’t afford to fund its public schools — an economic development priority if ever there was one.
When it comes to how much JobsOhio pays its own employees, its transparency also leaves room for improvement.
Asked last month for a listing of compensation, a JobsOhio spokesman said an open-records request would have to be filed with the Ohio Department of Development. The department responded 19 days after a request with a PDF table listing 2023 salaries for 159 positions.
When asked why employee names weren’t listed alongside the positions and why the data weren’t on a spreadsheet so it could be more easily analyzed, a spokesman for the Department of Development referred those questions to JobsOhio, which created the document that the public has to obtain from a state agency at taxpayer expense.
The JobsOhio salaries range from less than $10,000 for interns to $709,000 for President and CEO J.P. Nauseef. But the table didn’t give his name, and it only refers to him as “President and Chief Investment Officer.
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Asked about the discrepancy, JobsOhio spokesman Matt Englehart said “J.P. Nauseef’s official title is still President and Chief Investment Officer, but the JobsOhio Board of Directors permits the President and Chief Investment Officer to also use the ‘CEO’ title.”
The other job titles listed in the PDF table are so vague as to be meaningless.
“Senior” appears in them 37 times, with salaries ranging from $64,000 for a “senior office services manager” to $362,000 for a “senior managing director, talent.” The word “manager” appears 62 times at similarly divergent rates of pay.
Englehart was asked why JobsOhio didn’t include the names of people receiving what used to be public dollars next to the positions they filled.
“To protect the privacy of JobsOhio associates,” he said. “Total compensation paid is disclosed annually to the Ohio Department of Development, as required by (the law) and the Services Agreement between JobsOhio and (the Department of Development). The agreed-upon reporting is compliant with Ohio law and is an example of how we work with our state partners and of our commitment to attracting jobs and investment for Ohioans responsibly, with accountability and transparency.”
That “accountability and transparency” is objectively less than what the state — which used to control the liquor franchise — does with its own employees. Mason Waldvogel, the Department of Development spokesman who provided the JobsOhio compensation data, makes $130,000 a year, according to Ohio Checkbook.
Englehart, the JobsOhio spokesman, was also asked what kind of document the PDF table was generated from, and why didn’t JobsOhio just provide a searchable spreadsheet.
“The document is a PDF of a spreadsheet,” he said. “It is provided in PDF form to prevent manipulation by recipients.”
Which seemed strange, given that a person with the most rudimentary computer skills was able to import the PDF back into a searchable spreadsheet and manipulate the information. Some details of JobsOhio’s 2023 compensation.
Total amount — $21,224,256
No. of employees making $300,000 or more — Nine
No. of employees making $200,000 or more — 24
Median compensation (including interns and part-year) — $113,145
Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has promised to push federal officials to provide greater support to farmers affected by bird flu. The governor spoke alongside state Agriculture Director Brian Baldridge Thursday as well as the state veterinarian and poultry industry representatives.
State impacts
Highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, commonly known as bird flu, has been spreading throughout the country since the beginning of 2022, but a recent a recent spike has hit Ohio farmers particularly hard. According to the latest USDA data, Ohio has culled nearly 14.5 million birds since the beginning of this year alone. That’s more than double any other state over that timeframe.
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“And to put it in perspective,” Baldridge said, “as far as the layer facilities, about over 30% of our layer birds here in Ohio have been depopulated. Those are the ones that are laying the eggs each and every day.”
He noted that one facility raising ducks and a few raising turkeys have been impacted as well.
DeWine explained that once farmers detect a case there’s little they can do besides cull the flock.
“The doctor tells me the fatality rate is very, very, very high, right?” he said, looking to State Veterinarian Dennis Summers. “You could be as high as 90, 95, even 100%, so those birds are going to basically die anyway. The point, the point is you’re trying to either slow this thing down or, obviously the main goal is to stop it.”
To that end, Summers noted, “One thing that we definitely want to make sure that we’re keeping an eye on is an effective way to use a vaccination strategy for poultry for HPAI. So that’s one thing that we’re going to be continuing to watch, and hopefully we have that as a tool in the toolbox here for Ohio.”
Jim Chakeres, who heads up the Ohio Poultry Association, has made the same point with state lawmakers, but the idea of vaccinating flocks faces competing interests within the industry.
Farmers who focus on meat production — known as broilers — could see their export business dry up following vaccination because buyers in other countries worry birds coming in could carry the virus and infect their domestic flocks.
In a recently announced $1 billion response effort, USDA officials earmarked $100 million to research vaccines or other treatment, and the agency has awarded a conditional license to develop a bird flu vaccine. Despite that funding though, a vaccination program would be a significant step. The agency has stockpiled vaccines in the past without actually using them.
What DeWine wants
The governor said he would be an advocate for the state and its farmers but “one of the things that is clear, is the federal government is really going to have to accelerate the research that is being done in regard to bird flu.”
The potential impacts extend beyond hot spots like poultry farms in Western Ohio, DeWine said — not explicitly referencing the risk of human infection but noting “obviously bigger ramifications in regard to bird flu.”
Ohio reported its first case of human infection last month — one of 70 tallied so far. Although one person in the U.S. has died, there has been no indication of the virus spreading from person to person.
DeWine said he’d convey the message to speed up research when he speaks to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins Friday.
The governor added that he’d push for the secretary to extend the extra financial support she announced recently to farmers who have already been impacted.
“One of the things that the federal government has done is up the amount of compensation,” DeWine said. “One of the things I’ll take up with the secretary is to see whether or not that could be backdated, basically retroactive, because some of these farmers’ (losses) obviously occurred before the date when it went into effect.”
But even with greater support, Chakeres warned that egg prices wouldn’t come down right away.
“Our farmers are working every day to get those barns cleaned and disinfected so they can repopulate and start producing eggs again,” he said. “That takes time. It takes that chick 21 days to hatch. It takes 18 weeks before that hen is going to start laying eggs again. So it just takes time to repopulate the facilities.”
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Nick Evans has spent the past seven years reporting for NPR member stations in Florida and Ohio. He got his start in Tallahassee, covering issues like redistricting, same sex marriage and medical marijuana. Since arriving in Columbus in 2018, he has covered everything from city council to football. His work on Ohio politics and local policing have been featured numerous times on NPR.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Students getting their l lunch at a primary school. (Photo by Amanda Mills/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)
Commentary
by David DeWitt
I am once again asking Ohio lawmakers to please just feed the children. For all that is good and decent, at long last, may we please at least just make sure schoolchildren aren’t going hungry?
Pleading for the state government to make sure that Ohio schoolchildren aren’t spending their days dealing with hunger pangs, tired, irritable, distracted, unable to concentrate, unable to learn, well, that has traditionally been an obscene and mind-boggling ask for too many Ohio lawmakers.
They keep declining to do it.
But as my buddy Alexander Pope says, hope springs eternal in the human breast.
So I will continue sounding the call, because I hold the firm and unshakeable, but apparently insane opinion that schoolchildren shouldn’t be going hungry.
They should be fed. All of them. Whatever meals they need.
Student hunger is pervasive in Ohio.
With more than 1.6 million public school students, about 57% of them meet qualifications and are participating in free and reduced lunch programs.
Here’s the rub: A 2023 report from Children’s Defense Fund Ohio found that 1 in 3 children who live in those food insecure homes don’t qualify for free school meals because their households are technically over the 185% of poverty line.
Many others don’t participate for fear of judgment.
This means that hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren in Ohio are going hungry during the school day because either they’re not covered or fear the stigma.
Rubbing gravel on the wound, Republicans in U.S. Congress are right now looking at making cuts that would slash national school meal programs, impacting 280,000 Ohio kids.
But in Ohio, a new bipartisan bill, Ohio Senate Bill 109, would make sure that no Ohio K-12 student has to go through the day hungry. The legislation sponsored by state Sen. Bill Blessing, R-Colerain Twp., and state Sen. Kent Smith, D-Euclid, would provide breakfast and lunch at no cost to public and chartered nonpublic school students.
During the 2023 Ohio budget season, a proposal for universal school meals was made but was never passed.
Under this cycle’s proposal, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce would be directed to reimburse public and chartered nonpublic schools who participate in the national school breakfast and lunch programs by covering the gap between the federal reimbursements for free and reduced-price breakfasts and lunches and those who would be required to pay because they don’t qualify for meal assistance.
The bill lists an appropriation of $300 million to support the state reimbursements. The state operating budget is projected at $108 billion for fiscal year 2026 and $110 billion for fiscal year 2027.
Blessing and Smith plan to push for the bill to be included in the two-year budget due July 1, currently under negotiation in the Ohio House.
Every teacher I’ve ever talked to about it has told me the same thing: Hunger is an enormous barrier to learning. Meanwhile, kids are being put into social situations where they either go hungry or face the judgment of their peers.
As we all know, the antenna of fear of social stigma and judgment is sky high in childhood and adolescence.
We have a simple and effective solution: Remove the stigma, remove the fear of judgment, remove the school meal caste system, and just feed the children, all of the children.
If the basic humanity and decency of it isn’t compelling enough, I can make an economic argument.
Well-fed kids make for more attentive and engaged students. Attentive and engaged students have better academic success. Most successful students become successful citizens. Successful citizens grow the economy.
So, feed the children. All of the children, all the same.
Please just feed the children.
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David DeWitt
Ohio Capital Journal Editor-in-Chief and Opinion Columnist David DeWitt has been covering government, politics, and policy in Ohio since 2007, including education, health care, crime and the courts, poverty, state and local government, business, labor, energy, the environment, and social issues. He has worked for the National Journal, The New York Observer, and The Athens NEWS. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and is a board member of the E.W. Scripps Society of Alumni and Friends. He can be found on X @DC_DeWitt
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
State Rep. Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, introduced Ohio House Bill 160 during a press conference Thursday. Similar to the Senate’s bill, the House’s bill would reduce the THC levels in marijuana extracts from a maximum of 90% down to a maximum of 70% and caps the number of marijuana dispensaries to 350. The bill, however, would keep the 10% tax on marijuana and keep Ohio’s home grow at 12 plants.
“Our bill preserves the core of Issue Two, while also adding important protections for Ohio’s minors and addressing the issue of intoxicating hemp,” Stewart said, noting his goal is to pass a marijuana bill before the lawmakers go on summer break.
“Every product that is legal today will remain legal under this bill,” Stewart said. “I think we are making very, very few changes here. … We’re not touching any of the core parts of Issue Two.”
The bill deals directly with intoxicating hemp by requiring every THC product to be treated like marijuana and only be sold at the state’s regulated marijuana dispensaries.
“Simply put, if it gets you high, it goes through a dispensary,” Stewart said. “I don’t think Ohioans are excited about the fact that you get essentially the same thing that’s less safe from a local gas station. I don’t want my kids to go walk into your local gas station chain and buy marijuana.”
The bill would change how the marijuana tax revenue is directed, sending a “bulk of tax revenue to Ohio’s general fund,” Stewart said, mentioning he worked closely with House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, on drafting the bill.
Even though legal weed sales started last year, Ohioans could start legally growing marijuana at home shortly after Issue Two passed in 2023.
Ohio state Rep. Brian Stewart, R-Ashville. Official photo.
“I think the longer you wait, the harder it is to make substitute changes,” Stewart said. “I think in the real world, folks who are growing 12 plants today are not likely to grow less than 12 plants just because we passed a law at the Statehouse.”
H.B. 160 prohibits using marijuana in public spaces, but allows for smoking inside a privately owned property, including outside on a residential front porch.
“It’s legal to use these products at your home,” Stewart said.
The bill would also offer expungement for prior convictions for marijuana related offenses.
“As the views of Ohioans have shifted on the issue of marijuana, our laws should reflect that, and allowing people to remove these offenses from their criminal record is good policy,” Stewart said.
Even though the Senate recently passed their own bill, Stewart doesn’t think his bill will create a possible standstill where nothing gets passed.
“I’m going to leave it to the two gentlemen that hold the gavel as to which bill is moving, but it’s one or the other,” Stewart said.
The Ohio Cannabis Coalition (OHCANN) is still digesting this latest piece of legislation, but Deputy Executive Director Adrienne Robbins seemed optimistic about H.B 160.
“We do think this is a really positive step forward,” she said. “When you look at the Senate bill and the different iterations of it that came out, I think this is another step forward, and it does make us feel like lawmakers are one, listening to us, but then, maybe more importantly, listening to consumers’ concerns as well.”
What’s in the Senate marijuana bill?
Senate Bill 56 would significantly change Ohio’s weed laws.
The bill would limit Ohio’s home grow from 12 plants down to six, reduce the THC levels from a maximum of 90% to a maximum of 70%, and mandates that marijuana can only be used in a private residence.
S.B. 56 allows someone to apply to the sentencing court to have their record expunged if they were convicted or plead guilty to possessing 2.5 ounces of marijuana before the state law went into effect. Under the bill, the applicant must pay a $50 filing fee.
The bill would combine the state’s medical and recreational marijuana programs under the Division of Cannabis Control, require marijuana be transported in the trunk of a car when traveling, and would limit the number of active dispensaries to 350.
It would also ban Ohioans from using marijuana that is not either from a licensed Ohio dispensary or cultivated at a consumer’s home. This would make it illegal for Ohioans to drive up to Michigan to purchase marijuana and bring it back over state lines.
The bill originally dealt with taxes and how funds were distributed, but those provisions were removed during committee.
Shortly after Ohioans voted to legalize marijuana, the Ohio Senate quickly passed a bill that would have made major changes to the law that would have affected taxes and home grow, but the Ohio House never brought the bill to the floor.
Instead, state Rep. Jamie Callender, R-Concord, introduced a bill that would have clarified some of Issue 2’s language, but it never made it out of committee.
Megan Henry is a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal and has spent the past five years reporting in Ohio on various topics including education, healthcare, business and crime. She previously worked at The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Ohio Democrats peppered Republican state Sen. Jerry Cirino with questions over his higher education overhaul bill this week. The bill would ban faculty strikes and diversity efforts on campus, as well as set rules around classroom discussion.
One Democratic lawmaker called the bill racist.
Cirino gave sponsor testimony on Senate Bill 1 Tuesday afternoon during the Ohio House Higher Education and Workforce Committee meeting.
State Sen. Jerry C. Cirino, R-Lake County. (Photo from Ohio Senate website.)
“S.B. 1 is about more speech, not less,” he said. “It is about creating an environment of continuous improvement. It is about the core value that students come first; they are the customers of these institutions.”
Senate Bill 1 would ban diversity and inclusion efforts, block faculty from striking, set rules around classroom discussion, put diversity scholarships at risk, shorten university board of trustees terms from nine years to six, and require students take an American history course, among other things.
Regarding classroom discussion, it would set rules around topics involving “controversial beliefs” such as climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion.
S.B. 1, which only applies to public colleges, stipulates classroom discussion allows students to “reach their own conclusions about all controversial beliefs or policies and shall not seek to indoctrinate any social, political, or religious point of view.”
State Rep. Desiree Tims, D-Dayton. (Photo from Ballotpedia.)
“I think the bill is very racist,” state Rep. Desiree Tims, D-Dayton, said during Tuesday’s committee meeting.
Tims asked Cirino why he was interested in getting rid of diversity scholarships and Cirino responded by saying Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost addressed race-based scholarships last year.
“We have guidance from the attorney general that we cannot do those,” Cirino said. “Our institutions may not do those things based on race.”
In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Harvard and the University of North Carolina violated the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment by using race as a factor in applications. The days after the ruling, Yost sent a letter to Ohio colleges and universities saying his office won’t legally protect someone at a college or university who uses race as a factor.
“How is it that you want diversity of thought, but not diversity of people at these public institutions that would bring that diversity?” state Rep. Joe Miller, D-Amherst, asked.
Cirino responded by saying diversity of thought and programs that promote diversity and inclusion are not comparable.
“You cannot discriminate against one group to make up for discrimination of another group,” Cirino said.
Miller also asked about whether limiting speech through legislation, such as this bill, is a slippery slope.
“There’s absolutely not one limitation of what can be talked about in the classroom,” Cirino said in his response. “What we say very specifically and explicitly in the bill is that there has to be an openness to looking at other opinions and welcoming diverse opinions as well.”
State Rep. Beryl Brown Piccolantonio, D-Gahanna, asked about the retrenchment and collective bargaining parts of the bill.
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“We need to treat our institutions of higher learning a little bit more like a business,” Cirino said. “If we don’t help (university presidents and boards of trustees) with these management tools, we’re going to find a real disadvantage for the state of Ohio.”
Piccolantonio questioned if this bill is giving lawmakers more control over public universities.
“It is clearly not the legislature trying to step in and operate the college or university,” Cirino said. “It’s about empowering the boards of trustees, the governing board and the presidents.”
Piccolantonio also asked if Cirino would be open to making any changes to the bill and he said no, reminding committee members that this bill went through 11 revisions in the last General Assembly.
“This bill is matured and it’s ready to go,” Cirino said. In the version of the bill passed last month by the Ohio Senate, most of the changes made in the last General Assembly were rolled back.
More than 800 people submitted opponent testimony against the bill — significantly outweighing the amount of supporter testimony the bill has received. Several students have said they would leave Ohio if this bill passed.
When state Rep. Munira Abdullahi, D-Columbus, asked about so many students opposing the bill, Cirino said legislation is not developed based on how many people come to testify.
“If we started doing that, it would be a popularity contest, and we should all take a huge pay cut because we’re getting paid, in my view, to make policies sometimes, whether it’s popular or not, if we think it is the right thing to do and good for the state of Ohio,” Cirino said.
Abdullahi also asked why the bill would ban higher education faculty from striking.
“Simply because higher education, all postsecondary education, is absolutely critical to us in Ohio if we’re going to maintain a strong economy in the future and meet the workforce requirements that we need to meet in order to employ people and to provide the workers that our companies are looking for,” Cirino said.
Megan Henry is a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal and has spent the past five years reporting in Ohio on various topics including education, healthcare, business and crime. She previously worked at The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Local public school leaders from all around the state filled the Ohio House Education Committee’s hearing room on Tuesday to explain to lawmakers how full state funding is critical to their districts.
Christopher Edison, superintendent of Pymatuning Valley Local School District, described the pride in the district’s diversity and resilience. At the Northeast Ohio district, 76% of the students are considered economically disadvantaged and there’s been an increase in the need for specialized services. Edison also highlighted the successes in academic achievement, career and workforce readiness, and mental health supports at the district.
“However, the sustainability of these programs is increasingly at risk due to rising operational costs,” Edison told the committee in Tuesday testimony. “Inflation has significantly increased expenses for essential resources such as transportation, instructional materials, and staffing.”
Without an increase in base funding, Pymatuning’s ability to “maintain and expand these successful initiatives is severely threatened,” Edison said.
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Hits have already come to districts because of inflation and increasing costs not reflected in the funding model that looks to see its final funding phase-in this year, if the legislature includes it in the operating budget set to be passed by July 1.
Montgomery County’s Northmont City Schools — a district with rural, suburban, and urban areas — has seen state funding cuts and defeats of school levies that resulted in the need to cut more than 40 district positions in May 2023, and the closure of one of their elementary schools, according to Superintendent Tony Thomas.
“I understand that members of the General Assembly passed a budget two years ago that increased funding across the state, and we are thankful,” Thomas told the education committee. “But unfortunately for Northmont, those dollars are not reaching our school buildings and we are doing more with less.”
It’s stories like these that the Fair School Funding Plan workgroup, which was created along with the state’s public school funding model, is hoping will flood both the education and finance committees, along with the offices of state legislators, to inform them about the importance of proper public school funding in Ohio.
“It’s our responsibility to ensure that every member of the Ohio legislature and the General Assembly be made fully aware of these facts, their implications, and the legislative decisions that led to these circumstances as they contemplate this important budget,” said Mike Hanlon, Jr., superintendent of Chardon Local Schools, and Fair School Funding Plan workgroup member.
The workgroup met recently, along with more than 600 other education community members, to discuss upcoming legislative meetings about the budget, what the governor’s proposal would mean for districts, and how to engage with lawmakers.
“In my visits to Columbus … one message was very clear with the legislators that we met with: ‘We need to hear from constituents on the issue of school funding,’” Hanlon said.
Members of the workgroup said they’ve heard another message from the lawmakers: resources are limited in the budget.
In the governor’s executive proposal, the Fair School Funding Plan’s final phase-in was included, but inputs that would account for inflation costs at districts were not, something the governor’s office has “remained silent” on in all budgets that included the public school funding plan, workgroup members said.
“First and foremost, this is not our ideal proposal from the governor,” said Jared Bunting, CFO and treasurer of the Athens City School District. “However, this is in line with what the governor has done in the past and we’re thankful that the governor has included the Fair School Funding Plan in his budget, even though it falls woefully short of our expectations.”
In the governor’s budget for the next two years, the budget would decrease funding for traditional public schools by 0.9%, according to a workgroup analysis. Community and STEM schools will receive an 11.3% increase in the governor’s proposal, while joint vocational school districts receive a 14.1% increase. Voucher programs including the EdChoice private school program would see a 15.8% increase.
“So 90% of the students in the state are seeing a reduction in funding,” Bunting said, referring to the enrollment numbers in the state, which show the vast majority of students attend traditional public schools.
Alternately, last year, the state funded private school voucher scholarships with nearly $1 billion in one year, according to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.
Source: Ohio Fair School Funding Plan Workgroup
School administrators on the workgroup noted that the funding simulations used in the governor’s budget proposal show an intention to “continue to update capacity each year without any input updates.”
Without inputs to account for rising costs and inflation, the state not only won’t meet the workgroup’s ideal of a 50% state share of education costs, but will drop below the share of funding before 1995, when the Ohio Supreme Court first ruled in DeRolph v. State of Ohio that the state’s education funding violated the state constitution, falling short of the “thorough and efficient” system of schools directed in the founding document.
With talk of addressing property taxes in Ohio, something that school funding has relied on for decades, workgroup members said updating cost inputs could help with that issue as well.
“When we talk about property tax relief, we would like to argue that … updating all inputs consistently is a form of property tax relief to our community members,” said Jenni Logan, treasurer for the Sycamore Community Schools.
Now, as the budget process continues, educators, and administrators not only plan to push for proper education supports in committees considering the budget document, but also want to get district stories to all legislators, including newly elected GA members, who haven’t had a front-row seat to the public school funding model fight.
Those who are new to school funding are also faced with “competing interests in other areas that are not related to school funding,” according to Hanlon. He said legislators who talked to him said they “haven’t heard from anyone” on school funding.
“As a result, it’s very likely that they need to hear from us, and from someone that they trust and are confident in, that will provide them with the necessary facts to shape their understanding of school funding,” Hanlon said.
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Susan Tebben
Susan Tebben is an award-winning journalist with a decade of experience covering Ohio news, including courts and crime, Appalachian social issues, government, education, diversity and culture. She has worked for The Newark Advocate, The Glasgow (KY) Daily Times, The Athens Messenger, and WOUB Public Media. She has also had work featured on National Public Radio.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Public education supporters rally at the U.S. Capitol in early February, speaking out against proposed cuts to the federal education budget, and the possible elimination of the U.S. Department of Education. Members of the Ohio Education Association attended the rally. (Photo by Jati Lindsey, courtesy of the National Education Association.)
With state and federal funding up in the air, Ohio teachers are speaking out about what budget cuts would mean to their districts, about the importance of public schools to families and communities, and about how schools need to be strengthened to prioritize students’ futures.
In her 31 years as a teacher in Cleveland Public Schools, Tracy Radich has never felt the need to fight for public school funding as much as she has this year, with state and federal budgets both giving public schools uncertain futures.
“Having everything be so up in the air and … how we prepare and think about what might happen next school year, it makes me very fearful and very worried for the future of my school, my students,” said Radich, who has spent her career at Joseph M. Gallagher School, where she currently teaches third grade.
Radich joins many public school advocates in questioning the funding of private school voucher programs in Ohio at a rate of more than $1 billion last year, while public schools who educate 90% of the state’s student population sit on pins and needles awaiting the fate of their funding.
The state budget is currently being developed by the state legislature, but debates have been raging about whether or not funding for a model that’s been in place for years, called the Fair School Funding Plan by supporters, will stay in place for it’s last round of phase-in funding.
Members of the Republican supermajority have questioned whether or not the plan is sustainable, and while Gov. Mike DeWine’s executive budget included the final phase-in of funding, public education advocates criticized the governor’s lack of inflation inputs as part of the final round of funding.
Even one of the authors of the funding model, former state Rep. John Patterson, spoke out at a League of Women Voters of Ohio event to say leaving out inflation inputs would “create disruption” in the formula, increasing the costs for taxpayers.
Dan Fray, a middle school English-Language Arts teacher and educational technology instructor with Toledo Public Schools, sees rallies and days of action as ways to raise awareness of what public school teachers do for the vast majority of students in the state.
“We didn’t become teachers to get rich or to do anything but help students learn,” Fray said. “In this day and age, we didn’t become teachers to get cussed at or told what we’re doing is wrong.”
To bring more attention to their cause, Radich and Fray will be part of a “day of action” on March 4, when teachers who are members of the their local teachers unions, along with the Ohio Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers as a whole, will promote education as the spending priority they think it should be.
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The action will start first thing in the morning at Radich’s school, with a celebration line of teachers welcoming students at the start of the day, and passing out information to parents about the impacts of funding changes on their child’s education.
Some teachers will head outside in Toledo, where Fray said signs will inform passersby of their aims, and blue shirts worn by teachers show educators’ desire to “preserve public education.”
“We’re not protesting to say we hate the governor or we hate the budget or anything like that, it’s more what education is about and where we are in it,” Fray said.
The view of the role of educators, particularly within the legislature, has “taken a hit” over the years, Fray said. He and Radich agree that despite the varying needs of school districts across the state, standardized testing has become king.
“These high-stakes tests, by the time any data comes back from that, my students have already moved on to the next grade, so those tests don’t really help,” Radich said. “They inform the state, they punish schools, but they don’t really help the students.”
In Fray’s view, state testing has impacted education decisions to such a degree that “the world is definitely a teach-to-the-test kind of world,” to the detriment of teaching and education in general.
Focusing legislation and budgetary decisions on test scores that don’t give a full view of education, and the expansion of private school vouchers not only misses the point of education, the teachers say, but flies in the face of multiple state supreme court decisions ordering the state to bring back a thorough and equal system of learning in the state.
“From a classroom teacher standpoint, it just seems like that continues to get ignored, and at this point, not only does it seem like it’s ignored, but they’re thumbing their nose at it,” Fray said.
Disruptions to the federal contribution to the state’s education budget could add even more problems to the system, as Ohio’s school districts receive an average of about 10% of their revenue from the feds.
“I don’t think people realize how cuts made in Washington, D.C., are going to directly impact thousands of children in Cleveland, Ohio, in rural communities and urban communities, everywhere,” Radich said.
Those who went to D.C. hoped to sway leaders against proposed cuts to programs within the education department, especially those benefitting lower-income students through Title I funding, and students who qualify for federal career training and college grants and loans.
According to the Ohio Education Association, more than 800,000 students in the state receive Title I funding, and special education programs in Ohio would lose more than $550 million in proposed federal cuts.
“Ohio educators and parents expect elected officials to prioritize our students’ futures and strengthen our public schools, so they remain a cornerstone of opportunity and equality,” the Ohio Education Association said in a statement following the D.C. rally.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.
_____________
Susan Tebben
Susan Tebben is an award-winning journalist with a decade of experience covering Ohio news, including courts and crime, Appalachian social issues, government, education, diversity and culture. She has worked for The Newark Advocate, The Glasgow (KY) Daily Times, The Athens Messenger, and WOUB Public Media. She has also had work featured on National Public Radio.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
