Ohio House passes $60 billion biennial budget, approves $600 million stadium bond; fights over school funding and Medicaid trigger

The Ohio House of Representatives passed House Bill 96, the biennial operating budget for fiscal 2026–27, by a 60-39 vote after hours of floor debate on April 9, 2025. The bill includes roughly $60 billion in appropriations, a mechanism the majority says will return excess local school carryover funds to taxpayers and authority for up to $600 million in state bonds to support a proposed stadium development in the Brook Park/Cleveland area.

The budget's backers said it raises state support for schools, expands child-care funding and delivers the largest property-tax relief package in state history; opponents said it abandons the phase-in of the fair school-funding formula, risks core public services and embeds a trigger that could terminate Medicaid expansion if federal matching rates fall.

Representative Stewart, chairman of the House Finance Committee, opened debate by outlining the bill’s headline items and numbers. “We're going to spend $20,200,000,000 on public schools over the biennium,” Stewart said, and he described a package he said would return up to $4.2 billion in property-tax relief and authorize a $600 million state bond to leverage more than $1.2 billion in private investment for a Cleveland-area stadium project. Stewart also described additions for childcare, higher education and hospital funding and said the stadium bond would be repaid from new tax revenue generated on-site.

Ranking Member Representative Sweeney opposed the bill on principle, arguing it abandons the fair school-funding formula that she said was designed to calculate costs “to educate a child in Ohio.” “This proposal abandons the fair school…