All 10 of the most common occupations in Youngstown pay their median worker lower than the cost of living for a family of 3. Five of them pay their typical worker so little they’d qualify for food assistance.
Last week, Gov. DeWine signed Ohio’s capital budget, funding $3.7 billion in projects across Ohio’s 88 counties, including $600 million for school building assistance, $510 million for local infrastructure projects, and $346.5 million for improvements at behavioral health facilities. Our new brief takes a closer look, with two interactive maps showing how funds were distributed among counties.
https://policymattersohio.org/research/ohios-capital-budget-and-higher-ed-funding/
The Ohio Senate’s last day in session until after the November election is June 17th.
We’re expecting a flurry of bills to be passed by the House this week so they can be voted out of the Senate on June 17th and sent to the Governor’s desk or back to the House for concurrence on June 24th. Because of this hectic pace, bills will be rolled into other bills either in whole or in part to facilitate the tight timeline and it’s about to be more chaotic than usual at the Statehouse.
We’re anticipating a few omnibus bills (a large bill where various pieces of legislation that have been moving as separate bills or ideas gets rolled into one document to fast track passage). We are expecting an omnibus bill of data center legislation, an omnibus bill on Medicaid legislation, and likely at least one “Christmas Tree” bill with all kinds of random provisions hung together in one document.
The details of data legislation being considered are unclear, but Ohioans have a very limited opportunity to tell our representatives what we want them to do. Call your Representative and Senator today or Monday (or both!) and tell them to create a framework for data center development that mitigates environmental and ratepayer harms and protects the long-term interests of Ohio communities.
The following recommendations would help do so, with more details available on our website. (https://policymattersohio.org/news/2026/06/05/ohio-data-center-policy-is-taking-shape-tell-legislators-to-protect-communities-workers-and-public-resources/)
1. Eliminate costly, unnecessary taxpayer-funded subsidies for the data center industry.
2. Improve transparency and accountability measures.
3. Protect Ohio ratepayers, communities, and the environment.
New reporting by Signal Ohio’s Jake Zuckerman reveals that Ohio’s data center sales tax exemption cost the state more than $1.5 billion in 2025, far exceeding earlier projections and confirming longstanding concerns from Policy Matters Ohio that the true cost of the subsidy has been significantly understated.
$1.5 billion is *TWELVE TIMES* what was forecast.
The question now is not whether this tax break is too big—it clearly is. The question is what Ohio is going to do about it.
See the Signal article here: https://signalohio.org/ohio-data-center-tax-break-cost-1-4-billion-more-than-expected-in-2025/
And Policy Matters Ohio’s statement & more research here: https://policymattersohio.org/news/2026/05/22/repeal-overdue-data-center-tax-break-costs-ohio-12x-what-state-forecast-for-2025/