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Moore and Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association, representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA.org.

The Ohio Supreme Court throws out Republican drawn maps for the Ohio House and Senate and orders new ones in ten days and lines of stay long at Ohio's food banks during this pandemic.

But now their costs are getting bigger, too.

All this weekend, the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio, I'm Karen Kasler, a split Ohio Supreme Court has ruled for 23 to throw out the maps for new Ohio House and Senate districts approved in September, and has ordered the Republican controlled Ohio Redistricting Commission to come up with new maps within ten days.

The court says the Republicans on the seven member commission didn't follow the constitutional requirement to draw maps that reflect Ohio's political makeup.

The state splits about 54% Republican and 46% Democratic, but the GOP could control about 63% of the seats under the new maps.

Voter rights groups, including the League of Women Voters of Ohio, challenged the maps in court in December.

This validates everything that Ohio voters have been saying for the last decade, first at the ballot box and then in all the hearings during the redistricting process that the people of Ohio deserve districts that are created for them rather than, you know, the short-sighted interests of politicians and parties.

That legislative redistricting constitutional amendment was approved by voters in 2015 by more than 71%.

Katherine, tercer with common cause Ohio, had come up with a proposal to change the redistricting process, but then worked with state lawmakers to present a plan to voters.

two of those key lawmakers on the issue, Democratic Senator Vernon Sy President Matt Huffman, were both on the Ohio Redistricting Commission, and Hoffman was one of the named defendants in the lawsuits.

He has repeatedly defended the GOP drawing maps.

This Supreme Court decision included an opinion from Republican Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, who sided with the Democrats in throwing out the maps.

She said voters can again amend the Ohio Constitution to remove Partizan politics from the redistricting process.

She suggested independent redistricting commissions like ones in Arizona, California, Michigan and Colorado.

Tercer says voters have turned that idea down twice, but she hears a message in this decision.

What is super clear today is our elected officials are not accountable to the voters and that they are willing to manipulate those districts to advantage their own political party.

And so, you know, Chief Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor wasn't just looking at, OK, we need to enforce the rules with this order.

She was looking at 2031 and 2041.

She's looking at a distance that in fact, if it's not enough to do the rules, no strong prohibitions on gerrymandering, a manageable standard.

If that is not the first time, then voters should be thinking about other ways to improve redistricting so that we don't have to go through this kind of rollercoaster and the pain that all of this.

You know, 2021 was a really challenging year for the people who believe in representative democracy, for the folks who want all of us across Ohio to participate in meaningful elections.

It was awful.

And so I was pleased that the Chief Justice saw a need for a path forward.

And it's worth thinking about.

It also is worth taking some time researching what happened in other states and thinking through the best way forward.

And we should always remember that the states are a place of experimentation when it comes to democracy, and we should learn from other states a little take a little while, so nobody should be picking up their clipboards and getting all ready right away.

This is something that we want to do really thoughtfully.

But you think that there might be a reason, a necessity to go back and clarify some of the things that came out in the Supreme Court decision and throughout the whole process?

Absolutely.

And we could think about some simple kinds of things.

There's some legislative things that we could do that would require, you know, some requirements for early hearings in 20, 31, for example, requirements for, OK, what does bipartisan mean?

And you know, if we're not just leaving it to the caucuses to battle it out, how do we actually create something different?

How do we create greater transparency?

So there are things that could be done.

But 2021 was off.

And, you know, it's a little bit like.

You know, giving somebody who's drunk on power the car keys and get what we gave them a chance to prove they could drive a car with a good set of rules.

And you know, they drove us over a cliff.

And so now we need to take away the car keys.

Think about it differently.

So what?

I guess what I'm trying to say is I want to make sure that we're thoughtful about it because it was incredibly challenging last year to feel like you've come so far and to keep the same metaphor and you haven't even left the parking lot.

This decision is just on the Ohio House and Senate maps, not the Ohio congressional map.

That case was heard by the court in December, with a lot of the same players and arguments as of the recording of this show.

There is no ruling, but it's expected soon.

And as of right now, there's no meeting set of the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

Yet nearly 1000 Ohioans have died of COVID just in 2022 as of the Ohio Department of Health report on Tuesday.

Hospitalizations remain at record levels, and the White House announced this week that 1000 military medical personnel would be sent to Ohio and five other states with struggling and overwhelmed hospitals.

Ohio will get 20 professionals from that group, and they'll join some 2000 Ohio National Guard personnel deployed to hospitals, which we discussed on this show last week.

This latest Omicron variant has schools going back to remote learning because of student and staff absences, workplaces delaying returning to offices and people continuing to head to food banks.

But those safety net services are now struggling with the same issues their clients are trying to manage.

I sat down with the head of the Ohio Association of Food Banks, which represents twelve Feeding America food banks and more than 30 600 hunger relief programs around the state.

We're continuing to see sustained and record demand from certain populations.

Supply chains and the availability of food are getting tighter.

The cost of food have gone up significantly just in the last six months.

We're paying 18.5% more for food, the cost of transportation.

And certainly, we're dealing with other what other businesses deal with, which is this new variant and that it's sweeping again, even through our food banks and nonprofit and faith based organizations that we serve, affecting not only the staff, but the volunteers who are being forced to take time off.

So again, more people needing food because of the issues around inflation and just the overall cost of living going up.

Let's talk a little bit more about the inflation and the supply chains.

I mean, this is what your clients are dealing with, but this is what you are dealing with as you're trying to obtain the food that you are providing to these clients.

Yes.

And I would say there are a variety of reasons that are driving supply chain issues.

Certainly, we're starting to see that the supply chain has not straightened out, but certainly climate change is having an issue.

So weather patterns and the availability of product, more demand on secondary markets or what I generally call the cosmetically challenged fruits and vegetables, we're seeing more secondary markets and even retailers at this point that are purchasing that because great product just is not available.

The cost of transportation again cannot be overstated or understated for that matter.

Even if I can get a load of, say, celery or cauliflower out of California, I am now paying more for the freight than I am the actual product.

And then any weather related delays in transit means that that product could be spoiled before it even hits my dock.

So again, it really is a variety of issues, but food cost inflation, more consolidations.

We're certainly seeing that in the meat and protein.

Wondering now if some of this might be driven just by playing corporate greed.

So we know that the Biden administration is certainly looking at some areas of the food industry around this.

There are some responses that are happening, but while donations are down, food donations are down.

We hit an all time low in our network.

Private donations, both from food manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and local food drives, generally range between 5045 to 50% of the food that we had to distribute.

It's now fallen to a record low of 33 and a half percent of the food that we have to distribute.

And again, retail sales are very strong, more people continuing to eat at home, but also we're starting to see a flattening of the donations.

Are necessary for us to be able to go out and purchase food.

And that quite often happens after the holiday season, right?

But when you say corporate greed.

Tell me a little bit more about what you're talking about here.

I think there's a lull that's been happening because people are really frustrated.

The economy's been difficult.

But what what do you mean specifically by corporate greed?

Well, we're certainly seeing record prices both for their stocks and also record high numbers, both in corporate profits as well as the stock market.

While we're really continuing to struggle with the availability of what I would call very basic needs.

And again, it's not like these corporations haven't benefited from federal fiscal relief that's come down.

And to some degree, I mean, some of it we're seeing translate into little higher wages, but that appears to be impacting more middle and higher income earners, not necessarily low wage workers.

And again, some of the protections that we saw early on in the pandemic are no longer there for low wage workers, including some COVID related paid time off if they or a loved one becomes sick or has to quarantine.

So again, consolidations record high corporate profits while we're all continuing to struggle.

I'm not sure that it's all inflation.

But again, we also know that Americans have a long history of profiting off of the pain of others.

Now, don't we.

Want to ask you about schools making the decision to go back to remote learning?

This obviously affects your clients because you have some single parents who now have to restructure their work loads.

You have a lot of kids who are getting free and reduced price lunches that no longer have that opportunity and also breakfast.

So it does have an impact on what you're seeing as well.

It does.

And again, the United States Department of Agriculture has put a number of provisions in place to help sponsors, including schools, continue to provide school lunch and breakfast programs are going to be increasing the reimbursement rate because schools are dealing with rapidly rising cost of food purchases.

They're struggling with labor force issues because they're laborers out.

But certainly what we see when schools make that hard decision about having to close down because of COVID cases, either among their students or their support staff and teaching staff, it does put an extreme hardship on low wage workers, as they said, Karen, that, you know, far too many of our low, low wage service sector workers have no paid time off meeting.

If you aren't working, you aren't collecting a paycheck.

So that has a compounding impact on those families ability to have enough income, not only to replace those meals, but also to be able to pay the rent and their utilities at the end of the month.

The United States Department of Agriculture does have and continues to provide to the state pandemic electronic benefits or benefits.

But again, the length and duration of how long schools have to be closed will trigger that benefit.

So again, those families are turning to us.

Lost wages, lost meals for their kids.

So we see then the increase of families that are standing in our food lines trying to replace it.

This has been tough on our kids.

I think that there is just general agreement.

Not only has it been tough on our kids, tough on our families, it's been tough on our teachers and support staff as well.

So the sooner that we all get vaccinated and do our part, then the sooner that we can see some semblance of our normal lives return.

There was some good news during the last year.

The number of Ohio children living in poverty dropped to its lowest level since 2000.

Still, just under 422,000 kids in Ohio lived in poverty.

That's a child poverty rate of 16.8%.

But the bad news that comes with that is that the child tax credit which allowed this to happen has expired, so there won't be a child tax credit for families who got it before coming this January.

So what now?

Well, the US Senate needs to get back to business and pass the the House passed version of the bill back better to allow that child tax credit to continue.

The child tax credit benefited 2.4 million Ohioans.

2.4 million Ohioans were receiving an average of $400 a month.

That is, help them again cover the rapidly rising cost of their food, their housing, their utilities, their medication, their child care.

And this is going to be catastrophic.

It pumped hundreds of millions of dollars a month into the year into the state economy and billions into the US economy.

I mean, it could have a pretty major impact, not only from an economic standpoint, but the personal budgets of families.

It's really sad that a lot of the Ohioans and Americans that were receiving that child tax credit believe that it's going to show up in their bank accounts on the 15th and it won't be there.

The House did pass a continuation of the build back better on the child tax credit, unfortunately.

The Senate recessed and did not do that, and it will immediately impact, as you said, child poverty.

We expect that between 275 and 325,000 Ohio children will fall back into poverty deep poverty.

But more importantly, it is frustrating for me to hear our politicians debate this.

We know what families spent this child tax credit on.

You do have Senator Joe Manchin in West Virginia suggesting that the money was spent on things other than family needs drugs, for instance.

83% of all of the dollars that Ohio families received went back into covering their basic needs.

59% of these funds were spent on food.

So with the failure to pass the continuation of the child tax credit, this is taking food out of the mouths of hungry American children.

You're asking the state of Ohio now to look at its COVID relief funding and start to prioritize where that money can go to try to deal with this particular situation and some of the other things we've talked about.

Yes, we are part of advocates for Ohio's future, which is a broad based coalition of health and human services providers that have really been on the front line of the pandemic.

We have been the one staffing the organizations that are providing the nonprofit services, and we'd like to applaud some of what the governor and the General Assembly have done.

But unfortunately, with the American Rescue Plan dollars, we haven't seen those invested in basic needs services and are calling on the governor and the General Assembly to prioritize the remaining $620 million that remains in the first tranche of the American Rescue Plan dollars, and to open up a more transparent process to allow for input on how these dollars should be invested.

Upon the passage, the Treasury said that these dollars should be used to invest in those who were most impacted as a result of COVID and those who have experienced not only income but also racial inequalities that have really been a sign of the pandemic.

We are asking the governor immediately for $30 million to help us purchase food and replenish our food bank, as well as the pantry shelves to be able to purchase more personal care, personal hygiene and household cleaning items.

We desperately need more PPE into the system.

We need high demand for testing kits.

Everybody needs testing kits right now, but masks, gloves, more sanitizer again, this we need to just start to incorporate this in our regular practices.

So as part of that, 620 million again, we are asking for 30 million in support for basic food and non-food personal care, personal hygiene items and also $153 million to help rebuild the capacity of our food banks statewide.

And that is everything from new facilities.

We have to go out now where we've lost nonprofit and faith based organizations who will not return to these communities as a result of lost revenue, permanent loss revenue that we need to go in and establish brick and mortar operations and hub markets.

It's getting more difficult to be able to recruit and retain truck drivers, especially those with KDL.

I mean a KDL driver.

Her can basically write their own ticket.

School busses, snow.

Plow.

Everything, commercial trucking.

So we need to now replace our fleets of tractor trailers and purchase box trucks.

Very, very expensive to refrigerated box trucks are about $350,000, so we're looking at a lot of fleets that have to be replaced.

We're looking at upgrading our facilities, both from generation to everything, from solar panels, and we need staff.

It cannot be again the loss of the National Guard.

We're now 66 months in and we no longer have those citizen soldiers who have been deployed on other very critical missions in the state of Ohio.

So after six months, we have spent some of the coronavirus dollars that we received in the budget on temporary staffing, which is very expensive, trying to get more permanent staffing.

We've had to raise our wages as well at the food banks in order to be competitive.

In November alone, four and a half million Americans left the labor force.

Many of the people who are leaving the labor force in what's been called the great resignation are front line and low wage workers.

They're leaving at rates higher than historical norms.

And there's been some analysis that said that they've been able to turn.

They're leaving those jobs in the faster growing wages that they've had, better opportunities they've allowed.

They've been able to go into training programs and get better opportunities.

Is that what you're seeing when it comes to these people, these low income workers, these frontline workers who are leaving their jobs?

I think that the jury's still out on this.

Certainly, it depends on where you live and what the labor market looks like in those communities.

I would say your chances are much better if you live in an urban area and depending on what type of careers that you're seeking out, we certainly believe that some are doing more online education and training.

We know that education training is going to be really important for our collective workforce.

I think that some of those who have left the workforce have done pretty well and have decided that in their late or their early sixties or even late fifties.

Therefore, one case and retirements have done well.

I think we certainly need to look at public sector employers to see if are they seen to folks who have gotten their years in an opt in to go ahead and resign?

I can tell you that COVID, the fear of catching COVID being re exposed for those frontline workers has taken a tremendous toll on their ability to not only maintain their own health, but the health of their families as well.

So I think it's a combination of things.

Certainly if we saw employers providing more hazard pay an increase in the wages.

But this really is a condition where the jobs are.

And I can tell you that the families I talked to, they're not interested in going back to working three and four part time jobs.

We talked about this just a moment ago.

This idea that the great resignation has been spurred by people who have decided they just don't want to work, that they're going to sit on the couch and get paid to stay at home.

That's even creeping into some political campaigns that you have some politicians running.

Is that a difficult message for you to hear as you're dealing with these people and talking to these folks every day?

Yeah You know, the governor ended the extended unemployment benefits.

I believe it's been more than five months now.

So June, yes, June.

OK, so we're now going into seven months.

So there is this myth out there that's been perpetuated by some of our elected leaders that this great resignation is being driven because of the largesse of public benefits.

And that's just not true.

The Ohio Association of Food Banks 2021 report shows £290 million of food were distributed to 3.8 million households in Ohio.

And finally, there's some new leadership among Ohio House Democrats.

This week, Alison Rousseau was selected as the new minority leader.

Thomas West, the president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus, was also vying to become a minority leader but was selected to the second in command post.

Jessica Miranda is minority whip.

Not pictured here is Assistant Minority Whip Richard Brown.

Amelia Sykes announced last year she was stepping down as minority leader.

She's term limited and is said to be considering a run for Congress, though she is not confirmed that.

And that's it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out.

Our website at State News dot org.

And you can follow us and the show on Facebook and Twitter.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Med Mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP, now with eight locations across the country.

Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

More at Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association, representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA.org.