Dear Megan,

As I wrote in my email earlier this week, the budget that was finalized and approved is a disaster for children, families, and communities, with numerous bad faith attacks on public education, public libraries, educators, and unions. If you missed that email, you can read it here.

I am beyond disappointed that 23 Senators and 59 Representatives – all from the majority party in the statehouse – voted for this atrocious budget bill. We will be working to make sure that Ohioans know who stood up in opposition to this budget and who stood by in silence.

Right now though, we are focused on asking Governor DeWine to veto the worst parts of this bill. You can join us by taking action here.

While there are many – and I mean MANY – egregious parts of this budget that we are asking the Governor to veto, here are three of our top priorities:

• Removing elected representatives from the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) Board: This is an unnecessary and extreme provision that applies only to STRS and not the other public pension funds. This policy was not included in any previous version of the budget, shutting out all public participation and scrutiny. If legislators want to enact this policy, they should advance it through standalone legislation.
• Restrictions on public library displays related to sexual orientation and gender: The vague language in this item will lead to a chilling effect that will prevent library users of all ages from having the free access to information that public libraries would otherwise provide.  
• A new voucher program (deceptively named “Education Savings Accounts”) for unaccountable, unregulated non-chartered non-public schools: Non-chartered, non-public schools explicitly choose not to be regulated or accredited by the state and are not required to meet even the most basic educational standards. There’s no assurance that taxpayer funds would be spent on legitimate educational purposes. This opens the door to fraud, waste, and abuse.

Please take action here and ask Governor DeWine to veto these items.

You can view our full list of veto requests in these letters:

• OFT’s veto request letter.
• OFT and Ohio Conference of AAUP joint veto request letter on higher education issues.
• All in for Ohio Kids (school funding coalition) veto request letter.

If any of the other issues mentioned in those letters are priorities for you, please add that into your sample letter when you take action.

The clock is ticking, so please take action and share this email with co-workers, friends, and family as soon as possible.

In Solidarity,

Melissa Cropper, President