Innovation Ohio

What you need to know about Ohio Politics and Policy

IOEF Review: DeWine Administration Policy Could Force 2 Million Ohioans to Change Healthcare Coverage

Policy could disproportionately affect poor Ohioans, women, communities of color

Innovation Ohio Education Fund (IOEF) released an analysis of the DeWine Administration’s decision to require all consumers participating in Medicaid managed care — over 2.9 million Ohioans — to take action to keep their current plan or risk being assigned to a new plan by computer algorithm. 

IOEF’s review found that this new policy could result in two million or more Ohioans experiencing a change in healthcare coverage.

Click Here to Read IOEF’s Review

The change, scheduled for spring 2022, coincides with the rollout of a new set of managed care plans. Last year, the DeWine Administration announced that it was renewing the contract of four of the five existing managed care companies, while one — Toledo-based Paramount Advantage — was not selected for renewal. Three new providers were selected to join the four incumbent plans beginning in July.

Before the policy change, the Ohio Department of Medicaid allowed members to change healthcare plans during the annual open enrollment period, but no action was required for a member who wished to stay on their current plan. Per the DeWine Administration’s new policy, even consumers whose provider was retained will be forced to affirmatively state their intention to keep their current healthcare plan. Medicaid members who do not make this proactive effort will be reassigned to one of now-seven providers. 

Read Innovation Ohio Education Fund’s press release here.

Ohio’s State Budget Bill – Exploding Vouchers, Lax Charter School Oversight

Exploding Vouchers. Returning to Pre-ECOT Oversight of Charter Schools.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The July passage of House Bill 166, the state’s two-year operating budget for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, signaled a disturbing return to the lax oversight of Ohio’s charter school system that led to a massive taxpayer scandal, as well as a continued expansion of the transfer of taxpayer funds from public to mostly-religious private schools.

When Governor Mike DeWine signed HB166 into law, he approved a budget that lawmakers had packed full of little-noticed gifts to those who seek to erode support for traditional public schools through a proliferation of charter and private school options funded at taxpayer expense.

The budget bill included four major gifts to the school choice crowd, namely: 

1. Weakening Ohio’s Automatic Charter School Closure Law

2. Weakening Standards for Dropout Recovery Schools

3. Weakening Oversight of Charter School Sponsors

4. Increasing the Transfer of Taxpayer Dollars To Private Schools Via Vouchers

The voucher expansion alone, if fully adopted, could cost Ohio districts at least another $73 million over the biennium1, on top of an already ballooning $389 million per year private school voucher program. 

Innovation Ohio’s latest analysis looks at how the state budget expands the state’s already exploding voucher program while reversing progress to bring accountability to charter schools.

Ohio’s State Budget Bill

Exploding Vouchers / Returning to Pre-ECOT Oversight of Charter Schools

House Bill 166, the state’s two-year operating budget for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, heralded a return to the lax oversight of Ohio’s charter school system that led to a massive taxpayer scandal, and a continued expansion of the transfer of taxpayer funds from public to mostly-religious private schools. Innovation Ohio is concerned that with this return to weaker oversight of and greater investment in education privatization options, scandals like the one that brought down the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) will become the norm, and more and more taxpayer dollars will continue to flow to unaccountable, mostly-religious private schools.

Charter Schools: Less oversight of a scandal-ridden sector

In early 2018, ECOT, at the time, the state’s largest online charter school, was forced to close after 18 years in operation after the state sought to recover $124 million the school charged taxpayers for kids they couldn’t prove were actually participating in online learning. Since the school’s first year of operation in 2000-2001, Ohio officials knew that ECOT’s ability to track students was suspecti. But little to nothing was done, in large part because the school’s founder and for-profit operator, William Lager, contributed huge amounts of cash to the campaign accounts of Ohio politicians, primarily Republicansii.

Despite the passage of House Bill 2 in 2015 – a landmark charter school oversight bill that in many ways brought Ohio back closer into the national mainstream on charter school oversight  – the law did not go far enoughiii to rein in the sector once dubbed the “Wild, Wild West of Charter Schools” by national pro-charter advocatesiv.

Rather than building on that effort at accountability, the FY2020-21 Budget Bill signed into law by Gov. DeWine actually weakened oversight of Ohio’s charter school sector and helped some of the worst-performing schools in the nation remain open. Here’s how:

• Changes current rules for automatically closing failing charter schools

• Makes it easier for failing Dropout Recovery Schools to remain open

• Allows charter school sponsors to have a do-over on their state evaluations

Weakening Ohio’s Automatic Closure Law 

When the state’s automatic closure law was first adopted in 2005, it required three consecutive years of failure as a standard (for non-high schools)v. However, in 2009, then-Gov. Ted Strickland and the Ohio House successfully updated that to a more stringent 2 out of 3 yearsvi.

To be clear, even with the tougher standard, the state’s automatic closure law has had a very small impact on closing bad charter schools, primarily because the state kept exempting charters from the requirements by changing the report card and testing regime multiple times over the last 10 years. According to state datavii, of 305 charter schools that have closed in Ohio, only 24 did so because of the closure law. By comparison, 172 closed voluntarily. Another 80 were ordered closed for primarily financial reasons. Prior to the closure law, six charters closed for failing to meet basic legal requirements. 

All told, Ohio’s closure law (which charter school proponents have called the toughest in the nationviii) is now being loosened because as many as 52 charters would other be subject to closure under the current standardix. To which we would argue: “exactly”. When more than half of all students going to charters attend schools that perform the same or worse than the district schools they would otherwise attend,x one would think that losing 52 of the worst performers would be a good thing, and it would make more funding available for higher performers.

Interestingly, of the 52 charters2 that were scheduled to be closed under the old standard, 34 are run by for-profit charter school operators, including almost 20 percent of the former White Hat schools now being operated by Ron Packard – the founder of K-12, Inc. – the nation’s largest (and most notoriousxi) online charter school operator. Another big operator set to take a hit was J.C. Huizenga’s 10 Ohio-based National Heritage Academies. Six of those were on the chopping block before the legislature offered a legislative reprieve. Huizenga is an acolyte of Betsy DeVos – the controversial U.S. Secretary of Education – and his political connections have kept his schools afloat for years, despite complaints from the schools they ran about performancexii. 

National Heritage has been a darling of pro-charter school advocates over the years, with the Fordham Institute declaring them last year a “notable example of a high-performing for-profit charter chain.”xiii It would seem to burst the charter-school myth that if the poster child for “high performing, for-profit charter schools” had to close 60 percent of its Ohio schools for poor performance.

Instead, Ohio lawmakers have once again moved the goalposts on charter school accountability, helping for-profit charter school operators, and continuing to allow the worst performing charter schools to remain open and fail students for another year. We struggle to understand the public policy reasons for allowing this to continue, especially in light of the ECOT scandal, in which that school (thanks to its deep political ties) was allowed to fail students for two decades.

Weakening Dropout Recovery School Standards

Ohio’s dropout recovery schools – charter schools designed specifically to return dropouts to the state’s school system – are, simply put, among the worst-performing schools in the entire nation. Some graduate less than two percent of their students in four years and less than 10 percent in eight years. The state’s already lax standards only requires that a dropout recovery school graduate eight percent of their students in four years. 

In order to remain open, students in these schools must pass a test to ensure academic standards are met. The FY2020-21 state budget allowed dropout schools to adopt another, easier test, and reduced the passing score, which the non-partisan Legislative Service Commission predicted “may increase the number of dropout prevention and recovery community schools rated as ‘exceeds standards’ or ‘meets standards’” and “may reduce the number of dropout prevention and recovery community schools subject to closure.”xiv

Last year, of the 6,887 students in dropout recovery schools eligible to have graduated within four years, only 1,808 actually did. Meanwhile, in Ohio’s major urban districts (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown), more than 75 percent of students graduate within 4 years.

Weakening Charter School Sponsor Oversight

The result of having fewer poor performing charter schools is that charter school sponsors – which can collect as much as 3 percent of a charter school’s state funding to oversee the school – will see their evaluations weakened. To make matters worse, the Budget Bill orders the Ohio Department of Education to re-evaluate sponsors’ previous accountability ratings to take into account these new, weaker dropout recovery standards. As a result, these sponsors will get a do-over on their previously-failing oversight grades.

The main accountability provision in House Bill 2, enacted in 2015,3 was to make life more difficult for sponsors – many of whom are not education entities – and create more incentives for them to provide oversight of an out-of-control charter school sector. Allowing sponsors to re-do their past evaluations greatly weakens the oversight the state can exert over the overseers, allowing for the possibility of more ECOT-like scandals to proliferate and rob Ohio taxpayers of resources that could be better spent in traditional public school buildings or higher-performing charter schools.

Voucher Explosion

Ten years from now, it’s not impossible to imagine that we’ll look back at HB166 as the “Voucher Bill,” thanks to the massive expansion of vouchers the budget bill will infuse into the system. This is thanks primarily to the bill’s $73.3 million annual expansion of the EdChoice Expansion program – an income-based voucher that any child who meets an income requirement can take to have taxpayers subsidize their private (and in most cases religious) education. In terms of scale, 10 years ago, all voucher deductions put together was only $56 millionxv. 

While it may seem like a sympathetic idea to provide low-income children an opportunity to access private school education, the issue is that under the expansion, families of four earning up to $103,000 now qualify for a nearly $3,000, taxpayer funded, public subsidy to offset their private-school tuitionxvi. It is estimated that nearly 80 percent of Ohio households would qualify for at least half of the full voucher amountxvii. 

This is just the latest in a series of expansions of vouchers in Ohio law. The state has been on the front lines of the private school voucher fight for two decades. 

In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court case ruled the Cleveland voucher program—at the time, the only private school voucher program offered in the state—constitutional, despite the fact that it sent public tax dollars to private, mostly religious schools. This was because, as stated in the opinion written by then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, “[a]ny objective observer familiar with the full history and context of the Ohio program would reasonably view it as one aspect of a broader undertaking to assist poor children in failed schools.”xviii The ruling found the program was limited in scope and costs; therefore, it wasn’t an overly burdensome infringement on the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Times have changed. What was once a single program in one city that cost taxpayers $2.9 million has become a more than $333.8 million annual venture, with 581 of the state’s 610 school districts losing at least one student to vouchers over the last 5 years. The growth of these programs will likely accelerate under HB 166. Private school vouchers are now impacting 95 percent of Ohio school districts—certainly not all of which are failing.

Originally created to help students in poor-performing Cleveland schools, the number of voucher programs has steadily grown to include 5 different voucher programs, making even more students around the state eligible. By the 2006-2007 school year, nearly a third of Ohio’s 613 school districts saw some students opting to attend private schools using taxpayer-funded vouchers. Today, vouchers impact 95 percent of school districts.

In addition, the amount of state money given per voucher has exploded since the Supreme Court ruled that its small amount compared with public schools meant it didn’t violate the Establishment Clause. Between 2002 and today, the average per pupil voucher has grown from just over $1,300 to $6,512 per student, adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, the state’s per pupil public school investment has seriously lagged that of its private school counterparts going up from $4,100 to $4,782 in inflation adjusted dollars during the same period.

The state investment in private, mostly religious schools now far surpasses, on average, the state’s average per pupil investment in the 1.7 million Ohio students who attend Ohio’s public school districts. This reversal calls into question whether today’s voucher system in Ohio would survive the same legal analysis that justified the program in 2002.

It is also troubling that the state has chosen to increase its investment of taxpayer money in private, mostly religious schools by 428% since 2002, while at the same time only delivering a 12% increase in state per pupil investment in public school districts. It probably isn’t a coincidence that 2002 also saw the Ohio Supreme Court end its examination of Ohio’s school funding system. Those two decisions – one from the U.S. Supreme Court allowing for vouchers to be done and one from the Ohio Supreme Court giving up its oversight of Ohio’s school funding system, which it had ruled four different times to be unconstitutional – led to the state deciding to increase funding to vouchers by 400 percent and essentially freeze school district funding.

As can be seen in the following table showing funding for the state’s five voucher programs for the four years beginning in 2013-2014 and ending with 2017-2018 school year, millions of dollars have been sent to private, mostly religious schools from every type of school district in the state, not only from the major urban districts. In fact, just under half of the money sent out to voucher programs did not come from major urban districts.

District Type EdChoice Expansion  Autism Voucher Special Ed Voucher EdChoice Voucher Original Cleveland Voucher
Poor Rural  $ 4,673,702   $12,220,320   $ 6,059,308   $ 78,060   $    –   
Rural  $ 2,515,709   $ 8,305,086   $ 4,532,842   $ 33,143   $    –   
Small Town  $ 7,535,697   $ 24,120,479   $ 15,117,235   $ 190,250   $    –   
Poor Small Town  $ 17,069,071   $ 28,652,804   $ 19,851,275   $ 5,844,387   $ 3,740 
Suburban  $ 20,200,635   $ 78,416,765   $ 52,421,563   $ 8,410,821   $ 121,540 
Wealthy Suburban  $ 4,389,589   $ 66,196,920   $ 33,634,223   $ 201,652   $ 54,103 
Urban  $ 27,263,416   $ 61,046,676   $ 24,136,553   $ 93,178,052   $ 847,472 
Major Urban  $ 25,402,368   $ 65,205,127   $ 40,433,321   $ 346,571,689   $ 166,142,550 
Grand Total  $ 109,050,188   $ 344,164,177   $ 196,186,321   $ 454,508,052   $ 167,169,405 

Based on earlier expansions, the $73.3 million additional funding set aside in House Bill 166 for income-based vouchers will result in funding losses across all sectors of Ohio’s school system. This becomes a problem because as students depart public schools using vouchers, the school districts they leave behind see their state resources decline accordingly, forcing them to dig into local resources (or cut programming) to make up the difference. This impacts some of the highest-performing school districts in the state – a far cry from the 2002 claim that vouchers are meant to help poor kids escape failed schools.

District Name County Local Subsidy (2014-2018)
Columbus City School District Franklin  $    28,015,593 
Cincinnati City School District Hamilton  $    20,314,389 
Cleveland Hts-Univ Hts City School District Cuyahoga  $      8,859,655 
Olentangy Local School District Delaware  $       7,955,472 
Worthington City School District Franklin  $       7,413,205 
Hilliard City School District Franklin  $        7,110,616 
South-Western City School District Franklin  $       6,751,052 
Westerville City School District Franklin  $       6,135,993 
Dublin City School District Franklin  $      6,056,282 
Northwest Local School District Hamilton  $       5,928,916 
Parma City School District Cuyahoga  $      5,240,310 
Lakota Local School District Butler  $      4,983,578 
Boardman Local School District Mahoning  $       4,817,835 
Oak Hills Local School District Hamilton  $      4,493,305 
Fairfield City School District Butler  $      3,508,264 
Gahanna-Jefferson City School District Franklin  $      3,174,098 
Mayfield City School District Cuyahoga  $       2,915,948 
South Euclid-Lyndhurst City School District Cuyahoga  $      2,863,618 
Sycamore Community City School District Hamilton  $      2,700,666 
Newark City School District Licking  $       2,632,417 

It would be one thing if vouchers provided clearly better opportunities for students. However, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute – a pro-school choice advocacy research outfit – recently examined Ohio’s largest voucher program and found that voucher students didn’t do better or the same as their public school counterparts. They did worse.xix 

As the report put it, “The students who used vouchers to attend private schools fared worse on state exams compared to their closely matched peers remaining in public schools.” Even in Cleveland — an often ridiculed district by school choice advocates — vouchers were found to not substantially improve the performance of the students who utilized them.xx

This supports other research indicating that controlling for demographics, public schools overall do better than their private school competitors.xxi 

Overall, this budget would seem to expand the state’s investment in taxpayer investment in privately run educational options. And that’s on top of an estimate record $1.2 billion spent on them last school year4, according to Ohio Department of Education data.

What is interesting is that while charter funding dropped slightly after ECOT and a few other charter schools closed, voucher funding has increased at a greater rate. Given the state’s wholesale infusion of voucher money this budget cycle, it’s not impossible to envision a time when voucher funding may approach or even overtake charter school funding totals.

Conclusion

In short, the state budget made it easier for schools like ECOT to continue to scam the Ohio taxpayer, all while public investment grows in private, mostly religious schools with almost zero accountability for those tax dollars and who have been demonstrated to harm student performance.

Endnotes

i         https://www.dispatch.com/news/20180121/ecot-endured-despite-years-of-warning-signs
ii        https://www.dispatch.com/news/20180511/with-notable-exceptions-politicians-scurry-to-give-up-ecot-contributions
iii       https://innovationohio.org/2015/10/14/hb-2-passes-now-to-the-details/
iv       https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2014/07/ohio_is_the_wild_wild_west_of.html
v        http://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Community-Schools/Annual-Reports-on-Ohio-Community-Schools/Community-School-LegisHistory.pdf.aspx
vi       https://www.lsc.ohio.gov/documents/budget/128/MainOperating/FI/CompareDoc/EDU.pdf
vii      http://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Community-Schools/Sections/Public-Documents-and-Reports/List-of-closed-schools-and-the-reason-for-closure.xlsx.aspx?lang=en-US
viii     https://www.ohio.com/article/20130906/NEWS/309068868
ix       https://fordhaminstitute.org/ohio/commentary/three-and-out-ohio-should-rework-its-automatic-charter-closure-policy
x        https://knowyourcharter.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/CharterReport_Oct2017.pdf
xi       https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/education/online-schools-score-better-on-wall-street-than-in-classrooms.html
xii      https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-is-this-charter-schoo_b_5397059
xiii     https://fordhami
xiv     https://www.lsc.ohio.gov/documents/budget/133/MainOperating/FI/CompareDoc/EDU.pdf
xv      http://odevax.ode.state.oh.us/htbin/WWW-SF3-HEADER-F2009.COM?act=Final+%233%28Paid+07-May-2010%29&irn=045187+Ada+Ex+Vill+SD+%28Hardin%29&county=01+Adams&DISTRICT=TOTAL&edch=y
xvi     https://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Other-Resources/Scholarships/EdChoice-Scholarship-Program/ExpansionIncomeChart.pdf.aspx?lang=en-US
xvii    https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF
xviii   Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002)
xix     https://edexcellence.net/publications/evaluation-of-ohio%E2%80%99s-edchoice-scholarship-program-selection-competition-and-performance
xx      http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Other-Resources/Scholarships/EdChoice-Scholarship-Program/EdChoice-Cleveland-Assessment-Data
xxi     http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/are-private-schools-worth-it/280693/

How the Latest State Budget Impacts Ohio’s Women and Working Families

Read the full analysis of the Ohio budget through a gender lens on the Ohio Women’s Public Policy Network’s website.

Ohio’s new two-year state operating budget brought numerous improvements for the livelihood of women, but that’s not to say there weren’t plenty of drawbacks and lack of action on key issues as well.

Progress was made to improve the quality of childcare in Ohio. But there’s more work to be done.

The new state budget allocates $198 million to improve the quality of Ohio’s publicly funded childcare system. This increase in funding will allow improvements in ensuring that workers within the childcare sector are paid fair wages, and will also help to facilitate professional development and facility improvements.  Where the budget falls short is allocating resources to increase the access and affordability of childcare. By increasing the accessibility of childcare, children would enter school well prepared, and parents would have the opportunity to participate in the workforce.  While the DeWine Administration stated that increasing eligibility for childcare was a policy priority, ultimately no funds were allocated to support this endeavor. 

After attempts to restrict access to Medicaid via the inclusion of the “Healthy Ohio” Program in the budget, Medicaid services were ultimately left unharmed.

The provision of the so-called Healthy Ohio Program would have required premiums to access Medicaid, which would have had crucial implications on women, who comprise more than half of Ohio’s Medicaid population. Medicaid has long been a lifeline for women, and the legislature’s decision to ultimately remove the “Healthy Ohio” language was crucial to protect access to the program.

Progress was made towards addressing wage theft, an issue that faces many working-class Ohioans, particularly women and people of color working in low-wage jobs.

When workers are paid less than they were contractually promised, it is known as wage theft. Whether it be through violation of minimum-wage laws, not getting paid overtime, or forcing an employee to work off-the-clock, Ohio clocks in with the second-highest amount of wage theft among the ten largest states. Additional funding was allocated to the Ohio Bureau of Wage and Hour to help address this issue.

The state budget also codified some policies that we expect to negatively impact Ohio women and working-class families. 

By continuing to support a business tax cut known by many public service advocates as the  “L.L.C. loophole,” Ohio loses out on about $528 million per year or $1.1 billion for the duration of every state operating budget where it remains intact. There is little evidence to suggest that this tax break for L.L.C.s has created any significant number of new jobs in the state. Ohio is missing out on billions of dollars of revenue that could have been allocated towards programs to address our school funding crisis, increase childcare assistance eligibility, or invest in a refundable Earned Income Tax Credit (which we’ll discuss in just a moment), to name only a few ways this money could be better spent. 

There were also some issues facing Ohio women and their families that the state budget failed to address, entirely. 

Ohio’s Earned Income Tax Credit remains non-refundable.

One of these crucial areas of inaction was the budget’s failure to make Ohio’s Earned Income Tax Credit (E.I.T.C.) refundable, a policy that would have given a major economic boost to low-income families across the state. Nationally, the E.I.T.C has been crucial in lifting working families out of poverty. However, it is not without its limitations here in the state. The greatest shortfall of Ohio’s state E.I.T.C. is that it is non-refundable. If this gap in anti-poverty policy had been addressed, the state budget would have been able to put money back into the hands of working families. 

Despite the 2020 Census being right around the corner, the bill allocated no funding towards planning or conducting a complete census count in the Buckeye state. 

About $33 billion dollars in federal funding rests upon the outcomes of the U.S. Census, which determines how those federal dollars are dispersed, state-by-state. Without a correct and complete count, the well-being of women and historically undercounted communities, populations which rely heavily on these federal grant dollars, are undermined.

No efforts were made to create a framework for statewide paid family leave. 

Paid family and medical leave policies allow workers to address the needs of their families or their own health without risking their financial health. Currently, only 17% of American workers have access to paid leave through an employer, but lawmakers made no effort through the state budget to increase those statistics here in Ohio… To learn more about the push to bring paid family leave in Ohio, check out the Women’s Public Policy Network’s Paid Leave Advocacy page on their website.   

Read the full analysis of the Ohio budget on the Ohio Women’s Public Policy Network’s website.

What’s At Stake For Medicaid In The Race For Ohio Governor

Our latest policy report looks at what’s at stake for Medicaid in this year’s race for Governor. The analysis examines the importance of Medicaid using new state and county-level data, how the candidates for Governor’s plans could impact the program, and its role in combatting the opioid epidemic.

Summary

While candidate Richard Cordray has expressed his support for the Medicaid expansions, his opponent has laid out plans that could drastically change the program. As Attorney General, Mike DeWine sued to stop the Medicaid expansion and has proposed changes that could risk the healthcare of hundreds of thousands of Ohioans. The report notes that DeWine has still not taken a position on the legislature’s passage of a Medicaid expansion freeze, which Gov. John Kasich vetoed.

Other key findings include:

  • 21% of Ohioans rely on Medicaid for their healthcare. In some counties, this number is as high as 40%.
  • Medicaid expansion has helped to lower Ohio’s uninsured rate from 13.9% to 6% in four years.
  • DeWine’s proposed changes to Medicaid could risk the healthcare of at least 318,000 Ohioans.
  • 59% of Ohio nursing home residents use Medicaid coverage for that service.
Read the report: Healthcare is on the Ballot in Ohio: Medicaid and The Governors Race

Innovation Ohio Releases New Medicaid Report

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 28, 2018

Innovation Ohio Releases New Medicaid Report Policy report looks at gubernatorial candidates, includes county by county Medicaid numbers

Columbus, OH – Today, Innovation Ohio released a new policy report on what is at stake for Medicaid in this year’s gubernatorial election. The analysis, titled “Healthcare is on the Ballot in Ohio: Medicaid and The Governors Race,” examines the importance of Medicaid and where candidates Rich Cordray and Mike DeWine stand on the program. The report is online here. The report looks at new state and county-level numbers, as well as the potential impacts of each candidate’s plans. It also lays out the vital role Medicaid expansion has played in combatting Ohio’s opioid epidemic. In Washington County, where the next gubernatorial debate will be held, nearly a quarter of the population relies on Medicaid for their healthcare. In neighboring counties in Appalachia, that number rises to nearly a third. “Healthcare truly is on the ballot this fall,” said Innovation Ohio President Janetta King. “Medicaid is a vital program for all of Ohio, but it plays an outsized role in our Appalachian region. It’s important that voters know how their healthcare could be impacted by each candidate.” While Cordray has expressed his support for Medicaid, DeWine has laid out plans that would cripple the program. DeWine sued to stop the Medicaid expansion and has expressed support for changes that could risk the healthcare of hundreds of thousands of Ohioans. The report notes that DeWine has still not taken a position on the legislature’s passage of a Medicaid expansion freeze, which Gov. John Kasich vetoed. Other key findings in the report include:
  • 21% of Ohioans rely on Medicaid for their healthcare. In some counties, this number is as high as 40%.
  • Medicaid expansion has helped to lower Ohio’s uninsured rate from 13.9% to 6% in four years.
  • DeWine’s proposed changes to Medicaid could risk the healthcare of at least 318,000 Ohioans.
  • 59% of Ohio nursing home residents use Medicaid coverage for that service.
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New Report: Mike DeWine’s Overtime Pay Cut Costs Ohio Workers $42 Million Each Year

New Report: Mike DeWine’s Overtime Pay Cut Costs Ohio Workers $42 Million Each Year

Lost Overtime Pay Protections Affect 327,000 Ohioans

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 14, 2018 Columbus, OH — Researchers from the National Employment Law Project Action Fund (NELP Action) and Innovation Ohio released a new report today that enumerates the wages lost by Ohio workers as a result of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine blocking a federal overtime pay expansion. Overtime pay cuts have cost 327,000 Ohioans $42 million a year in badly-needed higher pay.

The report is available online here. It includes county by county breakdowns of how many local workers are impacted.

“Wall Street and CEO pay are booming but paychecks for working Ohioans haven’t budged. Restoring overtime pay is one of the concrete things we can do to boost middle class incomes – but Mike DeWine made it worse by blocking this badly needed raise,” said Paul Sonn, director of NELP Action and the report’s author.

The report details how Ohio’s next governor and legislature can deliver this long delayed overtime raise as leaders in other states are doing. It includes county by county breakdowns of how many local workers are impacted.

“It’s basic fairness – you should get paid for the hours that you work. But Attorney General Mike DeWine’s lawsuit is keeping 327,000 Ohioans from getting the pay they deserve,” said Innovation Ohio President Janetta King. “It’s imperative that Ohio’s next governor work with the legislature to reverse this setback and ensure that hardworking Ohioans are paid for the work they do.”

NELP Action and Innovation Ohio also released a new video based on the report.

In 2016, the U.S. Labor Department updated federal overtime standards for the first time since 2004 to restore overtime coverage for more middle class workers.  But Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine joined with other states and filed a lawsuit that blocked the overtime expansion. The Trump Labor Department is now holding listening sessions as it develops a weaker, replacement proposal that will protect fewer workers.

The report’s key findings include:

  • Statewide, 327,000 Ohioans lost overtime pay protections as a result of DeWine’s lawsuit
  • Workers in every county across the state lost overtime pay protections.  The largest impacts were 37,000 workers in Franklin County, 34,000 in Cuyahoga County, and 22,000 in Hamilton County
  • Other major impacts include 17,000 in Montgomery County, 16,000 workers in Summit County, 13,000 in Lucas County and 13,000 in Stark County
  • As a result, this year and every year Ohio workers are losing $42 million in higher pay that they would have received under an overtime increase. That’s $42 million in badly needed raises that workers across the state are losing ever year because of the lawsuit brought by DeWine to block the overtime raise.
  • In other states, including California, New York, Washington State and Pennsylvania, governors and state legislatures are responding to the blocked federal overtime pay expansion by acting under state law to deliver this raise
  • Ohio’s next governor and legislature should follow those states’ lead and act quickly to deliver this badly needed overtime raise for the state’s workers
  • Past polling found that Ohio voters support an overtime pay expansion by an overwhelming 80 to 14 percent margin

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The State of the State in Marietta

As the debate over Ohio’s economic successes or shortcomings continues, a closer look at individual communities can be illuminating. The town of Marietta, the site of the Governor’s sixth State of the State Address, reflects the struggles that many communities across the state continue to face. While Gov. Kasich’s push to expand Medicaid has helped many in Marietta access care, the median household income lags the statewide average, tax shifting policies strain lower-income residents, and local schools continue to lose valuable state finding. Our latest analysis takes a closer look at these policies and the impacts on Ohio’s first capital City: Marietta, Ohio. Here are a few of the key points:
  • The median income in Marietta remains nearly $10,000 less than the statewide average, and 25 percent of Marietta residents – and nearly 4 in 10 children – live below the poverty line.
  • The workforce in Marietta has shrunk by 5 percent over the last five years, declining from 6,868 in 2010 to 6,505 today.
  • The bottom 20% of income earners in Marietta have seen state taxes increase as a result of a shift to a more regressive tax code.
  • Medicaid expansion has resulted in over 3,000 Washington County residents gaining access to health care.
  • State funding cuts have resulted in a nearly $1 million annual revenue loss to Marietta, an 11 percent reduction from the city’s 2010 budget.
  • Marietta schools have lost $1.7 million (adjusting for inflation) in state aid since 2010, while local property taxes have increased 22 percent.
Read the analysis: “Governor John Kasich’s Sixth State of the State Address: Marietta, Ohio”.

Paid Leave Doesn’t Have To Be A Budget Buster For Ohio Cities

When employers think about offering a new benefit to their workers, their first thoughts typically focus on costs. And that goes double for public officials, who must be conscious of spending taxpayer funds responsibly. But research shows that offering new parents paid time off to spend with a new child doesn’t have to break the budget. Our latest report, released today, outlines how City leaders should approach estimating the additional costs and benefits that come from offering paid parental leave. We looked at research that has been done on paid leave for new parents – how many employees take advantage of it, for how long and how it impacts productivity and employee retention. Conversations with officials in a number of Ohio cities helped us better understand the realities of how work is covered when an employee is out of the workforce during periods of leave. Our report presents these thoughts, organized around how to estimate both the costs and savings from paid parental leave, through the use of a fictional municipal workplace of 5,000 employees. In our example, we found that nearly half the cost of offering leave to new parents was offset by measurable savings it can create. And there are other intangible benefits including reduced demand on the social safety net and increased worker productivity and morale. Read the report: “Determining The Long-Term Savings And Short-Term Costs Of Paid Parental Leave: A Guide For Cities And Employers.”

A Closer Look: The Kasich Record on Public Education

publiceducation
Research Overview
As Gov. John Kasich looks ahead to the White House, we took a look back at his record on one of the most critical areas of responsibility for his gubernatorial leadership – primary and secondary education. This report examines various Kasich administration policies championed during his tenure and what the impact has been on schools, communities, and most importantly Ohio’s 1.8 million school children. [Read more…]

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