(Ohio Capital Journal Photo) A woman plays with children at a child care center in Minnesota.

By Susan Tebben

Special to The Times

The lawmaker sponsors of two different Ohio bills seeking to address claims of child care fraud paint drastically different pictures of the Ohio Department of Children and Youth’s cooperation in the process.

The bills were responses stemming from Trump administration threats to freeze funding in states due to right-wing social media claims of fraud, specifically at facilities run by members of the Somali community in Minnesota.

“Ohio is not the other state that’s having this problem,” said state Rep. Tom Young, R-Washington Twp., a co-sponsor of Ohio House Bill 647. “And it’s not even close.”

News of fraud allegations in Minnesota led the Trump administration to attempt to freeze millions in child care funding to the state, and other Democratically-led states, action that was blocked temporarily by a judge as a lawsuit continues.

The Minnesota controversy led leaders in many states, including Ohio, to defend their own child care system.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine stood with Children & Youth Director Kara Wente in a press conference to say they trusted the state’s system, which they insisted stood vigilant against fraud.

A report released this month from the department maintained statistics DeWine and Wente gave as they defended the system.

The report showed 124 referrals received by the department in 2025. Only 24 resulted in the termination of provider agreements, meaning the facilities could remain open, but would not be receiving state funding through the Publicly Funded Child Care program.

A total of $2.5 million in overpayments were identified.

Investigations into the other 100 referrals found no intent to commit fraud, according to the ODCY report.

Of those remaining referrals, 70 resulted in “corrective action,” which can include technical assistance or determination of overpayment.

The other 30 referrals “resolved with no further action warranted,” the report stated.

So far in 2026, the department has already received about 100 referrals, though that number does not indicate open investigations, and the report noted some referrals may overlap.

The co-sponsors of H.B. 647 and another bill introduced this week at the House Children and Human Services Committee said their bills would address concerns of fraud in Ohio, despite overall confidence the state was keeping tabs on the issue.

H.B. 647, sponsored by Young and state Rep. Phil Plummer, R-Dayton, would require Publicly Funded Child Care payments to be based on actual attendance, instead of enrollment.

The state currently pays based on attendance, but the Biden administration attempted to move to an enrollment-based payment system.

The Trump administration extended the transition period from attendance to enrollment, effectively stopping the change for now.

The bill also authorizes the state Attorney General’s Office to prosecute cases of fraud that are sent to them.

This would bypass county prosecutor’s offices, something Young said was a “really important step” because going through county prosecutors “sometimes slows down the process.”

Plummer went further, saying that in 13 child care fraud cases referred to unnamed county prosecutors, 12 of the cases didn’t go to court.

“The system worked, the referrals were made, the prosecutors turned a blind eye,” Plummer said.

In a press conference announcing the bill earlier this year, Plummer and Young stood with Wente, praising the department’s cooperation with the sponsors in formulating the bill language.

They continued their defense of the department in the committee hearing.

“In all honesty… they know what they’re doing, they realize they need to step forward and make some changes,” Young said.

Plummer said he doesn’t think fraud “is as widespread as people told us,” but the department and the state’s child care sector could certainly be helped with better technology to verify identities at facilities.

Young and Plummer’s bill also seeks to improve “data analytics” to be able to track and monitor facility activities when it comes to state funding.

Ohio House Bill 649

The committee heard about another bill regarding child care fraud protections, but the co-sponsor of that bill wanted to see more done to investigate fraud outside of the Ohio Department of Children & Youth, partly because he feels the agency isn’t doing enough.

State Rep. Josh Williams, R-Sylvania Twp., had already questioned the department’s oversight abilities, leading the charge on a letter signed by 41 other House members to increase unannounced inspections to Publicly Funded Child Care centers, “with a concentration on the Columbus area,” where he said reports were “surfacing.”

“When we look at, what we’re trying to determine is how widespread of an issue it is, what I can tell you is that DCY is not doing a good job of investigating it,” Williams said.

While at one point Williams said he was “not here to allege that there is widespread fraud in Ohio” and the department was doing “a decent job,” at another point he said the ability for facilities to “backdate” attendance, whether for innocent reasons or otherwise, creates a system that is “set up to where fraud can be widespread and prevalent.”

The lawmaker claimed that in his attempt to get information from the department on the 124 referral cases, the department “refused” to give him most of the information he requested, saying some investigations were still active, and other information was not a public record.

“DCY has made it very hard for us to figure out whether or not there is actual fraud,” Williams told the committee.

In a statement to the Capital Journal, a spokesperson for the department said it was unable to release the information because it could “disclose investigatory work product, program integrity review methods, or the identity of a complainant.”

“Additionally, the department’s release of information on programs for which a referral did not result in a substantiated finding could unfairly impact a provider’s business or reputation without cause, and may result in civil liability or interference with contracts,” the department stated.

Williams told fellow lawmakers that as a legislative body, “we should have grave concern that an executive agency is refusing to give us the information necessary for us to do our job and provide oversight.”

Ohio House Bill 649, which Williams co-sponsored with fellow Republican state Rep. D.J. Swearingen, R-Huron, would require child care centers to use existing security cameras or install security cameras at entrances, exits, and “general non-private” areas, where systems would retain at least 60 days of footage to be provided to the ODCY “for compliance reviews.”

Williams said using the surveillance camera footage would be a way to verify that the minor that was being checked in was actually present, not just an adult.

The bill would also require the department to immediately suspend funding and “initiate a preliminary investigation” when “probable waste, fraud, or abuse is identified.”

The matter would then be referred to the Ohio Auditor of State’s Office before proceeding to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office if prosecution is needed.

Swearingen and Williams said the constituency in their districts have asked for a bill like the one they introduced, though Swearingen told the committee it’s still a “compromise bill.”

“Many people have said ‘just turn it off and let these providers come in one by one and ask for the money back and vet them,” he said.

Democrats on the committee tried to push back on the comments by Williams and Swearingen that argued fraud was present, even if the Department of Children & Youth did not determine fraud had occurred.

“I want to make sure that as we are talking about these issues that we aren’t assuming the negative intent without being able to prove that the intent to deceive was present,” said state Rep. Crystal Lett, D-Columbus.

Swearingen pushed back, saying the point of H.B. 649 “is to confirm what we reasonably believe to be true, and I wouldn’t advocate for dropping fraud, myself.”

Other committee members on both sides of the aisle expressed concern in focusing on the photo identification part of the bill on the children.

Lawmakers worried about the potential for leaks of the photos, even as Williams and Swearingen tried to dissuade concerns by saying the photos would securely stored, and not accessible to the public.

“I’m glad to hear that there has not been any leaks thus far, but having any database of images of minors is really unsettling for me personally,” said state Rep. Ashley Bryant Bailey, D-Cincinnati.

“We’re in the age of the Epstein files, so anything can happen.”

While the co-sponsors said they were open to discussions, and were actively working on a substitute bill based on feedback from child care providers, Williams continued to push for answers from the Department of Children & Youth, even bringing up the legislature’s rarely used subpoena power.

“Either the executive branch is going to comply and allow us to do our oversight, or we might have to take a firm approach that we want to see, were these administrative issues … or was it someone that couldn’t provide attendance records for kids that they were paid for, that could indicate fraud.”

The committee’s chair, state Rep. Andrea White, R-Kettering, said the committee would hear from DCY Director Wente in a hearing next week, which the department confirmed in their statement to the Capital Journal.

Original story can be found at https://ohiocapitaljournal.com