Legislative Lowdown: Advocacy Underway on Intern Funding Increase

Gov. Mike DeWine released his budget proposal Feb. 1 with plans to increase school foundation funding by 2.4% and 2.3% in each year of the coming biennium from $7.08 billion in fiscal year 2023 to $7.25 billion in FY 2024. Despite advocacy so far, the school psychology intern program is flat funded in this version of the bill. OSPA Executive Director Rachel Chilton has and will continue to advocate for an increase in this line item. At time of publishing, a Republican lawmaker had agreed to offer an amendment to both increase the intern funding and provide funds and language to create a school psychology Grow Your Own model.