COLUMBUS, Ohio — Food banks across Ohio are dealing with a major increase in need, but each Republican budget passed in the state cuts their funding from 2025 to 2026 by millions.
The need for help putting food on the table is growing in Ohio.
Last year's visits to the state's network of food pantries were nearly 16 million, including repeat customers, according to the Ohio Association of Foodbanks.
"The fact is that, unfortunately, the need for food is at an all-time high," Kristin Warzocha with Greater Cleveland Food Bank said.
Now, Warzocha is bracing for a tough year.
"We are expecting changes that could result in up to 8 million less pounds of food next year," she said. "That's a 15% decrease — that's without additional public or private support."
Ohio food banks are currently receiving $32.5 million from the state. But typically, they've been receiving about $24.5 million since 2019. In the last budget, they were given a one-time supplement of $7.5 million due to extra COVID-19 dollars and increased need. Now they would be going back 24.5 million — despite the surge in need and inflation.
The food banks asked for about $30 million this year — a $5 million bump due to inflation and need. They didn't receive it in the governor's, House's or Senate's budgets. This means they are set to face a 23% reduction in funding from the state from Fiscal Year 2025 to 2026.
The Children's Hunger Alliance (CHA) is also facing a greater need, the organization states. Their weekend meals program has tripled in size and has an extensive waitlist, CHA said. They were asking for several million more to keep up with demand.
The governor gave them their current funding, but both the House and Senate passed bills that cut the CHA budget from $7.5 million to $5 million.
Hunger prevention advocates are hoping that lawmakers change their minds before the end of June. Legislative leaders are going into conference committee, closed-door meetings, to negotiate and draft a final budget — but food isn’t on their minds.
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"What are some 'must-haves' that you want to keep in the budget?" I asked Senate President Rob McColley after the floor vote.
"Well, I think there are a lot of good things in our budget…. We obviously don't want to reveal too much, but we're firm believers in some of the big items. The flat tax is something that we feel pretty strongly about," McColley responded.
McColley and his chamber have passed a 2.75% flat income tax, meaning the highest earners in the state — those making more than $100,000 a year — will no longer have to pay 3.5% in income tax. This would make them equal to the lower tax bracket.
State data shows that the flat tax could cause a more than $1 billion loss to the general revenue fund.
"The dollars that we're foregoing in the flat tax are already incorporated into our overall spending," Senate Finance Chair Cirino (R-Kirtland) said.
Programs have been cut to make up for it, he said.
This includes money for food assistance, schools, Medicaid, libraries, lead abatement, addiction services, and child care, which have all decreased from the current status or from the governor's budget.
I asked state Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, which budget was better: House or Senate.
After saying both are bad, she chose the governor's budget. But when answering the question, she said the Senate's is more detrimental.
"A lot of the House was flat funding, which is still a cut given inflation, but the Senate is where we're seeing real actual programs taking away dollars from existing programs," Sweeney (D-Westlake) said.
House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) is on board with the tax cut. I asked him how he felt that McColley was going into the conference committee already saying there were some non-negotiables.
"I could probably list off a bunch of things that are non-negotiable unless somebody wants to go ahead and negotiate with them," he responded. "I think the flat tax is a great idea, so maybe they already knew that, so they could say it was non-negotiable."
Huffman has always been interested in either eliminating the income tax or getting to a flat tax — but he, in mid-May, said this needed to be something done responsibly.
"Any reduction like that needs to be coupled with... 'On the other side of the ledger, where are the spending cuts going to be?'" Huffman said. "I know that there's sort of a thought of, 'Well, just cut it and we'll figure that out later, but that's not what you're doing in budgets."
He continued, noting that he wasn't sure how big a change going from 3.5% to 2.75% truly was.
"The time to have a significant change in [income tax] is a plan you would have brought forth a year ago and then said, 'Here's what we're going to do with the budget with different cuts,'" Huffman said.
Gov. Mike DeWine was not interested in a flat tax.
“There is not one company that said to us, ‘We can’t come to Ohio because your taxes are too high,'... We are now extremely competitive.'" DeWine said back when announcing his budget in February.
Warzocha said she will continue working to make sure no one goes hungry, even with the expected funding cuts at both the state and federal levels.
"We have been reaching out to our community, and our community is responding," she said.
The budget has to be passed by July.
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