Governor DeWine's Budget for OOD: Historic Investments to Support Ohioans with Disabilities

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s biennial Executive Budget for Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025 highlights his dedication to making Ohio a Disability Inclusion State and Model Employer of Individuals with Disabilities. The proposed budget will allow Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities (OOD) to secure the largest investment in its history to positively impact the lives of Ohioans with disabilities.

OOD Director Kevin Miller and Maria Seaman, OOD Chief Financial Officer, join the podcast to discuss the Executive Budget and how it will support OOD and partners to serve more Ohioans with disabilities and increase the services provided to them.

Transcripts and MP3 files are available at ood.ohio.gov/podcast.

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Transcript

Kim Jump: In this episode of OOD Works the podcast, we’re joined by our Director Kevin Miller and our Chief Financial Officer Maria Seaman. Maria has been with OOD since June 2011, and she has served as our agency’s budget manager for over seven years. She began her career in state government in 1997 under the Legislative Service Commission’s Fellowship Program and remained on staff there for nearly 14 years where she covered primarily Health and Human Services agencies and legislation. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from University of Buffalo and has a Master of Public Administration degree from North Carolina State University. 

Kim Jump: The reason we’re joined by Director Miller and Maria is because at the end of January 2023, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced his biennial Executive Budget for Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025. It’s wonderful news for OOD. Director Miller welcome. Why don’t you give us a brief overview of the budget before we break it down?

Director Kevin Miller: Everything is great. Thanks a lot for tuning in. And go out on a high note.

Kim Jump: (laughs).

Director Kevin Miller: No. This budget request that Governor DeWine has put together really shows the investment in individuals with disabilities. It shows individuals with disabilities in Ohio matter. It is a true reinforcement to his Executive Order that he signed moments after taking the oath of office four years ago, saying Ohio would be a disability inclusion state and a model employer. I’m looking forward to getting into a little bit more detail. But I think the high-level thing is that full match will mean really securing a legacy for Governor DeWine that this level of support has never been seen before. You’re talking about an additional $10 to $11 million in general revenue over the two years of the biennium. I won’t steal Maria’s thunder because she really knows this much better. But, that will allow us in the second year, because we do need time to ramp these things up that involve staff and other things. But, by the end of that second year, we will be securing $77.5 million in federal VR grants over that biennium. That’s quite an investment when you’re looking at both state and federal. Almost a $100 million for individuals with disabilities, which funds a lot of the things we’ve been doing over the last 11 years. Like, our College2Careers, with our partnership with Higher Ed, our Jobs for Recovery with Mental Health and Addiction Services, with our drug courts, our Ohio Transition Support Partnerships with the Ohio Department of Education, and Employment First with the Department of Developmental Disabilities. I think this will also allow us, and we will talk maybe a little bit more about it, some new things we’re going to be able to do with these additional funds.  

Kim Jump: Why don’t you give a teaser before we break down the numbers with Maria? The burning new initiative that’s also included. Would you explain that?

Director Kevin Miller: Yeah. When I was told my son had autism, I didn’t think about what he could do. I didn’t think about services that would be available from a variety of agencies. I thought about all the negatives first. I thought about, is he ever going to be able to graduate from high school. Is he ever going to be able to have a relationship. Is he ever going to be able to live on his own. Is he going to be a victim. As a parent, your parental instincts first are always about protection. It’s not about all the wonderful things, like, I didn’t want to think about letting him go out into the world and be vulnerable. So, we have to change mindsets because we know with inclusion, we know in education now, I’ve talked many times showing my age. When I was growing up, I had friends that I only saw at recess and at lunch because they were separated. They were in a learning-disabled classroom. Or LD classroom as it was called back then. Now, it’s all integrated. You have kids at various levels all together and we see that it works. We have to start changing parents’ minds more than it is the kids’ minds. We are really excited about this new initiative called Accessible Ohio. I think Governor DeWine has done things like Recovery Ohio, he’s done H2Ohio to talk about drinking water and preserving lands, and making sure people have a mental health service that they need. This is in that same vein. Accessible Ohio is really about a new era of disability inclusion in Ohio. It’s transformational. I love being able to say that about accessibility to everything our great state as to offer. It’s really about how we can do a cultural change. Now, this isn’t going to happen overnight. I just want to make sure I say that. To run a marathon, you’ve got to take the first step out of the starting gate. Right? You’ve got 26.3 miles to go. You can’t think about the end, because I don’t think there is a finish line in this. But it’s about changing the cultural thought processes of families who start to grow up believing that they matter and that they can go and do things within Ohio as soon as possible and be able to see the things about what accommodation and accessibility is all about. To give you an example of some of those things. Right now, there’s no singular agency or body that is responsible for trying to set standards. We’re not talking about ADA, and Title 1, about things like bathrooms, and ramps, and things like that.

I’m talking about things like if you go to a museum, and you have, I’ve been to many museums. I enjoy going to museums. Sometimes there’s video displays, there’s other things. Well, if you’re someone who is visually impaired or blind, you’re not really enjoying what that display is. If you go in and something’s not closed captioned, someone who is deaf is not going to be able to do that. What Accessible Ohio does, it will enable us to hire staff who are not funded through vocational rehabilitation, which has those ropes attached that you can only do things that are attached to an individual with an open case. This actually has us being proactive. We’ll be able to work with airports, museums, local cities, and communities. Large and small. Things in rural communities. Our colleges and universities. What if in every aspect of life whether you live in Conneaut, Ohio all the way down to Cincinnati, and everywhere in between, and we have a focused effort on all of those things that are inclusive. Whether you go to a park and there’s a playground, which we’ve worked with accessible playgrounds with a good friend of mine, Director Mary Mertz with the Department of Natural Resources to local communities who’ve asked us we would like to upgrade our parking to make it a more, change from, handicap parking to accessible parking, a more inclusive and I think, modern term. And, using the more modern placard that is used. That’s more inclusive. How can we do that? We tried to help them, but really we can’t use money or anything like that or even consult more on a full-time basis. Accessible Ohio will be able for us to be able to start working with them. For instance, the Department of Developmental Disabilities, a good friend, Director Hauck, has money set aside in her budget specifically to give grants to local communities to install adult changing stations. Think about this, you’ve got people who are caregivers who have individuals they are caring for, who may have to provide basic toiletry needs. You can’t go to the State Fair. You can’t go to the Museum of Natural History in Cleveland. You can’t go to the Toledo Museum of Art and everything in between if you don’t have an adult changing station there while you’re visiting. Director Hauck will be able to provide some funding there and our Accessible Ohio staff can work closely with them about here’s the vendors you can purchase these from. This is how much it costs. Here’s the different types. Here’s the charging stations. As we know, we have individuals in Ohio who are growing older. Our population is growing older and onset disability is going to occur. I think we saw last summer at the State Fair, a tremendous amount of mobility scooters. They’re not just wheelchairs, but mobility scooters for our aged population to get around. You’re going to need more of those things, and it needs to be more of a conscientious effort about what you are doing in Ohio. From going to Kings Island and Cedar Point to travelling and going through the airport. Whatever airport you may be going through, and working with TSA to talk about where are there things here, in this airport to help people who are blind. To help people who have sensory integration. To help people who are deaf. To help people understand that they could also understand instructions that they’re getting to be able to make their travels safe. I could talk for another two hours about this in the podcast.

Kim Jump: (laughs). I bet you could.

Director Kevin Miller: But I would just say, to remind everybody this is the beginning. We’ve been given a blank canvas which is a tremendous responsibility. But we’re given the freedom to say go out. We know this is important. Start setting standards. Start going out and working with people to educate them and make them aware of how every aspect of life from when a child, not just gets up, but goes to school. How they get to school. How they play on the playground. How we start talking about what they can do instead of what they can’t do.

Kim Jump: Excellent. This is really exciting news for Ohioans with disabilities. Maria, the Director mentioned some financials. But could you just break down the numbers behind the proposed budget?

Maria Seaman: Thanks Kim. As Director Miller mentioned, the Governor’s Executive Budget as proposed includes approximately $27.2 million in General Revenue Funds (GRF) for OOD in the first year. And then $32.4 million in the second year of the biennium. Those funds, the majority of that GRF funding along with matching funds that we receive from our state and local partners will allow OOD to maximize our federal resources that are allocated to Ohio. As Director Miller mentioned, that means we’re going to have the full match by the end of the second year of the biennium, which will allow us to serve more than 41,000 Ohioans with disabilities on an annual basis. That’s really exciting news for us. 

To give you a little bit more detail on some of our state level partnerships, in addition to our ongoing partnership with the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities around Employment First, we’re going to be expanding our partnership with the Ohio Department of Education for our Ohio Transition Support Partnership. Currently, the Ohio Department of Education transfers $3.5 million per year to OOD for that partnership. But they’re going to be increasing that partnership in the proposed budget to $5.5 million in the first year of the biennium and then to $6.5 million by the second year of the biennium. So, that is an exciting expansion to our Ohio Transition Support Partnership, which will allow us to expand our services to high school students. In addition, we’re going to be increasing our support of our College2Careers program by receiving $2 million in each of the state fiscal years from the Ohio Department of Higher Education to be able to expand our services and support of college students on campuses across the state. That’s really exciting news for the agency. 

Kim Jump: It really is. When Governor DeWine announced the financial support for college students with disabilities, obviously there’s been a lot of excitement around this. Just to be clear, will that kind of financial support for college students with disabilities be continued beyond this school year?

Maria Seaman: Yes. With full match, we will have so many options to be able to expand services in many different areas including ongoing support for our college students.

Kim Jump: Great news. Great news for them and for individuals with disabilities across the board, across the state. That’s wonderful. What about Community Centers for the Deaf?

Maria Seaman: Yeah. The Governor’s proposed budget includes an investment of an additional $500 thousand annually for the Community Centers for the Deaf, which will allow them to increase services for Ohioans who are deaf or hard of hearing. That’s really good news for those individuals that are served across the state by our Community Centers for the Deaf partners. 

Kim Jump: It really is. Director, one of the things that may surprise listeners with the Executive Budget is language that creates a penalty enhancement for crimes against Ohioans with disabilities. Can you just tell us about that?

Director Kevin Miller: Yeah. You know, this is something that we have been working on for some time. I think, you’ve seen OOD take a leadership role in some legislation going all the way back to the Communication Disability Law that we wrote and worked closely with members of the General Assembly to talk about protections for individuals with disabilities. One of the things that we’ve been working on is to try and explain that we’re one of only 14 states that didn’t have basically hate crime language for a crime that’s committed against individuals because of their disabilities. I want to make sure I explain what that means. This isn’t one of those things where it’s like, okay, you’re walking down the street and you have autism, and someone beats you up. Then after the fact, they realized you had a disability so there’s the penalty enhancement because of that. What this language does, is it specifically adds, based on the definition of the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act, that if you specifically target an individual to commit a crime against them because of their disability, so maybe one of the most common things that I have heard in our research and where other states have included this, is where for instance, someone who is blind who is running one of our blind enterprise programs, like Micro Markets or something like that. Because you know that person is blind, you steal money from them that’s on the counter or something like that. Or, you know that an individual, there was a very tragic case in Chicago, where some students who pretended to be friends with a young man with autism, lured him away into an abandoned house and then livestreamed, Facebook, torturing him, putting cigarette butts out on him and things like that. They did that specifically because they knew he had autism and knew that they could lure him away. We’ve seen other examples of this in a variety of different disability groups. What this penalty enhancement does is, it says, if the crime level you’re being charged with, would be let’s say a Felony 4. If there is evidence to show you there was thought behind the idea that you targeted this individual because they have a disability, it would then increase the penalty from a Felony 4 to a Felony 3. If it’s a misdemeanor, like in a misdemeanor 2, it would make it a misdemeanor 1. It would mean an increased penalty.

I want to make sure everyone understands. It can’t be after the fact. It’s not like, oh, I robbed somebody. And afterwards I realized they were deaf. No, it would be because you knew the person was deaf and you made them the target because of their disability. I think it’s a very well-balanced approach. I think it also shows Governor DeWine’s commitment to law enforcement, and supporting individuals with disabilities not being a target, in showing that you will be held to a higher standard if you do this against an individual with a disability because they have a disability. It’s a very unfortunate topic but it is good news for us to be able to have this being able to add Ohio to the many other states that have added this hate crime-type language to protect individuals with disabilities.

Kim Jump: Good. Maria, I know our vocational rehabilitation program works with hundreds of providers and organizations that do a lot of the hands-on services to our participants who are working on finding and keeping a job. What does this budget mean for them?

Maria Seaman: Thanks, Kim. Our counselors serve individuals in all 88 counties in Ohio, which means we have providers across the state. Our federal rules require that only our counselors can do certain things, like make eligibility determinations, develop a plan for employment, authorize for services, approve payments, and complete the case and close it when the person has left our services. We do this by purchasing a wide range of vocational rehabilitation services from those hundreds of providers from across Ohio. We will be looking at our Fee Schedule as we proceed through this budget. These additional dollars in our budget means a greater investment for each person that we serve. It means we will be serving more people. We’re looking for increases in quality of services that are provided. This infusion of state dollars allowing us to maximize our federal match by the second year of the biennium, means we will be able to serve an additional six thousand individuals with disabilities on an annual basis. That means providing increased support for the vocational rehabilitation services that they need, along with education and credentials, and assistive technology. Lots of investments will be made to benefit not only the individuals that we serve, but also our providers throughout the state that are vital to the work of our program.

Kim Jump: Excellent. I want to ask you a similar question Director. We have a lot of employer partners in the state. Hundreds of them. How is the Governor’s proposed budget going to impact the businesses that we partner with?

Director Kevin Miller: We are always going to be committed about what it means for the people we serve. We talk all the time internally about we need to keep who we serve in mind. And, at the core of our mission is getting individuals with disabilities employed. Employers drive the vocational rehabilitation process now. It’s not VR driving that. Because we have to understand an employer, when they want someone, they want someone now. They don’t want a lot of extra work that goes along with it. That’s where our counselors and our business relations staff, as I like to say, reverse engineer. We go to the businesses first. We have a who’s who’s list of employers, but it also means the local mom and pops stores that are interested in wanting to hire individuals locally that they might have a relationship within their schools, to work at their ice cream stores, or their grocery stores, or what have you. We need to make sure that individuals with disabilities know what the job market means. We’ve got to understand what the business is. We’ve got to understand what is it the skills are necessary to have to do the type of work that you do here.

With these funds, we’ll also be able to increase internships where we’re taking some fear out of, we’ll pay for a period of time for their wage so you can basically see how this individual can work. That’s where we’ve seen probably our strongest connections with businesses. When we go into it with the idea of how can we remove the barriers for the business to get over the mindset of hiring individuals with disabilities because as I’ve said with Accessible Ohio, the first thing people are thinking about is, unfortunately, the things I can’t do. Am I going to get sued. Can I say hi to somebody who’s blind. How do I address someone. That’s why we do things like Disability Etiquette training. That’s why we talk about how you try to foster an environment of what that means. I always like to remind everybody, guess what? You already have people with disabilities working there. You just don’t know it. They haven’t disclosed it. If you’re able to make that environment more attractive, you’re going to attract more workers. And everybody right now is trying to figure out how to bring in more people to their organization to work.

Kim Jump: Excellent. It’s a win win. What happens next in this budget process?

Director Kevin Miller: If some of you who are as old as I am, remember your School House Rock, I’m Just a Bill. It’s just a bill right now. The budget is a bill that’s been introduced now in the Ohio House of Representatives. Director Murnieks starts that process off by testifying about the general, high level, macrolevel for the budget for the state of Ohio and Governor DeWine’s vision with that budget. Then, the Ohio House of Representatives has subcommittees of the Finance committee. So, there will be members of the large Finance committee that then breakout based on topic levels. There’s Criminal Justice, there’s Education, there’s Transportation. We have not heard yet which subcommittee we will be in. It’s usually either in Health and Human Services or Jobs and Economic Employment, something along those lines. That will be an opportunity for me to testify before the subcommittee and lay out our vision that we’ve talked about a little bit here and maybe in a little bit more detail. But it also allows those members to ask me questions about, so tell me a little bit more about this, this Accessible Ohio. What do you mean by, maybe they’re not familiar with charging stations or adult changing stations or disability etiquette training. That allows me to educate them. I’ll be doing one-on-one meetings by the way over the next several months with everyone, every member whose part of the House Finance also in leadership. Once that is then completed, it’s voted on by the Ohio House of Representatives. Then it goes over to the Senate. Then, as bill says, I’m just a bill, then the whole process starts all over again. Then, we will testify in front of the Senate Finance Committee. I will be having individual meetings to make sure we are educating and talking about any items that maybe representatives or senators may have questions about. Once that’s voted on out of the Senate, it then goes to what is called a Conference Committee because we know there will be some differences between what the House passes and what the Senate passes. So, that Conference Committee has representatives from the Governor, from the House, and from the Senate and they work to iron those differences out. By law, we have to have a balanced budget signed by July 1, 2023. That’s kind of the high-level timeframe. But I will tell you, I will be very busy, and all of our staff will be very busy over the next four to five months.

Kim Jump: It sounds like it. Especially you. We want our listeners support too.

Director Kevin Miller: Absolutely. If you’re an individual with a disability and you have a relationship with your state representative, state senator, make sure you, if you have a relationship with them or you listen and follow, let them know. Educate them how this is such a great opportunity. Really transformative. I’ve said this before, and I try not to use hyperbolae that isn’t accurate. But we’ve never seen something like this. And, this type of one time, at this point in time, I don’t want to make it sound like its only one time, but where we’re at now, compared to where we were before is transformative.  It’s not just the dollars, it’s what we can do with those dollars. And our commitment will always be to still be cognizant of our lean principles in looking at efficiencies and making sure that we’re doing things the right way and that we’re accountable to both the United States Department of Education and the Social Security Administration, which is our two federal oversight agencies that have those grants that we match with and bring down. And, obviously, the State of Ohio, and the Auditor of State, and the things that we have to do to make sure the money is being spent the way it is and that we’re able to prove that who we partner with is spending the money the way it needs to be spent. We’re committed with that. I think that’s why were at this point to where we see this investment. We’ve been able to be innovative. We’ve been transparent. That’s part of our culture and that will continue. That’s why I think we have to have that in mind as we talk about all the great things we’re going to be doing. We have to remind everybody though. We have to pay attention to detail as well. 

Kim Jump: Very good. Well, as we move toward closing, I wonder if each of you, and Maria we will start with you first, if both of you could share, if there is one thing you would want listeners to remember from listening to this budget discussion, what would it be? Maria?

Maria Seaman: One of the things you mentioned in the opening when you introduced me, was my time in working with the Legislative Service Commission (LSC), my involvement with OOD didn’t start in 2011, when I worked at LSC, this agency was one of the agency’s that I tracked through the legislative process every year. And I worked on their budget from the legislative side. As Director Miller mentioned, this really is a historic investment for individuals with disabilities. I’ve watched, from a distance, working on the legislative side of government, the transformation that this agency went through when funding was cut and then to see the funding to get to where it is today, really is very historic. It will be the largest VR budget in the agency’s history. I spend a lot of my time looking at numbers, tracking the agency’s budget from a high level, but also detail spending by program and division. So, there’s lots of moving parts within this agency from a funding perspective. I feel the weight that this huge investment will be and the responsibility that OOD will have and what it will take for us to work together with the program leadership to implement these investments. Insofar as it’s a huge responsibility, it’s also a huge opportunity for us to make a difference in the lives of those that we serve. It’s a privilege to be a part of OOD and to be a part of the work that we’re doing to change lives. I’m so excited about what the next two years will hold and beyond for this agency and especially those we serve.

Director Kevin Miller: I hope they get done after listening to this and go, wow, that is pretty incredible. Because when I think about things like a legacy for the Governor, return on investment, partnerships, credential attainment, higher wages, transformational, I hope everybody can walk away from this…there’s so many words that if I had to pick one, it’s transformational. We’ve been on this projectory for a while and now it’s like we’ve got to hit, we’ve got to jump into hyperspace on the millennium falcon. I’m a Star Wars fan. I’m just really, I feel like my job now as the coach, is to make sure everybody understands what that means. That question is very important. So, what I’m hoping with Accessible Ohio and full match, that’s just opening this big giant door in Ohio. To have everybody understand not just what OOD can do, but our partners throughout the state and our sister agencies can do to help people with disabilities find employment, gain independence, increase their social standing. All of those things are important. Governor DeWine’s budget and I think Governor DeWine’s commitment even outside of the budget, is reflective that if I had also to say one sentence it would be, this budget puts purpose and meaning behind the statement, Ohioans with disabilities matter.