Lawmakers in the Ohio House voted Wednesday to disagree with the state operating budget proposed by the Senate, triggering a conference committee that will open deliberations between the two chambers and Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine.
Representatives voted 71-23 against agreeing to the Senate budget.
Before the vote, local residents were among more than 100 protesters who gathered outside the Statehouse to demand changes to the Senate proposal, which the group says fails to provide adequate funding for a wide range of public services Ohioans depend on.
One of the speakers at the protest was Raya Anderson, a single mother from Montgomery County who was granted custody of her son, Amir, when he was two months old. She explained that an immediate priority for her was to get a daycare that would allow her to continue in her career.
Anderson, who works full time, was above the income threshold that would qualify her for state-subsidized child care, but her son was accepted into the Head Start program, which directs federal funds to local child care centers to improve the quality and capacity of child care.
“I thank God every day that because it was at Head Start with their quality teachers who honestly deserve a living wage that they first discovered my son’s disabilities, they noticed some developmental delays,” she Anderson said.
Protesters and organizers called for the state to return to budgets proposed by DeWine or the House. Child care was a central tenet of the governor’s proposal that was overwhelmingly approved by the House. It would have expanded edibility for state-subsidized child care to an additional 15,000 Ohio children compared to the Senate. The House version would have committed $30 million to existing child care centers to expand their capacity, a number the Senate cut in half.
Robyn Lightcap, executive director of Preschool Promise, which helps parents in some Montgomery County districts access preschool services, attended the Statehouse event and said simply restoring the governor’s proposals would be a big help for suppliers
These proposals include raising the income threshold for working parents to access childcare subsidies, offering grants to increase the childcare workforce and providing more support for caring for babies and toddlers.
“We don’t have enough infant and toddler care capacity across the state,” she said.
Anderson expressed concern that inadequate funding for child care in the proposed Senate budget would keep resources like those that helped her son out of reach for most Ohio families.
She explained that her child care providers explained what the delays might be and helped her with referrals and diagnoses, paving the way for successful early intervention before she entered elementary school.
“They didn’t just watch my son, they took care of him. They took care of me and supported me as a parent so I could continue to work full-time and be a productive citizen,” Anderson said.
When she first adopted Amir, Anderson found that private childcare would have cost her 50% of her income.
“Every child deserves what my son received: high-quality, affordable education, and I mean education, with caring and supportive staff who not only supported him as a child, but to me as a parent,” Anderson said. “This is what we should do. This is what Ohio is all about.”
