COLUMBUS — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has signed Ohio’s Fiscal Year 2024-2025 operating budget bill into law. 

The governor’s office said the budget “focuses on providing new opportunities for jobs and economic development,  helping Ohio’s children get a better start in life through education initiatives and unprecedented support for mothers and children, a historic investment in mental health services and infrastructure, and significant incentives and policies to improve the quality of nursing home care.”

“I am proud to sign this budget, and while it makes historic investments in Ohioans across their lives, I believe we are doing more to support and encourage Ohio’s children to lead happy, healthy, and productive lives than ever before,” DeWine said. “Whether it is helping them get the healthiest start in life by providing top-notch health care for moms; to expanding access to quality early childhood education; to ensuring their teachers have the resources and skills needed to teach students how to read in the way their brains learn to read; to providing prevention and early intervention tools for those struggling with mental and behavioral health issues; to expanding access and opportunity for all types of training, certifications, and degrees after high school graduation, and continued career development; through ensuring Ohioans have a high quality of life and the highest quality of care as they age, this budget helps make Ohio the heart of opportunity for everyone.”

Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) said that the budget builds a strong foundation for Ohio’s future 

“I’ve said it time and again, Ohio is our home, and we have worked hard to pass this budget that’s going to help everyday Ohioans,” he said. “We’ve lowered, flattened, and permanently cut income taxes, made historic investments in education funding and school choice, preparing our workforce and protecting our most vulnerable citizens. This budget will have a lasting impact on Ohio for years to come.”

Here’s a look at what the state budget will be funding, or not funding, for the next two fiscal years:

TAXES

1. Ohioans could see nearly $3 billion in income tax deductions over the next two years — in part by consolidating the current four tax brackets down to two. Critics say it mostly benefits those making over $100,000 per year.

2. A business tax cut would eliminate the state’s Commercial Activities Tax for 90 percent of companies who currently pay it.

3. Lawmakers cut out a $2,500 child tax deduction championed by DeWine, but eliminated a sales tax on certain baby products.

4. The budget would also create a Low Income Housing Tax Credit program, income tax deductions for homeownership savings accounts and a tax credit for the construction of single-family affordable housing.

EDUCATION

5. Roughly $2 billion would be spent phasing in a universal voucher program over the next two years, providing income-based scholarships on a sliding scale for any Ohio child to attend private school, with scholarship amounts decreasing as income increases.

6. The budget also continues efforts to implement a fairer, more reliable school funding formula from the last two-year budget, but factors in updated costs for expenses such as teacher salaries, transportation and technology needs, adding another $1.5 billion to the state’s allocations for public education over the next two fiscal years.

7. It would also shift K-12 education oversight from the Ohio State Board of Education to an official appointed by the governor — drastically changing who makes decisions about academic standards, curriculum and district ratings.

8. Lawmakers nixed a heavily-opposed ban on nearly all diversity and inclusion training requirements at public colleges and universities, a prohibition on faculty strikes, and barring public universities from taking stances on “controversial” topics such as abortion and climate policies.

9. The base salary for teachers would increase from $30,000 to $35,000.

10. High school students in the top 5 percent of their classes would receive a $5,000 scholarship to attend in-state universities starting in 2025.

11. Universities would be prohibited from requiring students to have certain vaccinations to be on campus.

12. The budget eliminated a provision under the state’s “third-grade reading guarantee” which made kids repeat third grade if they didn’t pass a reading exam. The exam under the guarantee remains in place.

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

13. The budget would include a measure to require parental consent on social media platforms for Ohio children under 16.

14. Children could see increased access to free meals at school.

15. The income eligibility for government-funded child care would be raised from 142 percent to 145 percent of the federal poverty level. Critics say the small hike would not help with Ohio’s scarcity of affordable childcare, which is among the highest in the nation.

16. A provision that would have provided Medicaid to pregnant women and children up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level remains out of the budget. However, it would provide continuous enrollment for all children in the state.

17. Some hurdles to obtaining household SNAP benefits were eliminated.

OTHER NOTABLE ITEMS

18. A budget provision would allow over 7,000 Native American remains to be laid to rest in the state.

19. It cut down a $1 billionOne Time Strategic Community Investment Fund for special projects down to $750 million, diverting some of that funding to Connect 4 Ohio, which will spend $500 million on state road projects.

20. Funding for food banks would significantly increase from previous versions of the budget.

21. The budget would overturn an Ohio Supreme Court decision to make the records of the OneOhio Foundation public. The foundation is in charge of spending $1.1 billion in opioid settlement money coming to the state over the next 18 years.

22. In-home health care workers providing services through Medicaid could see a wage increase from $16 to $18 under the proposal, something advocates say is desperately needed to boost recruitment into that workforce to meet demand.

23. $16 million would be appropriated for a hotly contested Republican-backed August special election that could impact abortion rights.

– The Associated Press contribunted to this story.