Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Hi all, welcome back to Just A Bite. It's one of your hosts, Sarah Coons, External Affairs Manager at the Ohio association of Food Banks. For those tuning in for the first time, Just A Bite helps the Ohio association of Food Banks highlight the incredible work our network does day in and day out to serve our communities and how we get that work done, usually through strong coalitions and collaboration.
I want to thank all of our listeners for their patience with us as we took a five month break from the podcast.
We have been busy to say the least and are looking forward to breaking down what we have done during the time away to bring us up to speed. I'm thrilled to be back behind the mic to talk to someone this audience knows well for our first episode back, our incredible Executive Executive Director, Jori Novotny. Listen to Learn more.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Hello and welcome back to Just a Bite podcast. As you just heard from our intro to today's episode, we have been taking a brief break from Just A Bite, but are happy to be back with a new episode for you on this beautiful summer day. I'm Sarah Coons, External Affairs Manager at the Ohio association of Food Banks and I will be your host today.
Joining me is our fearless leader here at oaf, Jorie Novotny. Hi Jory, thanks for being here today.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: It's my pleasure, Sarah.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Awesome. I know. Taking it back to the old days right?
As we ease back into our monthly episodes, we want to welcome you back with a little bit of an update episode. Today, Jorian and I will be chatting about the state budget process and what that means for Ohio's food banks. So let's get started.
[00:02:01] Speaker C: Let's do it. There's a lot to chew off together, so I'm excited.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Yes, definitely. So a few Weeks ago on June 30, Governor DeWine signed into law the state of Ohio's FY 20262027 biennial budget that Ohio's General assembly passed. The state's operating budget funds a variety of different programs and government supports like schools, libraries, local governments and more.
It is also a vehicle to make changes to the tax code and even make substantial policy changes.
It is really one of the biggest bills that the General assembly passes over the years and a lot of stakeholders come together and advocate for their personal priorities.
So it's a really big deal around Capitol Square.
What is most important for our conversation today is a portion of the budget also helps fund our state food programs, the Ohio Agriculture Clearance Program and the Ohio Food Program. Jori, could you tell us a little bit more About OFP and acp, I.
[00:03:10] Speaker C: Can tell you I could go on for days, Sarah, but I'm happy to. I think it's important briefly to always do a refresher course on where our food banks source their food.
We have a lot of food banks that have been operating for 40 to 50 years.
I actually had the opportunity to be in community and in fellowship with the Shared Harvest Food bank, who were saying goodbye to their founding director, Tina Oso, who unfortunately passed earlier this summer. But she founded the Shared Harvest Food bank out of Fairfield in 1983. So just to give you some perspective of how long food banking has been around, and food banking back then looked like finding wasted product that was otherwise going into landfills, the retailer level in particular.
So it was born out of, oh, there's this perfectly good food that's being tossed by big box stores and grocers and retailers because they just don't know how to handle it. Not out of any ill will, but they just don't know what to do with it. Right. And meanwhile, we have people over here who are struggling to afford that food on their own sometimes or are facing crises where they're coming up with budget shortfalls. So food bankers were born.
So we started. And our bread and butter has always been sourcing food that otherwise would go to waste at the retailer and manufacturer side of things. We also have generous communities, including our faith based partners, who work really hard to source donated product through individual monetary donations, through canned food drives, through corporate partnerships. And all of that amazing work makes up about half of the food that we distribute statewide. The other half comes from federal and state partnerships. And I'm not going to spend too much time going into the federal portion of that pie. But around 20% or so of that pie are our state funded food programs, which are also rooted in a deep desire to reduce food waste. But we look at food waste in a different part of the food supply chain.
So we're looking at, on the farmer and grower side of things with our agricultural clearance program.
Where are farmers having trouble and experiencing volatility in their markets? And how can we make sure that food that they've put a lot of effort and input costs into growing can actually be enjoyed by a family in need. Often our farmers and growers have excess product.
Maybe they have a bumper crop and there's not a first line retail market for that product.
Maybe they have unmarketable produce. What we call it, you know, misshapen, extra large carrots, you know, bumpy potatoes, small cabbages, perfectly wholesome food. But the retail consumer and the retail buyer isn't looking for, they're looking for really reliable looking produce. And so that' product that needs a home and otherwise would be mown under in the fields. So we're a place to catch that product. It helps offset what the farmers already invested in growing and picking and packing that product. And it's something we're really proud of. And on the OFP side, on our Ohio Food Program side, we're looking at what can we do to drive down costs. We've got 3,600 or so local food pantry, soup kitchen shelters and other feeding sites that these are people who are volunteering in a lot of cases out of the goodness of their hearts. But instead of seeing them go and pay retail prices for product at 3,600 different locations to try and meet need in their communities and in their congregations, how can we pool our resources and secure product in bulk?
[00:07:06] Speaker B: I think OFP and ACP also really fill gaps left by, you know, our other funding sources. And I think it's maybe not well known that we have such a strong partnership with local farmers and have for a very long time. So it's a, it's a great partnership and program.
I want to take a few minutes to update our listeners on how we played a role in educating our legislators on the state of the network and the need for additional funding for our programs in this year's biennium.
I think our network and our team here at the association really left everything on the field during this budget.
Jori, you personally testified at least four times in front of committee, had countless meetings with legislators to talk about the need for more funding, and joined our food banks for site visits back in the districts.
We also brought together food banks, food pantries, farmers and producers and other supporters and stakeholders to the State House to meet with their legislators and talk about the need our network is seeing and really making the case for more funding for our state funded food programs.
We had almost 90 meetings on that day alone, which was absolutely incredible.
In addition to the meetings we had with lawmakers, we also brought everyone together for a meal. In true Food Banker fashion, our last podcast episode before the break was a live recording of our Lobby Day panel discussion that happened over lunch.
We'll be sure to link that in the show notes. But Jori, how have you been feeling about our efforts in the state budget more generally?
[00:08:49] Speaker C: You know, I think that we are in a very challenging era for policymakers and I recognize that, you know, this is mid-2025 and we are five years out from the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic. But this was our real first state biennial budget that was fully in the wake of that once in a generation pandemic. And just looking back, it really upset the usual apple carts in so many ways that accelerated trends. We were already starting to see shifts in population, in industry, in our local, state and regional economies. It threw so many of our markets into chaos, you know, and also by necessity, it infused a lot of federal resources into state and local governments that were really attempting to bear the brunt of the economic fallout and keep companies and public institutions and working families safe and solvent. And, you know, we were grateful to be partners with the state of Ohio as a part of their response to that challenge.
They made significant additional investment thanks to those federal infusions in our food purchasing power and in our capacity to reach needy families throughout all 88 counties. Thanks to those federal funds that kept our trucks out on the road.
Really wholesome Ohio produced food out on the shelves at local food pantries.
But like many other priorities, you know, with the state legislature looking at the end of a lot of that one time federal money, they were forced in a lot of places, I think, to right size their investments. And we, I think, made a very strong case for the need to maintain investments in hunger relief because the working families and seniors that we serve always take longer to recover from an economic downturn than others.
And we really emphasized how we do so in a really efficient, effective way.
And while unfortunately we did end up taking a reduction in funding compared to the prior biennial budget, we did consistently hear a lot of positive feedback and acknowledgement from our elected officials, you know, that they're in our corner, that they understand the real necessity of investing, investing in food banks as a core source of support for their local communities, you know, so I am really proud of the efforts that we put forward.
And of course, none of that fight was happening in a silo.
You know, we are always being as creative and innovative as possible to braid and blend whatever we can together to fill out those shelves for our local hunger relief providers and for the, the households counting on them.
So I think that the state of Ohio, you know, did the part that it could do in this era.
I'd feel better about the outcome of the state budget if we weren't also looking at collective hits at the federal level as well, and other sort of economic conditions that are outside of our control.
If I also felt like more of our families had achieved some stability in the wake of the pandemic. Unfortunately, that stability hasn't gotten here yet. And I know we're going to talk about that more. But just in terms of where we ended and what our efforts look like in the state budget process, really proud of and grateful for all of our grassroots supporters, from people in need to people helping people in need, who helped, you know, elevate our collective voice and make sure that food banks were continuing to receive support in this budget.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: For sure. Yeah, I think you make a really great point about this not, you know, happening in a silo. I think it's really hard to talk about the state budget without the context of everything else that's happening and the changes that are happening at the federal level as well.
So we'll get into that a little bit later in the episode. But also I know that we have another federal level episode planned to update you all of what all is happening there. I know that Jory hinted at this a little bit, but I'm sure the listeners are maybe wondering where all this effort got us.
Well, we are officially funded by the state of Ohio at $24.55 million per year. We are grateful for Governor Mike DeWine, Lieutenant Governor Tressel, and the Ohio General assembly for their continued commitment to Ohio's hunger relief network in the state budget.
At a time when need remains high and resources are stretched thin, this partnership makes a real difference in the lives of children, older adults, veterans and working families across Ohio.
Access to food helps Ohio households avoid harmful trade offs and focuses on learning at school, earning at work, and aging in place safely.
So here we are with $24.55 million to source and distribute food across our statewide network. Although our network is incredibly grateful for the support, how does this number square with the need we're seeing? And how is the network going to effectively use this funding to strengthen, strengthen our partnerships with our farmers and producers?
[00:14:30] Speaker C: If we look back over the past four years or so, there was additional investments of arpa, or American Rescue Plan act dollars that flowed through the state of Ohio and that we were able to steward toward additional purchases primarily of really center of the plate products. So protein and dairy items in particular that are really difficult in a lot of cases to source through our traditional channels. They're not as regularly available from our retailer donors, certainly not in the volume of households that are turning to us to fill out the plates on their tables.
So I think about this in two ways. I think about this in terms of basic purchasing power, so our sourcing power will be reduced significantly. This is $7.5 million per year less in core food program funding on top of the end of that additional investment of ARPA dollars. So we're gonna see by default a lot of food that was previously sourced through state funding, no longer available in our food bank warehouses to supply our food pantries.
But as we see that purchasing power decline, we also experience in our network an increasing amount of price sensitivity, right, because we're trying to bring in an adequate amount of food to meet basic needs when families turn to us for a little bit of help.
And we're trying at our best to provide an array of protection product so that a family isn't coming to us and, you know, getting pinto beans and cabbage and going home, right. We want to be able to fill out that bag of food with a core variety of staples. And what this also challenges us with is how we're going to stretch those dollars in a way that still supplies those core foods often, again, protein and dairy more costly per pound than our fruits and vegetables. We're going to be able to bring in a lot of fruits and vegetables at a low cost. We're always looking to do that.
And it will be more challenging, I think, to bring in those other wholesome, nutritious products that fill out the plate that do cost us more when we're trying to stretch more limited resources. We have not seen a decline in need, right. We've actually seen an increase in the number of people coming to us for emergency help.
So let me try and put that in a little bit of context.
I'm just looking at the April through June numbers, and what we capture is the number of times we provide services. We provide take home groceries to a food pantry visitor, and we serve households, right? So a food pantry visitor, much like a shopper, head of household who's going to a grocery store, comes to us at the food pantry shopping on behalf of their household.
They tell us who lives in their household, what ages they are. We supply them as best as possible with an array of product to meet the needs of their family.
We, over the course of the three months of April through June of 2020, 25, fulfilled more than four and a half million food pantry visits in total of all the household members in those households that sought help in those three months.
So that's significantly higher. I mean, we're talking about roughly one and a half million food pantry visits per month.
That's well beyond what we had ever experienced prior to the pandemic. And it is, unfortunately, a historical record for us now. It's difficult to tease out the causal, you know, the causation behind that, the correlations of what's happening to families. And we'll talk about this a little bit more too. For some of our folks, they may be coming to us for the very first time. They've been able to piece things together all this time. But now push comes to shove, things are getting too tight in their budgets. They finally had to come to us for help.
We also have folks that maybe had to come to us once or twice a year when they experienced lost wages during flu season and had to stay home with their kids.
Now they're maybe coming to us a couple more times a year because they're experiencing shortfalls more often. And for our low income, fixed income families that don't have any room to give in their budgets, our seniors, they might become coming to us much more regularly to try and fill out that plate. So we're going to do our very best. And I'm already very proud of all the ingenuity that I'm seeing in our network. And I know that's what our state lawmakers are looking for from us. Of course, we're not miracle workers, but you know, I think we're going to do our very best to stretch that as much as possible and keep food moving for the people who need us.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: That was very well said. I think the food banks are scrappy and are able to work through this. But I resonate with your point about us not being miracle workers and require a lot of partnerships with the state and federal government and donors and volunteers.
I say this often, but addressing hunger really requires all of us and that is very true. During this time state budget, we also saw some other things in the state budget process that would directly impact the families we serve, like the governor's proposed refundable child tax credit getting removed in the final budget and the legislature proposing restricting SNAP recipients from using SNAP dollars to purchase sugary beverages.
We also saw some positive things in the budget like the governor maintaining the Ohio Housing Trust Fund and increased funding for programs like state child protection, school based health centers and early childhood education.
Jori, could you talk a little bit more about some of the provisions in the budget not directly related to food bank funding, but have a direct impact on the families that we serve.
[00:20:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I'd be happy to. I'll do my best to highlight a couple that, you know, we were closely watching in coalition.
Ultimately, we know that dollars in pockets of low income families means less need to rely on our network, period. End of story. It is as simple as that. And research has consistently shown that. So we were, of course, really excited about the possibility of a refundable state child tax credit because we saw what the federal refundable child tax credit credit increase that happened during that Covid period meant for families. We saw an immediate reduction in households with children coming to our network for help with food.
And they similarly reported in survey after survey that they were using those dollars to meet their basic needs to buy their groceries, get their school supplies for the next school year, you know, make the roof repair they'd been waiting on, get the new tire on their car so that they could keep getting to work. So we had been really excited about that possibility. I hope that we continue to have conversations about reinvesting in families. The cost of raising a family is getting really astronomical. And this is a straightforward way of supporting their bottom line and making sure they can stay connected to work, to childcare and keep their families nourished. So we'll keep fighting for opportunities like that.
We're really grateful that the Ohio Housing Trust Fund ended up being protected in the final budget. You know, of course, I think this is self explanatory, but just to reiterate, there's so much of the housing market and access to affordable housing that is so interconnected with food security for families. If I am one of many, many workers or seniors who are living paycheck to paycheck and I'm managing my budget month to month, I have a lot of sensitivity when I experience an increase to my rent, an increase to my property taxes, an increase on my utility bills.
Those kinds of things feed into immediate economic instability for me. And there's very few places I can go to make that up.
Maybe I'm fortunate enough that I can pick up extra work at my job.
A lot of families are already doing that and then seeing such volatility in their household expenses that that's just not going far enough. Right. Food is often what's getting sacrificed and why we see more people coming to us. So, so important that our housing trust fund was protected. We rely on our shelters and our homeless providers as key partners and delivering access to food.
We know that access to affordable housing is so key for managing inflationary pressure on households so interconnected and linked with food security. So really grateful for that. Yeah. And there's a lot of other, of course, changes and evolutions in the state budget process.
I think that a lot of this is happening simultaneously with changes and considerations that are being made at the federal level.
You know, we're still having an ongoing and I promise Sarah, I won't go too far down the federal rabbit hole. And you'll hear more about this listeners in an upcoming episode. But, you know, we're still talking about what a renewal of a farm bill looks like. And without having certainty about what our farm bill policy looks like, it's hard to know what sort of other investments or policy changes are likely to be made and adopted at the federal level. And so states are kind of serving as these, you know, pilot test environments in a lot of cases. And then I think that will kind of catch up at the federal level.
So, you know, on the sugary sweetened beverage ban, Governor DeWine kind of partially vetoed that, put it into a working group that's currently meeting right now because there's a lot of complexity here in how SNAP is operated and administered. There's also several states that have different versions of that waiver that restrict products differently. I think that ultimately is going to have to somehow be reckoned with at the federal level and how that policy is shifted potentially.
So, you know, remains to be seen what will come out of that work group process.
We're, of course, hoping that we keep SNAP as, as simplistic as possible for families who are looking to supplement their grocery budgets. But, yeah, there's a lot to be seen in how some of those other conversations continue to play out post budget.
And really glad that again, that we were able to see the Ohio Housing Trust Fund protected.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. That's a really great segue. I know it's really difficult to summarize the past six, seven months and such a huge piece of legislation like the state operating budget in 30 minutes. But I wanted to end this episode with a conversation about what's next, which should be a little bit of a teaser for next month's episode. Now that the dust has settled and the ink has dried, what is the state focused on next and what is next for the Ohio Food Bank Network?
[00:26:17] Speaker C: Yeah, it's kind of impossible to separate and tease out the federal and state dynamics that are happening concurrently in a lot of ways. So I, I personally think that the state is going to be forced to focus next on how it is going to adjust and respond to federal changes, also economic drivers that are largely out of the state's control.
You know, the latest Labor Department monthly inflation report showed that core inflation on items like food are going in the wrong direction.
So that's not good news for our families that are already turning to us for help or families that, again, we serve families up to 200% of the federal poverty level. There are about 3.4 million Ohioans, about 30% of the population that live in those households.
If they're going to experience another increase in inflation in the rate of inflation that still has not gotten to where we want it to be, we saw some slowing in the rate of inflation, still above what we want to see. And of course, no deflation. Right. There's no, no adjustment downward on these prices. So we've continued to see food prices increasing.
Now we're having maybe some of this tariff fallout happening in food prices. Utility prices are also increasing rapidly. That's another place where, you know, if you're experiencing an increase in your heating bill or your cooling bill or your water, not something you can easily make up for when you're living paycheck to paycheck, which is true for just so much of our population. That's just the reality.
So I think that the state's going to continue to have a lot of conversations around property tax reform. I certainly support that. Families and homeowners, as well as renters need some relief.
And that is a place where some of that relief could easily be driven, just not on the backs of local institutions that those same households are counting on. So there's a balance to be found there. But I think that's going to be, you know, important conversation that the state continues to take up and we're going to keep watching what that external pressure on local economies and workers looks like and what it ends up feeling like on Pocketbooks.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
There's so much more to dig into on this topic, but I think we should leave it here for today.
There will be absolutely more to come as we navigate this post budget, and I would also say post federal reconciliation landscape.
Jorie, thank you so much for your time today.
[00:29:06] Speaker C: Well, my pleasure. Always a good time to be on Just a Bite, and it's great to be in conversation. Sarah, thank you.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: Thank you.
That brings us to the end of this episode of Just a Bite. I hope you enjoyed listening to Jorie break down the state budget with me. Next time we'll be discussing the recent changes at the federal level that would deeply impact our network and the families we serve.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Don't miss it.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: If you'd like to learn more about the programs we discussed or how to get involved in this work, check out the links in the show notes. Thank you for listening and don't forget to subscribe.
