AOF is a statewide coalition of more than 300 organizations and endorsers that work to provide and maintain vital public services – including health, human services, and education and early care – to Ohioans.

AOF Co-Chairs Mark Davis and Gayle Channing Tenenbaum and other coalition members recently met with the Governor in Columbus. They discussed the need to eliminate inefficiencies of duplicate compliance reviews of the ICF/IDD programs performed by both the Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities.

Davis stated that he brought up the issue to the Governor, who was displeased that Ohio's government was performing reviews that overlapped in content.  He declared that Kasich said two state agencies should not both be doing the same type of compliance review on providers, because it doesn’t make sense.

“The Governor appeared committed to eliminating administrative duplication, and agreed to allow us to keep 100 percent of the savings from that initiative,” Davis said.  “So whatever we save through that, we’re able to reinvest in the system.”

Davis said the Governor also indicated that AOF could keep 60 percent of the savings from any other efficiency efforts, another benefit for the group's members.

Governor Kasich and AOF discussed several other issues relevant to the broader early care and education and human services areas.

Other individuals that attended the meeting from Governor Kasich's staff included Ben Kanzeg, deputy policy director; Beth Hansen, chief of staff; Robert Nichols, press secretary; Jai Chabria, senior adviser to the Governor; Melissa Bacon, assistant policy director - health and human services; Greg Moody, director of the Governor's Office of Health Transformation; Tim Keen, director of the Office of Budget and Management; and Kim Hettel, GOFBCI - interim director.