By Susan Tebben

Special to The Times

An Ohio prosecuting attorney came to an Ohio House committee personally to oppose a bill regarding child care fraud cases, and set the record straight on claims about child care fraud made by legislators.

Franklin County Prosecutor Shayla Favor spoke against Ohio House Bill 649’s provisions that would move authority in any child care fraud investigations to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. But she also spoke directly to one sponsor of the bill, state Rep. Josh Williams, R-Sylvania Twp. In a previous hearing on the bill, Williams had suggested that the county office was “unwilling” to prosecute child care fraud, according to Favor.

“That characterization is simply inaccurate,” Favor told the Ohio House Children and Human Services Committee “And I believe this committee deserves a clear understanding of the facts.”

She said her office has never rejected or declined to prosecute a child care fraud case, particularly because in 2025, none of those types of cases were referred to her office.

“There is a critical fact missing from Representative Williams’ testimony: a prosecutor cannot charge what a prosecutor has never received,” Favor said.

H.B. 649 is one of a few bills the General Assembly is currently considering in response to national headlines about Minnesota’s child care system. The Trump administration set their focus on Minnesota after a right-wing social media influencer posted claims about child care fraud, particularly in facilities run by Somali immigrants. After the claims came about, Trump and other leaders called for a freeze to the federal child care funding coming to that state, and other Democratically-led states like California.

Ohio leaders, including Gov. Mike DeWine, worked fast to state that Ohio’s Publicly Funded Child Care program was held to diligent standards, and verification processes were already strong, if not getting stronger. Statistics from the Ohio Department of Children and Youth show that while hundreds of referrals – that is, unverified complaints – had come in last year, very few resulted in the closure of a facility or a fraud charge.

In 2025, the department received 124 referrals, and 100 of those did not rise to the level of intent to commit fraud. While 70 resulted in “corrective action,” ranging from technical help to monetary repayment, 30 others required no further action, according to the department.

The 24 remaining facilities were removed from state agreements that allowed them to receive state child care funds, but were not ordered to close.

From there, Republican legislators jumped in with bills offering different methods for increasing verification to show children were attending the centers and the facilities were using funding appropriately.

While one such bill, Ohio House Bill 647, has been publicly supported by Ohio Department of Children and Youth Director Kara Wente in a press conference and in supporting testimony when the bill began House committee consideration, H.B. 649 has not received the same level of support.

H.B. 649 also received criticism after Williams pushed to include in the bill the use of a child’s photograph instead of a parent’s to verify attendance. Committee members took issue with the provision when the bill was introduced, expressing security and safety concerns.

Williams and his co-sponsor, state Rep. D.J. Swearingen, R-Huron, spent time in their testimony criticizing the state Department of Children and Youth, with Williams claiming it had not been transparent in sharing with him reports from child care fraud referrals. The agency told the Capital Journal it shared what it could, but did not provide some information to avoid releasing identifying information for facilities who were not found to have committed any wrongdoing.

Still, with the limited information Williams said he was able to receive, “what I can tell you is that DCY is not doing a good job of investigating,” he said in February.

For that reason, his bill states that cases should be referred to the Ohio Auditor of State’s Office and then the Ohio Attorney General’s Office following a “preliminary investigation” by the department.

The bill that is supported by the department, H.B. 649, would also bypass county prosecutor’s offices, which bill co-sponsor, state Rep. Tom Young, R-Washington Twp., said would be an “important step” in speeding up the process.

Favor told the committee last week that centralizing prosecution at the attorney general’s level “introduces a friction that doesn’t exist locally.”

Local prosecutors already have the relationships with investigators and agencies in their areas to be able to work through a child care fraud case, should one come about, whereas state-level authorities would have to take time out of that process to build up those relationships, she said.

“We wholeheartedly stand in opposition to any elimination of our authority to prosecute these cases, again, because there has been no evidence in Franklin County, and I think across the state in massive form, that would prematurely ask you all to do this,” Favor said.

She pointed again to comments by Williams, claiming that local prosecutors are not willing to “proactively prosecute” a fraud case. The Franklin County prosecuting attorney said that is, quite simply, not how it works.

“More importantly, there is no evidence that county prosecutors are unwilling to pursue these cases or would treat them any differently than any other felony fraud matter, and so there is no justification for removing our authority to do so,” Favor said.

Republican legislators on the committee including state Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, pushed back on Favors claims of a lack of verified child care fraud in Franklin County, saying other agencies have perhaps been the ones to keep investigations from going forward.

“It’s my understanding … that there have been people who have been doing some of that research, but the county commissioners have basically accused them of discrimination against a certain population of people,” Click told Favor.

Favor reiterated that the information about alleged child care fraud the office is aware of came from the sponsors who spoke at the previous hearing on the bill, and not any referrals from any official investigation.

“Respectfully to my county commissioners, they don’t have the power to do that,” Favor said.

State Rep. Andrea White, R-Kettering, the chair of the Children and Human Services Committee said while she understood the importance of local prosecutors, “at the same time … the state is the one that is on the hook for program integrity.”

“I think what the sponsors of both bills, and others, are looking for is a happy medium, perhaps,” White said. “Not that the attorney general would take over, or that the local would have exclusive (jurisdiction).”

During last week’s meeting, both bills received amendments that were included without objection. H.B. 647 now includes language that eliminates “backdating” of a child attendance record — that is, retroactively inserting a child’s attendance into a facility record — within seven days of receiving Publicly Funded Child Care funds. Exceptions to the provision would include verified exemptions, such as parents in education or workforce training.

An amendment made to H.B. 649 would create standards for attendance verification in state law, and prohibit the Department of Children and Youth from storing photographs or videos used for attendance verification purposes.

The committee is set to discuss the bills in another hearing, scheduled for March 24.

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