According to The Buckeye Institute, Ohio could use a Department of Government Efficiency of its own.
The think tank's new analysis of the state’s spending plan notes Ohio taxpayers could save at least $9 billion if lawmakers cut the pork from the biennial budget under consideration.
The Buckeye Institute's 2025 Piglet Book, released on Thursday, examines Ohio’s proposed two-year budget and offers specific savings lawmakers should consider.
“This year’s Piglet Book outlines how policymakers can offer more than $9 billion in savings to Ohio taxpayers while still providing essential services,” Greg R. Lawson, a research fellow at The Buckeye Institute and author of the Piglet Book, said in a release. “To help keep Ohio economically competitive, the General Assembly should aggressively prioritize cuts to public spending, curb Medicaid growth rates, close tax loopholes, eliminate corporate welfare, and end government’ philanthropy.’”
To reduce government spending, Lawson suggested lawmakers might consider resetting the budget baseline to pre-pandemic spending levels by capping the increases in Ohio’s “all funds budget,” which includes Medicaid, to 3.5%. Such a move would save Ohio taxpayers $6.7 billion.
Additionally, closing tax loopholes would save Ohioans more than $2.25 billion, while ending “corporate welfare” could save $66.5 million. Meanwhile, ending government philanthropy and advocacy would save Ohio taxpayers more than $65 million.
The Buckeye Institute cautioned that the influx of federal tax dollars during and after the COVID-19 pandemic was temporary. As such, the think tank said lawmakers should not use the numbers as a “new or permanent baseline to gauge state spending.”
“We advised state policymakers to view such spending as an aberration and to return to more reasonable spending growth rates as soon as the crisis passed,” the group said in the book.” That advice remains salient as the Trump administration pursues potential spending cuts to Medicaid, education, and other federally funded programs that will inevitably impact Ohio.”
The think tank noted that Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s budget proposed more than $219 billion in total state spending and nearly $61 billion of the state portion of the general revenue fund — “a significant increase from the pre-pandemic budget baselines that could prove dangerous to the state’s long-term fiscal health.”
DeWine’s proposed two-year budget called for $108.6 billion in spending in fiscal 2026 and $110.7 billion in fiscal 2027. Based on the initial budget numbers, the state is projected to increase spending by 78.5% between fiscal 2016 and fiscal 2027.
Ohio’s budget continues to balloon as the state’s population has remained relatively flat, growing just 2.1% between 2016 and 2024, from about 11.6 million residents to more than 11.8 million.
About 45.2% of the budget — or more than $99.1 billion of the proposed fiscal 2026 and 2027 allocations — goes to Medicaid. The proposed fiscal 2026 allocation is a 9.6% increase over the estimated fiscal 2025 budget.
To save money, The Buckeye Institute said Ohio lawmakers should embrace technology to streamline government. Embracing emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) could help reduce bureaucratic waste by helping policymakers find and correct inefficiencies at the state and local government levels.
As part of the process, the state “should also address its antiquated local government structure that exacerbates inefficiencies at every level.”
“These steps are imperative as Ohio projects spending more than $1 billion on revenue sharing through the local government and public library funds while subsidizing local renewal levies with nearly another $2 billion each fiscal year,” the group said.
Separately, the Ohio Senate signed off this week on House Bill 54, the state’s two-year transportation budget. The budget allocates $11.5 billion over the biennium for the Buckeye State’s roads, bridges, airports and railroads.
It also allocates roughly $200 million for public transportation.
