COLUMBUS, Ohio — Prior to the Ohio House session, a bipartisan group of nearly 200 people gathered outside the statehouse to rally against the Senate's version of the operating budget. 

What You Need To Know

  • Groups statewide gathered to protest the Senate's version of the operating budget

  • The groups were asking for more dollars to go to SNAP and child care benefits

  • Protesters say the dollars go to Ohioans so legislators need to listen to the people of Ohio

Ohioans were chanting for nearly two hours demanding change to certain proposals within the operating budget. Among the demands, groups were looking to reinstate more SNAP and child care benefits back into the operating budget. 

"I see parents so desperate to be able to work and they can't," Patty Gleason, chief program officer of Learning Grove, said. "If you make $16 and $17 an hour and child care costs $200 to $300 a week, it's fiscally impossible."

Many Ohioans told Spectrum News 1 they hope to reinstate Gov. Mike DeWine's original proposal, or reinstate proposals from the House's version of the operating budget. Joree Novotny with the Ohio Association of Foodbanks said Ohioans lost $126 million in SNAP benefits when they went back to pre-pandemic levels in March. 

"We've been calling for $50 million per year in the state budget to help us try to fill some of that gap for food insecure Ohioans," Novotny said. "We received $15 million in additional funding for a total of just shy of $40 million per year in funding in the Ohio house budget. However, the Senate stripped that additional funding out." 

The protests came from both Democrats and Republicans who say the budget is about more than partisan politics, and the main focus should be on the needs of Ohioans. 

"Do moms deserve health care?," Steve Wagner, the executive director Of United Healthcare Action Network, said. "Does health care help us to be healthy? But the Senate budget doesn't do that."