Only a small amount of state dollars would go to child care in the latest version of the biennial budget, and Ohio House lawmakers also allocated $200 million less in already-awarded federal funds for care than what Gov. Mike DeWine proposed in February, according to advocates.
The vast majority of the federal funding allocations in House Bill 96 for child care go toward vouchers for families who fall outside the eligibility for subsidized Publicly Funded Child Care.
In the latest iteration, HB 96 also appropriates $10 million in fiscal year 2026 to pilot a “tri-share” program, which creates cost-sharing between workers, their work and the state government. The idea, proponents have said, is to further extend the possibility of affordable care to Ohio parents ineligible for public assistance.
“The other programs that we did create ... I think, if they work, are probably better because they involve businesses and individuals and the state,” House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said earlier in April.
Lynanne Gutierrez, Groundwork Ohio president, said a tri-share program could prove to be additive, but it’s not one-size-fits-all.
“Unfortunately, the public-private partnership is a solution for kind of a more narrow set of working families,” Gutierrez said in an interview Wednesday.
Gutierrez is more concerned about other areas lawmakers weren’t willing to invest in, like increasing the income requirements to qualify for Publicly Funded Child Care, she said.
“We’ve not made the choice to increase for some time now, and we continue to be at the bottom in terms of eligibility,” Gutierrez said. “In fact, the very bottom.”
The House budget leaves it at 145% of the federal poverty line, rejecting DeWine’s proposal to bring initial eligibility to 160%. Gutierrez sees 200% as ideal, a percentage Ohio has previously had in place, but Huffman said he was against overstretching the federal funds.
