The new two-year state budget includes a 3% income tax cut, a new school funding plan and hundreds of millions of dollars for broadband, foster care, food banks and grants for businesses hurt by the pandemic. While the Republican-backed budget also included things that Democrats didn’t like, many of them voted for it.
All but one Senate Democrat and two thirds of House Democrats voted for the budget, though they opposed the tax changes and some policy items.
But in an interview for "The State of Ohio", House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes (D-Akron) said they supported the new school funding formula.
“The Fair School Funding Plan was the tipping point for so many members of our caucus, which is completely understandable considering for the past 25 years, we’ve been trying to find our way there,” Sykes said.
But she and 13 other Democrats felt strongly about voting against the plan: “We just had to make sure that folks knew that this was not our budget.”
Sykes called on Gov. Mike DeWine to veto the tax cut, the medical conscience clause and oil and gas drilling in state parks, which he didn’t.
But he did veto Democrat-opposed language allowing the House Speaker and Senate President to intervene in disputes over new district maps that will be drawn this year.
Copyright 2021 The Statehouse News Bureau. To see more, visit The Statehouse News Bureau.
