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Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
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Co-owners of Missouri company at center of marijuana recall got greenlight for another license
Delta Extraction's license revocation is the center of a lawsuit playing out in St. Louis courts between a complex web of shareholders seeking to snatch back ownership of a Waynesville facility (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent). When the company at the center of a massive cannabis product recall lost the appeal of its revoked business license in February, Missouri regulators moved quickly to ensure those involved would no longer be permitted access to a marijuana facility without supervision. But that punishment doesn't mean those involved with Robertsville-manufacturer Delta Extraction are out of the Missouri marijuana industry. In fact, long after the state initially stripped Delta Extraction of its license in November 2023, regulators approved one of the company's co-owners — AJO LLC — to take over a cultivation and manufacturing facility in Waynesville in May 2024. It's a far bigger operation than Delta Extraction, and it also involves several dispensaries as well. AJO LLC says it was only a passive investor in Delta Extraction, where it owns 50%. The company claims it bought 50% of the Waynesville facility in 2022 and has been running it while awaiting approval of the license transfer last year. But now Delta's license revocation is the center of a lawsuit playing out in St. Louis courts between a complex web of shareholders seeking to snatch back ownership of the Waynesville facility from AJO. They argue the state shouldn't have given its final approval for the ownership change because of AJO's involvement in a company that had a marijuana license revoked. Lisa Cox, spokeswoman for the department that oversees the Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation, said the constitution does allow regulators 'to deny approval for ownership changes if approval is not 'unreasonably withheld.'' However, in May 2024, Cox said Delta's appeal of its license revocation was still pending. The final verdict didn't come down until nine months later. 'The totality of the circumstances at the time, including the nature of the ownership change, was not sufficient cause to deny the change,' Cox said. Cox also said the state's administrative rules – which the division drafts to interpret the constitution's intent and that take months to pass – currently do not prohibit individuals who have had a license revoked from acquiring another license. The division, Cox said, is 'reviewing its rules to add further detail to this authority.' A scathing 137-page decision issued in February by the Administrative Hearing Commission denying Delta's appeal of its revoked license concluded the company had a 'corporate culture of lax compliance with regulatory requirements.' Regulators are permitted to revoke agent ID cards for individuals who violate the rules. No one without an agent ID can access a marijuana facility without supervision of someone with a card, though you don't need one to own or run facilities. Within weeks of the Administrative Hearing Commission's February decision, Cox said the state 'revoked several agent IDs for involvement in rule violations associated with Delta Extraction.' In March, cannabis regulators issued AJO principal Josh Corson a notice of pending revocation of his agent ID card, according to documents The Independent obtained through Missouri's Sunshine Law. The notice stated that as an owner and manager of Delta Extraction, he was responsible for 17 cited rule violations, including 'manufacturing and selling bulk distillate in a false or misleading manner due to the failure to disclose that the distillate contained large quantities of unregulated cannabis.' Corson surrendered his agent ID license shortly after receiving the notice, and the other two AJO owners — Ryan Rich and Josh Ferguson — have let their agent IDs expire, Cox said. Cannabis regulators revoked the agent ID cards of four of Delta's contractors as well. AJO has been helping run the Waynesville operation since 2022 with Hi-Rise LLC, which is the other 50% owner. Hi-Rise has no ownership interest in Delta Extraction. Peter Barden, a spokesman for AJO and Hi-Rise, said the companies 'provided complete information' about the owners to the state for the license transfer. In response to Corson's agent ID revocation, Barden said AJO 'was not managing the Delta Extraction facility. It was a passive investor, and no action of AJO has ever been the basis of any revocation.' Yet pages of evidence in the Delta Extraction case – including emails, depositions and testimonies from high-level employees – appear to demonstrate AJO was fully involved in Delta's operations and even initiated the arrangement that led to their revocation. Barden said AJO 'certainly monitors its investments but has not actively managed any manufacturing or cultivation license.' Charles Pullium stood before a St. Louis judge in February in an emergency hearing, anxious to share what he believed would be a smoking-gun update in his lawsuit. It was just days after Delta Extraction had lost its appeal seeking to get its license to manufacture marijuana products reinstated. Pullium is an attorney representing a group hoping to wrestle the Waynesville manufacturing and cultivation license away from AJO and Hi-Rise. If Delta Extraction violated state law to the point where its license was revoked, Pullium argued, its leadership shouldn't have won state approval to operate a different cannabis facility. 'It's a huge case because it involves the revocation of a license,' Pullium told St. Louis Judge Joan Moriarty at the February hearing. 'And why it's important in this case is because when people apply for a new change of ownership… they have to answer, 'Have any of you or your owners or anyone had a license revoked or suspended?'' Pullium argued the Delta revocation was key to settling a three-year legal ownership battle, which ended up in St. Louis court in 2023 when AJO and Hi-Rise filed a lawsuit. On one side of the legal battle are AJO and Hi-Rise. On the other side are 19 named individuals and marijuana companies connected to the deal, including St. Louis-based marijuana company Heya, former Missouri House Speaker Carl Bearden and Delphi Management LLC. They argue the 2022 sale to AJO and Hi-Rise was invalid. Moriarty disagreed the new information was worth holding an emergency hearing for and made Pullium's client pay $3,037.50 in attorney fees for AJO and Hi-Rise, which are represented by Dowd Bennett law firm. The lawsuit is ongoing. In January, Scott Sterling, who is involved in the tangled ownership web, filed two complaints with the Division of Cannabis Regulation, alleging that AJO did not provide all the information necessary for the transfer. One crucial detail left out, Sterling contends, is that he never signed off on any sale as a 40% owner. The division has opened an investigation into Sterling's complaint, Cox said, and it is ongoing. Barden said the Waynesville location is legally owned by AJO and Hi-Rise and 'current ownership has never had a license revoked.' One of Pullium's motions in January returned the spotlight to Jason Sparks, one of Delta Extraction's contractors. 'The facts underlying the Delta scandal read like a made for T.V. drama,' the motion states, 'a prior felon… buys out-of-state products from a nameless and unknown 'network'… which he then illegally turns into uncertified product which he then sells to a complicit Delta, who then illegally sells to unsuspecting dispensaries…' Sparks was among the four contractors that had their agent IDs revoked in March, and he has a disqualifying felony on his record that was overlooked by the state when he obtained that ID. However, Sparks directs the blame largely at Corson in legal filings in his company SND Leasing's lawsuit against Delta Extraction. In the spring of 2023, the supply for marijuana distillate was low across the state and Delta hired Sparks to make large amounts of distillate that Delta sold to about 100 other Missouri manufacturers. Those manufacturers went on to produce gummies and vapes for their brands, which is why the product recall was so widespread. At issue was what's in the distillate. Sparks extracted a small amount of THC from Missouri-grown marijuana, which the state heavily regulates. Then he added a large amount of THC oil that was extracted from hemp, a product that is completely unregulated. Regulators pulled 60,000 products off the shelves in August 2023, arguing the use of out-of-state, unregulated THC oil violated state law and posed a public health risk. Corson was 'the person who found the supply for the distillate,' a January motion in Sparks' lawsuit states, and he was the one who signed the contracts. In his lawsuit, Sparks points to the testimony from Delta's COO Rachel Herndon Dunn during an Administrative Hearing Commission hearing in March 2024. Dunn testified that Corson reached out to a large cannabinoid-producing facility in Florida to obtain the hemp-derived THC oil needed to make their recalled distillate. 'Corson went down to tour their labs in Ft. Lauderdale…' Dunn said during the hearing. Sparks claims Delta leadership reassured him that cannabis regulators signed off on the extraction process. 'The reality is that (the state) never gave assurances of regulatory compliance,' the suit states. Delta argued hemp is not a federally controlled substance and the state has no authority to regulate hemp-derived THC products — an argument they lost in their appeal. Also, the products went through a final round of testing before they hit the shelves, Delta noted, so they didn't pose a health risk. Despite the ownership connection to Delta, state regulators told The Independent they've found no evidence of similar practices taking place at the Waynesville facility.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Child care tax credit for businesses introduced in Ohio House
(File photo by Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent). A new bill introduced in the Ohio House would create a business tax credit for child care benefits similar to a federal credit the bill's sponsor says is underutilized. State Rep. Andrea White, R-Kettering, told the House Ways and Means Committee said the tax credit in House Bill 167 would offer a stronger incentive for employers than the federal tax credit does, by bridging a gap in the federal funds available for businesses. The tax credit would also be another attempt to stem a problem that covers all of Ohio, from urban centers to rural regions. 'Let's try something, let's get something going to see how we can get our employers engaged,' White told the committee. H.B. 167 would authorize a nonrefundable tax credit for an employer providing 'certain child care benefits' to employees, allows the credit to be claimed against other taxes like income or the commercial activity tax, and creates eligibility for costs 'associated with establishing or operating an employer-owned child care facility, contracting with a child care facility, or paying employees for the provision of their own child care. Under the current language of the bill, the credit is limited to $500,000 per year, but any unused funds can be carried over for five years, White said. She said she's open to changes to that cap or the carryover language if the committee feels the amounts are too high. The federal credit that's already in place covers 25% of total expenses related to child care services or benefits, and up to 10% of the resource and referral expenses, for a total credit capped at $150,000 per year. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX It's a heavy lift for businesses, White argued, since they must spend at least $600,000 to be able to get the full benefit, if they're aware of it at all. 'People don't know about this credit, they don't quite understand how to utilize it,' White said. '…But the other thing is it doesn't help if you, as a business, want to give a stipend for your employee, it doesn't cover that as a tax credit, so this gives employers more options so that they can actually take advantage of it.' H.B. 167 also allows non-profits to utilize the tax credit, unlike the federal credit, White said. The measure comes amid ongoing discussions about the state of child care, and how the economy is affected by a lack of access and affordability for the services in Ohio. Child care 'deserts' exist in Ohio where no services are available for children, and data from the Ohio Department of Children and Youth estimate 40,000 children in the state aren't eligible for Publicly Funded Child Care, meaning they don't receive state assistance to pay for the services. On top of those problems, low pay and high turnover in the child care sector means even if child care exists, the workforce shortages reduce capacity at facilities. White cited recent research by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that found Ohio is losing $5.48 billion every year in economic activity because of 'insufficient child care,' including $1.52 billion in tax revenue and $3.97 billion in losses related to child care employee turnover and absenteeism. 'The business community, our families, are looking for solutions, and this is a solution,' White said. The bill sponsor also echoed comments by ODCY director Kara Wente in supporting the Child Care Choice Voucher Program, which subsidizes child care for those who fall outside the Publicly Funded Child Care eligibility of 145% of the federal poverty line. This is certainly not the first time White has pushed for more child care supports. A bill she co-sponsored establishing child care grant programs for employers was passed last month by the House committee she chairs, the Children and Human Services Committee. State support for child care is uncertain as it is, with the state operating budget draft being drawn up by the Ohio Senate, after the Ohio House finalized its own draft last month. The House's version added $50 million to the Child Care Choice Voucher Program for each of the next two fiscal years, taking from federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant funding. Despite a proposal by Gov. Mike DeWine to increase the Publicly Funded Child Care eligibility to 160% of the federal poverty line, the House budget draft maintained the 145% level, which Wente said is the lowest eligibility level in the country. Also included in House budget proposal is language originally included in separate legislation, which would create a cost-sharing model for child care, in which the state, employers and employees would all pay a percentage of costs. In a hearing earlier this month, the House Children and Human Services Committee passed the original bill with language they said harmonizes the bill with the budget proposal details. In House Bill 2, the state would pay 20% of the costs, and employers and employees would each pay 40%. During the hearing, however, two Republicans on the committee put concerns on the record about H.B. 2 and White's child care grant program bill, House Bill 41. State Rep. Sarah Fowler Arthur, R-Ashtabula, voted against both bills, saying she had 'concerns about the state subsidizing child care going forward.' State Rep. Tracy Richardson, R-Marysville, voted in favor of both bills but said the House Finance Committee may have to work on at least House Bill 2, 'maybe look at perhaps some potential reduction in overall funding.' On H.B. 41, Richardson said the finance committee 'should take a closer look at the overall appropriation.' The Senate is currently working on their own draft, on line for an end-of-June deadline for both chambers to reconcile each of their budget drafts and get a final budget to the governor for signature. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Support for child care is popular as Ohio advocates still fighting for funding
(File photo by Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent). Polling continues to show government support for child care is a popular issue among all political sides. But advocates in Ohio are still preparing their arguments to boost state support as the budget process rolls on. The Ohio Senate is working toward a draft budget after the House approved its version earlier this month. As the process continues toward its July 1 deadline, child care advocates hope to get some things into the Senate budget that didn't appear in the House version. They say they're important not only for families in need of child care, but also for the state economy and the workforce that supports it. The House proposal included $200 million for the Child Care Choice Voucher Program over the next two years. The funding comes from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant. Also included in the House proposal is the establishment of the Child Care Cred Program. It's a provision originally introduced as Republican-led legislation to split the costs of child care three ways — between the state, the business and the employee — when an eligible individual is employed by a business willing to apply for the program. Parents and workers involved with child care space met with advocacy group Groundwork Ohio on Tuesday to discuss the current level of child care support. They also discussed how additional state spending would increase child care affordability and access, and boost the wages of child care workers. Cheryl Rose said when she was a young parent working in food service, child care assistance based on her income helped her remain in the workforce and grow professionally. Now a partner at Constellation Wealth Advisors, Rose said workforce growth is the one thing that will drive prosperity, and workforce growth is possible through support for child care. That support creates longterm ripple effects that may not appear instantly, but will impact the state's financial future for years to come, she said. 'What happens is, 18 years from now, there are companies (growing because of an increase in workers), there are more opportunities,' Rose said. 'It creates multitudes.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Improving the lives of child care workers has its own ripple effects, said Christian Davis, founder of the Cincinnati Parent Empowerment Network. With historically low pay, child care workers are often on public assistance and can't afford food, let alone care for their own children. Bringing wages up and giving workers the ability to thrive boosts the care they can give, she said. 'The quality of your center is really a determinant of the quality of the staff to fill those needs,' Davis said. Groundwork Ohio wants to see the Child Care Voucher Program receive more funding to address affordability, and the group, among others, will to push for an increase to the eligibility level for the state's Publicly Funded Child Care. Gov. Mike DeWine's executive proposal raised eligibility for care to 160% of the federal poverty line. For a family of four in Ohio, that's $51,440. But the House left eligibility at 145% in its version of the budget, a level that the head of the Ohio Department of Children and Youth say is the lowest level of support in the country. The budget also comes at a time when 4 in 10 Ohioans don't have access because of a lack of child care facilities in their area, according to new analysis by Groundwork Ohio. The survey also found that, on average, a mom working full-time spends 27% of her median earnings on child care for an infant. It's worse for moms who are primary earners. Just 32% of Ohio households are headed by women, but they make up 59% of those in poverty, the study found. The average cost for an infant to be in child care in Ohio is more than $12,000 per year, according to Child Care Aware of America. Government support of child care enjoys significant public approval. New polling released by the First Five Years Fund, found 'strong support' among Republican voters for child care-related tax credits at the federal level. The recent polling found that 75% of Republicans think the inability to access or afford child care as a 'crisis' or a 'major problem' for American working families. A majority said expanding child care tax credits would 'strengthen the overall economy.' Of those Republican voters, 83% support increasing the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit. It might be on the chopping block as congressional Republicans decide what to include in a funding blueprint approved earlier this month. The Trump administration is also considering a proposal to eliminate funding for Head Start, a child care program for low-income households. Head Start is among the programs child care advocates have said should be supported further to improve education outcomes and child care opportunities, rather than be cut. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Missouri cannabis regulators find another 6,000 products that should have been recalled in 2023
In August 2023, the state suspended Delta Extraction's license after finding the company's distillate was made with untested 'marijuana or converted hemp from outside of a Missouri licensed cultivation facility" (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent). In Missouri's massive marijuana recall two years ago, regulators pulled 62,000 products off the shelves that contained a THC concentrate the state deemed a 'potential threat to health and safety.' Last week, the Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation added another 6,000 products to that list that should have been pulled in 2023 because they were all made with an ingredient produced by the company at the heart of the recall, Robertsville-based Delta Extraction. The new 'threats' were found after the division was ordered in February by the state's administrative hearing commission to release any Midwest Magic brand products from its 2023 recall list. During that review, the division discovered additional marijuana products containing a THC oil that Delta Extraction made using 'unregulated cannabis,' the division stated in a Thursday press release. 'Regarding risks to the public, the department recalled these products for the same reason it issued the original, related recall: It identified a potential threat to health and safety,' said Amy Moore, the divisions director, in an email to The Independent. However, there have been no adverse reactions reported for any of the product in the original or updated recall, she said. 'The initial recall was a large and complex endeavor requiring expert application of system functionality and program processes,' she said. 'The department has made improvements in both areas since that time and continues to improve in ways that ensure future recalls can better identify all relevant product at initial issuance.' Delta Extraction is a licensed cannabis manufacturing facility that specializes in making THC distillate, a highly potent and pure form of THC used for things like vape pens, infused pre-rolled joints and edibles. About 100 other manufacturers bought the distillate in question in spring 2023 and went on to make thousands of products. In August 2023, the division suspended Delta Extraction's license after finding the company's distillate was made with untested 'marijuana or converted hemp from outside of a Missouri licensed cultivation facility.' The state also issued the product recall. Delta Extraction loses appeal of its revoked license following Missouri cannabis recall A few months later, the state rolled back its recall of nearly 15,000 Midwest Magic products and allowed them to return to the dispensary shelves. Though part owner of the Delta facility, Midwest Magic owners successfully argued that the brand didn't use the distillate in its products. A company called A Joint Operation owns the other 50% of Delta Extraction. In February, Delta Extraction lost its appeal of its license suspension, but it was awarded a renewed search for Midwest Magic products on the recall list. The Thursday update released about 120 Midwest Magic products from dispensaries and manufacturing facilities. The update also allowed testing labs to release samples of several hundred recalled products so they can be destroyed. Ted Maritz, co-owner of Midwest Magic, said the company had already written off the released items as a loss. 'I'm not going to ask any stores for payment or anything,' Maritz said. 'Everyone's gone through hell for this.' While the ordered search had a small impact on Midwest Magic, it is having a big impact on some dispensaries and manufacturers carrying the 6,200 products. The recall list actually represents product tags used by the state's tracing system called Metrc. Each tag in dispensaries typically represents a case of 10 to 12 units. And Metrc tags for manufacturing facilities represent ingredients that could make thousands or millions of units. One Kansas City manufacturer had almost 700 ingredients recalled Thursday. Josh Corson, co-owner of A Joint Operation, said he had not yet heard about the updated recall, in a text message Friday to The Independent and could not immediately comment. Over the last two years, several companies have opted to destroy the products to make more room in their storage areas. Lisa Cox, spokeswoman for the division, said there was a slight increase for destruction requests since February through April, following the commission's decision and totaling about 200 requests. However the division is 'unable to identify whether these requests are specific to the February decision,' she said. The units remaining on hold for the Delta Extraction recall, which have not been destroyed, total nearly 157,000 items. That includes 4,000 THC concentrate items that equal 378,000 grams of oil, along with about 13,000 grams of marijuana flower. It also includes 18,000 infused edibles, more than 40,000 pre-rolled joints and 90,000 vape cartridges. In Delta's appeal, the company argued the process it used to make the distillate was safe and legal. Delta Extraction admitted to importing a large amount of THC-A — a non-psychoactive compound of the cannabis plant that becomes intoxicating when heated — purportedly extracted from hemp plants. The company's contractor would mix it with a smaller amount of THC-A extracted from Missouri-regulated marijuana. Delta argued the hemp-derived THC-A should fall under the same rules as added ingredients, like flavors or the non-intoxicating cannabis compound CBD, because hemp is not a federally controlled substance like marijuana. It was taken off the federal controlled substance list in the 2018 farm bill. But Carole Iles of Missouri's administrative hearing commission, wrote in her 137-page ruling that THC-A becomes intoxicating through the exact same process no matter if it's extracted from hemp or marijuana, so the state is correct in regulating the THC the same as marijuana. That means it must be grown and manufactured in licensed Missouri facilities, Iles concluded, and tracked from the time the seed goes into the soil in the Metrc system. 'THC originating from other sources,' she wrote, 'is prohibited.' Chuck Hatfield, former attorney for Delta Extraction, said licensed facilities have the ability to challenge these new recalls of the products on their shelves. 'They probably should,' Hatfield said. 'Because DCR has had such difficulty figuring out which products should be recalled, no licensee can be sure which products it can sell.'
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Child care funding changes in final Ohio House budget draft
Children in child care. (Photo by Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent) The final draft of the Ohio House version of the state operating budget included some changes to their initial plans for child care, but no change to the eligibility for its Publicly Funded Child Care program. The omnibus budget amendment, released Tuesday and passed by the House on Wednesday, added $50 million in funding for each fiscal year to support the Child Care Choice Voucher Program, using federal funding from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant. The voucher program provides a subsidy for children whose income falls outside of the eligibility for the state's Publicly Funded Child Care. In Gov. Mike DeWine's executive budget, he wanted the PFCC eligibility raised to a maximum of 160% of the federal poverty line. The House, however, maintained the current level of 145% in both their initial draft and the omnibus draft passed on Wednesday. The Ohio Department of Children and Youth's director, Kara Wente, told the Senate Finance Committee the same day that the department estimates about 40,000 children live outside of the PFCC eligibility, making them eligible for the Child Care Choice Voucher Program, which has a current maximum eligibility of 200% of the federal poverty line. With the Senate beginning work to create a budget draft of its own, Wente went on to say the child care voucher program, which was established in April of last year, has already served 5,300 families and 8,000 children. The director said it's important for the state to support the program as child care continues to be an issue not only for parents who lack access, but also those who lack the ability to afford child care, especially at higher poverty levels. 'We know that families up to 200% (of the federal poverty line) are making less than $62,000 a year, and we know the average cost of child care in Ohio is about $11 an hour,' Wente told the committee. Ohio's eligibility level is 'the lowest in the country,' according to Wente, who continued to support the proposed expansion of publicly funded child care to 160% in the Senate committee. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Child care advocates have been pushing for improvements to Ohio's child care sector for years, with the Ohio Chamber of Commerce most recently holding a summit about the impacts of child care on the state's workforce. The state chamber, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and Ohio-based advocacy group Groundwork Ohio, released a full report at the summit, laying out detailed impacts on the state's economy, employment and education. 'Ohio's child care gaps drive parents out of the workforce, reduce tax revenue for the state and put undue strain on households,' the report stated. The February 2025 research found that 'insufficient child care availability' costs Ohio $5.48 billion every year in lost economic activity. That includes $1.52 billion lost in tax revenue due to 'child care issues' and $3.97 billion in 'child care-related employee turnover and absenteeism' costs. The root of the issue, the report found, is low reimbursement rates for child care providers, along with low pay for those workers, and disproportionate distribution of providers, especially in rural areas. 'Ohio generally lags behind the rest of the Midwest when it comes to implementing policies to improve child care accessibility,' researchers stated in the report. Maintaining the support for child care, particularly for children in families up to 200% of the federal poverty line is one of the top goals for Wente and the state's Department of Children and Youth. She also told the Senate the department wants to see the application process streamlined, and payments for providers streamlined as well. Federal compliance through the use of market rates for providers and capping co-pays for parents at 7% of their income are also top priorities for the department, according to the director. Along with the Child Care Choice Voucher Program, the House's version of the budget keeps the Early Childhood Education Grant Program proposed by the governor, 'to support and invest in Ohio's early learning and development programs,' according to budget documents. Those programs include licensed child care centers and preschools. The budget draft also included $3.2 million for a 'child care recruitment and mentorship program,' and Publicly Funded Child Care payments would be based on a child's enrollment rather than attendance, if the provisions stay in the final draft of the budget. Also still present in the House's budget proposal is a child care cost-sharing model that would split the costs of care three ways, between the state, employers and employees. The omnibus budget amendments capped eligibility for that program at 400% of the federal poverty level. Wente said the department, which absorbed several other departments when it was established, is focused on meeting goals like child care access, along with lowering infant mortality rates and improving kindergarten readiness, even as the 600-person department commits to cutting 36 positions. She wants to see the infant mortality rate in the state improve from the current ranking of 43rd in the country. Modeling the state's programs on local measures like Cradle Cincinnati, Wente said a strategy that focuses on moms, connecting moms to resources and holding the state accountable for the outcomes would go a long way to continued improvement. 'What we're seeing be common across all states (with lower infant mortality rates), no matter their makeup, is that they're actually engaging with the families that are most at risk,' Wente said. Ohio has great 'foundational programs,' she said, but families need more assurances that they will be able to overcome burdens like poverty or a lack of transportation to get to those resources. With changes in the department and proper budget support, Wente said they have plans to bring a rise in all outcomes for children, including in kindergarten readiness through accessible, affordable child care. 'We, today, know that based on Ohio data, that economically disadvantaged children are 2.4 times more likely to demonstrate on the kindergarten readiness assessment if they've had any involvement in preschool,' Wente said. The House's draft of the budget removes the kindergarten readiness assessment, along with its use on the state report card, and 'related data collection and reported requirements.' Wente was also asked about pediatric cancer funding in the state, which would see a $5 million reduction in funding as part of the House's budget draft. The executive budget called for $10 million, which the director said would be used 'to really work with our research institutions and our children's hospital to figure out the best way to add to children's cancer research.' 'Pediatric cancer research is one of the lowest-funded research components in the cancer space,' Wente said. 'It's predominantly focus on adults, so we wanted to take a targeted approach to make sure that there was focus on kids. That has been reduced to $5 million.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
