More school vouchers, income tax cuts in Ohio House version of budget

The Ohio House introduced its own version of the state budget Tuesday, and it included a $1 billion tax cut, higher income limits for school vouchers, and a TikTok ban.

The 5,300-page proposal, known as House Bill 33, is the second version of a plan to spend more than $86 billion over the next two fiscal years.

Gov. Mike DeWine gave lawmakers his budget proposal in February.

More: Gov. Mike DeWine pushes for targeted tax relief, education spending in budget

Many of the items on the governor's wish list, like a plan to change how Ohio's children learn to read, remain, but the House made some important changes. Here's a look at what changed and what stayed the same:

Tax cuts

DeWine didn't propose overall income tax cuts in his budget. Instead, he added specific deductions for certain groups like people with children, affordable housing developers and first-time home buyers.

The House, however, decided it wanted a $1 billion tax cut that combines the two lowest income tax brackets into one and lowers the rate.

"Rather than bringing the top brackets down, we kind of did a bottom-up approach," Rep. Jay Edwards, R-Nelsonville, said. "We're really trying to help middle-income people."

The House's budget kept DeWine's request to eliminate sales tax on baby products like diapers and formula, but it added a deduction for the residents of East Palestine.

Payments to compensate for lost income following the Feb. 3 train derailment could be deducted from residents' income taxes if the federal government labels the accident a "qualified disaster."

Social media

TikTok, WeChat and other services "owned by an entity located in China" would be banned from government devices under the House budget. But a plan to require parental consent for minors who use social media was pulled from the proposal.

That doesn't mean parental consent is going away. Edwards told reporters a separate bill is in the works that would do more than require parental consent to create social media accounts. It would allow parents to sue companies like Facebook, TikTok and Instagram if their children got around the system and got harmed.

"The framework that was set forward in the governor's budget was you had to go to the attorney general, and the attorney general had to choose to take your case up and it was really out of people's hands," Edwards said. "We think people should be able to make those decisions.

School funding

DeWine's budget increased the income limits for Ohio's school voucher program, known as EdChoice, from 250% to 400% of the federal poverty level. That would amount to $120,000 of annual income for a family of four.

Republicans in both the House and Senate have introduced bills that go further, proposing a universal voucher system where every Ohio child is eligible. But the House budget didn't include those proposals.

Instead, it recommended moving the income limit up to 450%, or $135,000 in annual income for a family of four.

The House budget would continue implementing the new school funding formula that lawmakers passed in the last two-year budget.

State representatives also folded $388 million that DeWine wanted for school resource officers into the overall public education budget.

"I have a county, Morgan County, they have times when they don't have a law enforcement officer in the county," Edwards said. "How are we going to take someone and put them in a school, or mandate that they put them in a school?"

Education policies

DeWine has been traveling the state, pushing for a change in how children are taught to read since he introduced his budget earlier this year.

Known as the science of reading, the governor's budget required all public and charter schools to use curricula that followed this method by the fall of 2024. Districts would also be banned from using another method, known as cueing, that teaches children strategies to decipher unfamiliar words, like looking at a picture or known words.

More: Gov. DeWine: Science is 'abundantly clear,' some Ohio schools teach reading wrong

The House budget kept this plan, but it reduced the allocated amounts for teacher training in the science of reading and new materials/books for schools using other methods.

State representatives also eliminated a requirement that students who fail the third-grade reading exam be retained and removed some licensing requirements for military veterans who want to teach.

Rape kit testing

Survivors of "sexually oriented" offenses would get the rights to information about their rape kits if the House budget proposal becomes law.

Ohioans could request information about whether a DNA was found, whether that DNA matched someone in a state or federal database and the kit's estimated destruction date. And all entities that retain sexual assault kits would have to submit annual reports about their inventory to the Ohio Attorney General's office.

Wages for in-home healthcare workers

DeWine increased Medicaid's reimbursement rates, and the House went even further in its budget proposal.

DeWine's plan raised home and community-based provider rates by $1.2 billion over the biennium, which amounts to an average rate increase of approximately 19%. And the House tacked on another $110 million per year to bring the hourly rates for these workers to $17 in fiscal year 2024 and $18 in 2025.

"I wish we could get them to $25," Edwards said. He plans to push the Senate to increase those rates even further if the state's financial forecast improves between now and June.

More: 'We lost everything': Ohio mom says Medicaid's low rates delayed care for her daughter

Hunting and fishing

The House budget would move the start of gun season for deer from the Monday after Thanksgiving to Black Friday. And it would modify the laws that govern how wildlife officers enter private properties.

Officers would need a warrant before inspecting containers when they suspect illegal hunting and before searching private land. The exception to the latter would be if the officer obtained permission from a landowner.

Flavored tobacco products

Another proposal removed by the Ohio House was a ban on the sale or distribution of flavored tobacco products.

Lawmakers tried to pass a law late last year to prohibit cities and other local governments from restricting the sales of these products, but DeWine vetoed it.

"We’re dealing now with young people’s lives," DeWine said at the time. "When a local community wants to make the decision to ban these flavors to protect their children, we should applaud those decisions."

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the status of a proposal to eliminate the sales tax on baby products.

Anna Staver and Laura Bischoff are reporters for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio budget: Tax cuts, TikTok ban, school vouchers