Earlier this spring, Governor Mike DeWine announced that the state faces a roughly $775 million shortfall in its budget for fiscal year 2020 – which ends on June 30, 2020. The governor requested each agency look for cuts of up to 20 percent for fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2021.[1] Federal funding associated with...
Author: Tara Britton
March 27, 2020
Ohio General Assembly unanimously passes emergency legislation (House Bill 197)
The Ohio Senate and House swiftly gathered and passed emergency coronavirus legislation (HB197) earlier this week. The bill addressed a wide-ranging set of issues that needed attention in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Every element of the bill is effective immediately upon the governor’s signing, unlike most pieces of legislation that go into effect 90...
March 2, 2020
MSY action plan sets a path forward
January 21, 2020
Data shows drop in unintentional drug overdose deaths in 2018
Drug overdose deaths in Ohio declined in 2018 to a three-year low of 3,764. This comes after a year (2017) where the state saw its highest ever number (4,854) of overdose deaths. This updated information was released by the Ohio Department of Health in early December, much later in the year than it has traditionally...
January 15, 2020
Ohio Medicaid’s end-of-year report reveals problems stemming from eligibility system; what does it mean and how will it be addressed?
Yesterday, the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) released a 13-page end-of-year report that detailed myriad issues across the health care program. Being the big, complex program that it is, when issues arise, they’re big and complex too. Here’s our first take as we dive into this. Readers should be fully prepared to read more about...
December 2, 2019
Report on Ohio’s maternal deaths provides look at contributing factors, makes recommendations for improvement
In mid-November, the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) released a long-awaited comprehensive report on maternal mortality in Ohio. The report shows that there were 610 pregnancy-associated deaths, of which 186 were pregnancy-related, in Ohio between 2008 and 2016. The report finds that Black women were two and half times more likely to die of a...
September 20, 2019
Medicaid oversight committee meets for first time in months, gets updates from Ohio Medicaid director
The Director of the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) Maureen Corcoran appeared before the Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee (JMOC) for the first time in her tenure on Thursday. Since this was the first JMOC meeting of the 133rd General Assembly, there was a lot of content to cover, followed by a lot of questions over...
September 16, 2019
Ohio’s new budget includes funding for harm reduction, including syringe services programs
For the first time, Ohio’s state operating budget includes a dedicated line item that will fund harm reduction, including syringe services programs (SSPs) across the state. This funding was proposed and then ushered through budget deliberations by Senators Dave Burke (R-Marysville) and Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood). While many harm reduction initiatives, such as naloxone access and...
August 19, 2019
Plan to end HIV Epidemic: AFC, Community Solutions staff join roundtable discussion in Cincinnati
The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) hosted a roundtable in Cincinnati on August 1 featuring the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Robert Redfield. Dr. Redfield is traveling around the country to states and counties that are eligible for new federal funding as part of the president’s recently announced plan...
July 29, 2019
Improving data reporting and transparency of data improves but more work left to do
Heading into the 2020-21 state budget, The Center for Community Solutions closely examined the cause behind declining enrollment in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, a larger proportion of the TANF caseload consisting of child-only cases (where children are living with another relative who isn’t their parent and receive cash assistance) and the...