Ohio House bill removes funding set aside for state childcare accessibility program

An Ohio House committee eliminated funding for a program intended to increase childcare accessibility in a bill meant to address potential childcare fraud.

The House Children and Human Services Committee brought Ohio House Bill 647 up for a hearing recently for the sole purpose of making changes to the bill. The committee’s chair, Republican state Rep. Andrea White, said she hopes to see the committee approve the bill soon.

The bill was initially introduced in response to a right-wing influencer’s claims out of Minnesota that federal funding was being fraudulently used by childcare facilities, particularly those managed and owned by Somali immigrants.

The Trump administration responded to the Minnesota claims by freezing childcare funding to that state, and other Democratically led states.

Ohio officials including Gov. Mike DeWine made comments at the time that the claims were made, hoping to avoid a freeze on federal funds coming to the state for its Publicly Funded Child Care program.

The sponsors of H.B. 647, Republican state Reps. Phil Plummer and Tom Young, defended the state’s oversight of the childcare system, while also introducing the bill to help prove enforcement of laws would be strong and swift, so the federal funding distributors didn’t take action.

“We can’t gaslight this and freak out the federal administration, and they pull our funding,” Plummer said in January when the bill was announced. “Because then we lose childcare centers.”

The bill focuses on increasing the state’s data analysis skills when it comes to childcare centers and funding. It would also put in a new oversight system, including not only county prosecuting attorneys who are typically the ones to investigate local childcare fraud allegations, but also the state Inspector General’s Office, and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office as well.

The legislation would base funding from the Publicly Funded Child Care coffers on a child’s enrollment in a childcare facility, rather than on a child’s individual attendance. It would also allow the Ohio Department of Children & Youth to suspend a childcare center’s license without a prior hearing “if DCY has reason to suspect that (the center) has engaged in the misuse of public dollars or acted with intent to commit fraud against the PFCC program,” according to bill analysis by the Legislative Service Commission.

H.B. 647 received the support of Kara Wente, director of the Ohio Department of Children & Youth.

Changes made this week by the House committee remove money for a pilot program that Republicans have been trying to enact for several years, a program that was an attempt to increase accessibility in a state that advocates say is in “crisis” when it comes to affordability and access to childcare.

The Child Care Cred Program was originally a standalone piece of GOP-led legislation, but had since been absorbed into H.B. 647. The program was sold by supporters as a cost-sharing model, one in which the state would contribute to the cost of childcare, while the remaining cost would be split between participating employers and eligible employees.

In the committee changes, an appropriation for the program of $600,000 for fiscal year 2026 and $4.4 million in 2027 was removed, among other changes.

“So, instead of using the Child Care Cred money, that money is going to stay in (the budget of the Ohio Department of Children & Youth), and then the department will use other funds that are within their budget,” White told the committee.

The most recent state budget put forth $10 million in support of the Child Care Cred program.

There were no objections to the changes made to the bill. State Rep. Sarah Fowler Arthur, R-Ashtabula, said the bill changes were “a big improvement,” but commented on a different change, one in which the time period for childcare centers to “backdate,” or make changes to attendance records, was increased from seven days to 10 business days or 14 calendar days, whichever is later.

“I would prefer to see even tighter timelines,” Fowler Arthur said. “I think we really need to be making sure that we have the most accurate data possible.”

Another change made to H.B. 647 eliminated an increased to the Department of Children & Youth’s “community projects and assistance” funding by $2 million in 2026 and $3 million in 2027. In a previous version of H.B. 647, the money was required to go toward “enhanced data analytics for use in conducting automated attendance reviews of publicly funded childcare providers.”