A Winning Budget for School Choice, Families, and Religious Freedom in Ohio!
COLUMBUS—Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed the new biennial state budget on July 1, which includes unprecedented wins for religious freedom, families, school choice, and life. Center for Christian Virtue (CCV) was grateful to work with lawmakers to ensure the budget makes our state a great place to live, work, and worship for all Ohio families.
Here are some of the incredible provisions of the most recent Ohio Biennial State Budget!
Protecting Religious Freedom
The Medical Ethics and Diversity (MED) Act provision protects the rights of conscience of medical professionals to ensure they cannot be forced to perform medical procedures that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.
This means, for example, that doctors cannot be forced to perform abortions or prescribe dangerous puberty-blocking drugs to children for the purpose of “gender transitioning,” if doing so goes against their conscience.
Learn more about the MED Act in the budget by reading CCV's press release here.
Life Wins!
The budget strengthened Ohio's abortion clinic regulation by ensuring abortion facilities have either a transfer agreement with a local hospital or with doctors within 25 miles of the facility.
$3 million per fiscal year have been allocated for the Ohio Parenting and Pregnancy Program, which aids pregnancy resource centers in their efforts to serve low-income women.
$100,000 per fiscal year have been allocated for The Refuge, an opioid addiction ministry based in Ohio.
Parental Rights & Protecting Children
School districts must now inform parents of their sex education curriculum. Additionally, the school may not teach that curriculum to any student unless his or her parent has given written permission. The Ohio Department of Education must also audit every school district’s sex education curriculum at the start of each school year and publish their findings on their website annually.
$1 million per fiscal year have been allocated for Sexual Risk Avoidance education, which encourages students to choose abstinence, among other healthy life choices.
Election Integrity
In order to preserve the fairness of our elections and ensure that funds are not being directed in a way that favors certain districts and sways the vote, election officials are no longer permitted to receive money for conducting elections from non-governmental corporations such as Facebook.
School Funding & Opportunities
Thanks to this budget, Ohio families now have greater access to the schools of their choice. In fact, this budget contains more school choice wins than any budget the state has passed in the last few decades! The following are some highlights:
The EdChoice Scholarships were increased from $4,650 to $5,500 for students in grades K-8, and from $6,000 to $7,500 for students in grades 9-12.
Tax credits are available for tuition to a non-chartered, non-public school; for contributions to a scholarship granting organization (SGO); and to assist families who choose to homeschool.
Educational Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) are offered to families that are at 300% or below the Federal Poverty Level to use for extracurricular activities.
A layer of costly bureaucracy has been eliminated by requiring that any money private schools receive from the state goes directly to them, rather than having to pass through their local public school districts.
Public school districts will be held accountable for ensuring that private school students are safely transported to school.
The state has allocated a specific dollar amount per student as a base cost for education funding, which will set a standard amount that will be able to follow a student when the Backpack Bill is passed.
CCV is grateful to Governor Mike DeWine, Senate President Matt Huffman, and Speaker of the House Bob Cupp for including these important provisions in the budget. We look forward to working with lawmakers to continue this pro-family momentum.
For more information, contact CCV at 513-733-5775 or info@ccv.org.
As Ohio’s largest Christian public policy organization, Center for Christian Virtue seeks the good of our neighbors by advocating for public policy that reflects the truth of the Gospel.
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