Child care cost-sharing model brought back to the Ohio General Assembly

Yahoo

05-02-2025

Child care worker Marci Then helps her daughter, Mila, 4, put away toys. (File photo by Elaine S. Povich/Stateline.)
Ohio lawmakers are trying again with measures to attack the child care crisis that advocates are warning continue to hurt the state's families and economy, including with a bill that spreads the cost of child care out among employers, employees, and the state.
State Rep. Mark Johnson, R-Chillicothe, reintroduced a bill he said came 'late in the game' last year, giving it an uphill battle to passage as the Republican supermajority sought to close up the General Assembly term with other priorities.
But Johnson's bill is now Ohio House Bill 2, and has been introduced very early in the new General Assembly, with its first hearing in the House Children and Human Services Committee held on Tuesday.
This bill, and its companion bill led in the Ohio Senate by state Sen. Michele Reynolds, R-Canal Winchester, looks to direct $10 million to a 'Child CareCred Program' within the Ohio Department of Children and Youth, to be distributed 'on a first-come, first-served basis,' according to Johnson.
The bill models its child care program after Ohio's TechCred program, which incentivizes employers to enroll employees in skill-building programs and connect them with credential providers in exchange for reimbursement.
The child care program would create an application process for employers who identify needs within their employees for child care assistance.
A program that engages the employer, the employee, and the state is Johnson's way to address what he and child advocates say is a crisis that only hurts Ohio's economy more the longer it goes on.
The average cost for child care has gone up on a yearly basis, and a 2024 report from Care.com found 1 in 5 American households are paying $36,000 annually on care for their children.
'This financial strain has forced many parents, especially mothers, to reduce their working hours, or leave their jobs entirely to manage child care responsibilities,' Johnson said.
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In some areas of the state, workforce participation rates are as low as 50%, according to Johnson, who said that while there are other reasons for a low participation rate, child care is a major reason parents are unable to work or are choosing to leave their jobs.
'If we want to remain known as a business-friendly state, we need to address the child care crisis,' the representative told the House committee on Tuesday.
Johnson mentioned the proposal by Gov. Mike DeWine in his proposed executive budget, released on Monday, to increase eligibility for publicly funded child care from 145% to 200% of the federal poverty level. But Johnson said that by just increasing the eligibility level 'we are rewarding employers who pay meager wages.'
The Children and Human Services Committee chair, state Rep. Andrea White, R-Kettering, is no stranger to pushing the legislature to address the child care issue, having successfully championed a wide-ranging bill in the last General Assembly that directs different state agencies to study processes and programs on everything from infant mortality to child care programs such as Head Start.
Though she's still hoping to see the funding that was left out of her bill come in the new operating budget, White isn't done addressing aspects of child care and child welfare.
On Tuesday, White and fellow Republican state Rep. Sharon Ray, R-Wadsworth, introduced House Bill 7. The legislation seeks to 'increase the number of stable, safe family foster homes and long-term kinship care options by providing publicly funded child care for children in the foster care system in these placements,' White told the committee.
Ray said that about 14,300 children are in foster care in the state, with 4,000 of those placed with a relative or family friend in kinship care.
'Across the board we have a need for more foster families, whether very young children or teens,' Ray said. 'Let's take the objections off the table by removing the things that get in the way for current and potential foster and kinship parents, so that more loving, caring families can say yes to our children.'
Both bills will see further hearings to allow supporters and opponents to give their opinions of the bills before they are voted on by the committee, and if approved, moved forward to votes of the full House.
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