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• Permanently incorporate the Fair School Funding Plan (FSFP) into the state budget; fund it directly, adequately, and equitably.
• Account for inflation when making FY2026-27 allocations for Ohio’s education system and benchmark inflation adjustments to the beginning of the six-year phase-in process.
• Fund statewide universal pre-K and all-day Kindergarten. (House Bill 595 is a good place to start.)
• Increase starting teacher salaries to $50,000 as part of the FSFP.
• Help teachers pay off their education debt. (State representatives proposed $25 million for such a program in FY2024, but state senators rejected it.)
• Leverage federal programs (such as the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program and the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits) by funding the purchase and operation of electric school buses.
• Provide free school meals for all children regardless of their family’s income.

• Increase the state share of instruction to at least 3%.
• Fund the Foster-to-College Scholarship Program proposed in House Bill 164.
• Allocate at least $562 million for the Ohio College Opportunity Grant (OCOG) to encourage Ohio’s students to stay in Ohio.
• Restructure OCOG to make it a “first-dollar” grant, allowing students to access the full amounts they need and should qualify for in both state and federal funds.
• Fund the Ohio Access Challenge and other programs that help students attending community colleges and regional campuses.
• Enact House Bill 590, the Hunger Free Campus Act, to allocate $2.5 million over the next biennium to address student hunger across Ohio — or fund such a program directly in the FY2026-27 budget.

• Invest $150-200 million in Publicly Funded Child Care (PFCC) over the biennium.
• Make PFCC permanent and expand it to cover families making under 300% FPL (or $77,460 for a family of three in 2024).
• As required by the federal Administration for Children and Families, reimburse childcare providers based on enrollment rather than attendance, and cap co-pays for PFCC families at 7% of their income.
• Reimburse childcare providers at the 75th percentile of the market rate.
• Ensure the reimbursement increase reaches childcare workers by mandating a wage of at least $20 per hour.
• Create a new funding model based on the actual cost of care and informed by a broad group of stakeholders, especially providers and parents.
• Restore at least $15 million annual funding for the Kinship Caregiver Program by restoring the Kinship Care TANF earmark in the next budget cycle, while also maintaining existing support for kinship care providers.
• Increase payments through both Ohio Works First child-only cases and the Kinship Permanency Incentive Program to account for inflation.
• Fund the planning and implementation of a kinship licensing program compliant with the new federal rule and the existing kinship provider requirements.
• Increase funding for childhood literacy programming through the Governor’s Imagination Library program; expand it by earmarking funds for the development of media literacy programming.

• Increase funding for all human services by at least 3% to account for inflation.
• Increase minimum SNAP benefits for eligible older adults to $50 by including House Bill 428 in the budget.
• Allocate $100,000–150,000 annually to restore and maintain the Civil Impacts of Criminal Convictions database.

• Cover the costs of caring for children incarcerated by the state, such as room, board, and medical and dental care.
• Strike section 2151.36 (Support of Child) from the Revised Code and eliminate the practice of allowing judges to order families to pay for their child’s incarceration.

• Increase funding for wage and hour enforcement to $2.6 million annually.
• Incorporate HB 106, the Pay Stub Protection Act, into the FY2026-27 budget.

• Expand Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women up to 300% FPL.
• Expand continuous enrollment to eligible children up to age 6.
• Rollback the request to allow the state to impose work requirements for Medicaid.
• Increase reimbursement rates for Medicaid-eligible behavioral health services to increase salaries for behavioral health care providers.

• Increase departmental funding to account for inflation since the previous increase.
• Increase funding for line items that support lead abatement and lead safety programs, especially in high-risk communities with housing built before 1980.

• Create a new, permanent line item in the GRF to directly fund non-police crisis response programs in municipalities and other local government entities across Ohio, or earmark funds to support this work in existing line items for Community Innovations and Community Projects.
• Continue funding Crisis Stabilization Centers at $6 million per fiscal year.
• Allocate $10 million annually from the GRF to strengthen the pipeline of professionals entering the behavioral health workforce by supporting the Great Minds Fellowship program. Earmark funds to provide non-tuition-specific stipends for community mental health interns.

• Increase state funding for public transit to 10% of the total transportation budget.
• Leverage historic federal infrastructure spending and tax credits available for fleet electrification.
• Fund a state-wide needs assessment to understand Ohio’s evolving transit needs.

• Restore the Local Government Fund to 3.68% of total state GRF revenue.
• Maintain the current level of funding for the Public Library Fund: 1.7%

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