In our continuing work to make the state budget process more understandable and accessible, we’re going to revisit some tips from last time around.
The last state budget proceedings took place in the first half of 2021, just as vaccines for COVID-19 were becoming available, so much of our and others’ budget advocacy was conducted virtually. While these 2021 resources do reference a more virtual world, there are still valuable tips for engagement that can be applied to the process in 2023.
A few positive changes
Of course, a few things have changed, the Ohio House of Representatives has added a feature to each committee page that allows anyone to sign up to receive committee notices, the quickest, most up to date information you can get on committee proceedings. You can see an example here, but each committee page has this “mailing list” feature. So far, the Ohio Senate has not followed suit, and emailing the chair’s office to be added to the committee list is still the best way to stay up to date.
The Ohio House of Representatives has added a feature to each committee page that allows anyone to sign up to receive committee notices.
A few new committees
There are also just more committees, in both the House and Senate, to stay up to date with! Some of these new committees are related to health and human services and are listed below.
Senate Community Revitalization Committee
House Health Provider Services Committee
House Public Health Policy Committee
To get a refresher on giving testimony and some tips on amplifying your advocacy, revisit our blogs from 2021. We will continue to provide updates, including upcoming looks at the newly proposed Department of Children and Youth and an overview of budget support for behavioral health. And for the latest take on the state budget and general policy landscape, I teamed up with Kelsey Bergfeld at Advocates for Ohio’s Future on an episode of the Prognosis Ohio podcast.
