COLUMBUS, Ohio— While a lot of attention has been given toward the new state budget’s offering of $600 million toward a new Cleveland Browns stadium in suburban Brook Park, a lot of other Northeast Ohio organizations are also set to get budget money over the next two years.

The state’s new, $60.1 billion budget includes a long list of appropriations for the Greater Cleveland area, including money for everything from quantum computing to a school kindness initiative.

Here’s more on the new round of state funding that’s tagged for Northeast Ohio.

Say Yes Cleveland

For several years, Say Yes Cleveland, a nonprofit that offers college scholarships to Cleveland students, has deployed dozens of family support specialists to public and charter schools to help students find things like housing, food, mental health, legal support, and other basic needs.

But Say Yes’ family-support program has repeatedly been on shaky ground financially, as funding from local, state, and federal sources has been cut or expired. In May, the organization offered voluntary buyouts to its 89 family-support specialists.

The new state budget gives $750,000 to Say Yes Cleveland over the next two years to help keep the family-support specialist program going. That’s a fraction of the $4.5 million included in the last state budget, passed in 2023, for the program.

But Catherine Tkachyk, the group’s interim executive director, said in a statement that the new state money is “essential” to sustaining the program, adding that the initiative “has proven to be a lifeline for many students and families.”

The Plain Dealer/cleveland.com has reached out to Say Yes Cleveland for more details on what the current status of her group’s family-support specialist program is and what the $750,000 will specifically be used for.

State Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney of Westlake, the top Democrat on the Ohio House Finance Committee, helped secure the funding for Say Yes Cleveland.

“When the system fails them, Say Yes steps in — and our children deserve leaders who will fight to keep that promise alive,” Sweeney said in a statement.

Quantum computing

A $7 million earmark will be used to help establish a new quantum computing institute being created by Cleveland Clinic and Miami University of Ohio.

Quantum computers use principles of quantum mechanics to perform calculations exponentially faster than standard digital computers can.

The Ohio Institute for Quantum Computing Research, Talent, and Commercialization will allow Miami University students to intern at Cleveland Clinic and nearby institutions while earning newly created bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in quantum computing.

Cleveland Clinic – which has an IBM Quantum System One, the world’s first computer dedicated to healthcare research – will benefit by attracting top quantum computing talent to stay in Cleveland and work for the medical center after they graduate, according to a news release.

State Rep. Tom Young, a Dayton-area Republican who spearheaded the funding effort, said in an interview that quantum computing can help Cleveland Clinic accelerate its predictions of how diseases spread and speed up drug development, among many other things.

“We have the opportunity to lead in this and make a huge difference, for not only our companies and our workers (but) even all the way down to households,” Young said. “What this technology can do is, in many people’s minds at this moment, unfathomable.”

Neighborhood revitalization

Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, a nonprofit community development group, is getting $500,000 in state funding for its ongoing initiative to improve homes and businesses in “middle neighborhoods,” which are neither wealthy nor poor but need investment to stave off a slow decline.

In Cleveland, examples of “middle neighborhoods” include Old Brooklyn, Kamm’s Corners, and Bellaire-Puritas, said Edward Stockhausen, senior vice president of advocacy and external relations for Cleveland Neighborhood Progress. It also includes suburbs like Fairview Park, Berea, and parts of Shaker Heights, he said.

Cleveland Neighborhood Progress works to improve these neighborhoods in two ways, Stockhausen said. For businesses, the nonprofit offers matching grants of up to $50,000 for things like sprucing up storefronts, repairing electrical and HVAC systems, and putting up new drywall.

In residential areas, the group purchases homes and rehabilitates them – often adding a new floor or additions in the process — before selling them to people for them to live in, at a price of up to $100,000 less than what the group paid to refurbish the home. The money from home sales is used to offer more grants and buy more houses.

So far, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress has bought 20 homes and sold one, with the help of $3 million from the state two years ago, Stockhausen said. The additional $500,000, he said, will help the organization get closer to its goal of renovating and selling 200 homes.

“The state investing another $500,000 shows that they believe this program can show not just a real impact on the city of Cleveland, but that we’re going to learn a lot from our work that can apply to communities both elsewhere in Cuyahoga County and throughout the state of Ohio,” Stockhausen said.

After-school programs

Open Doors Academy, a Cleveland-based nonprofit that provides after-school and summer programs for K-12 students, will get $3 million under the new budget.

The state money, which accounts for one-third of Open Doors Academy’s operating budget, is “crucial” for the organization to continue offering its programming, which is largely offered in low-income areas, said Joe Hollings, Open Doors’ director of engagement.

“Without providing what we do, at no cost to the families, families would not have a safe, engaging place for their kids to go after school,” Hollings said.

Spreading kindness

In 2020, the Mayfield-based Values-In-Action Foundation created the Kindland campaign, with the goal of documenting 1 million acts of kindness by the end of 2021.

Five years later, the Kindland initiative has spread to 700 Ohio schools, with varying levels of involvement that range from holding kindness rallies and assemblies to embedding kindness messaging and programming into the school’s curriculum.

Now, the Kindland initiative is getting $4 million in the budget to help it expand beyond Northeast Ohio to another 700 schools around the state over the next two years, according to Stuart Muszynski, the co-founder, president and CEO of the Values-in-Action Foundation.

That’s $1 million more than what the state provided Kindland in the last budget.

“We’re very grateful that the legislature, as well as the governor and other individuals in the administration, feel strongly that kindness is a core value that ought to be taught in schools and embedded in our communities,” Muszynski said.

Other earmarks

Here’s a list of other state budget earmarks headed to Northeast Ohio over the next two years. Some are new, while others maintain the same level of state funding provided in the past.

$2 million to contract with the Cleveland Sight Center, along with the Cincinnati Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired and the Sight Center of Northwest Ohio in Toledo, to provide early intervention services and family support to children younger than 3 years old with blindness or low vision Up to $2 million over the next two years to offer tutoring services to private-school students who participate in the Cleveland Scholarship, Ohio’s oldest publicly funded school voucher program. The state provided the same amount in its last state budget. $1.5 million for Cornerstone of Hope, a nonprofit that offers grief services and support in the Cleveland, Columbus, and Lima areas, to launch and expand its Traumatic Loss Response Team. $1.4 million for the Social Advocates for Youth (S.A.Y.) Program at the Bellefaire Jewish Children’s Bureau in Cleveland to help expand school-based prevention and crisis intervention services for youth. $1 million to Riveon Mental Health and Recovery in Lorain County to support integrating medical and behavioral health services in one setting. $1 million for Baldwin Wallace University in Berea to expand the Northeast Ohio Flight Information Exchange, which offers drone operators information about things like weather conditions and local restrictions. The money will also help develop similar exchanges elsewhere in Ohio. $750,000 to a Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood redevelopment project. The money was redirected from one-time surplus tax money appropriated last year to the Scranton Trail project. Redirects a previous $750,000 earmark from the Lorain County Administrative Building to the Lorain County Justice Center. $700,000 for the Western Reserve Historical Society. $600,000 to the Row, Sail, Dream program in downtown Cleveland, which works to introduce Cleveland schoolkids to rowing, sailing, and related sports. $600,000 to the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center’s Human Trafficking Drop-in Center to provide services for at-risk youth $600,000 to the Battered Women’s Shelter of Summit and Medina Counties for a pilot program called “Finding my Childhood Again.” $500,000 to the Great Lakes Science Center. $500,000 to Birthing Beautiful Communities to help provide perinatal support services for at-risk mothers and children in Cuyahoga and Summit counties. $500,000 to New Bridge Cleveland Center for Arts and Technology in MidTown to support at-risk adult learners with healthcare professional certification and job placement $500,000 to the Neighborhood Alliance nonprofit to support its homeless shelter in Lorain County. $500,000 to The Music Settlement in Cleveland to support its Center for Music Initiative. $380,000 for the Achievement Centers for Children, a Northeast Ohio nonprofit that offers programs and services to people with disabilities. $350,000 for Providence House, a Cleveland-based nonprofit that offers emergency shelter to infants and children in crisis situations, to conduct a study into which Ohio communities are able to sustainably operate a children’s crisis care facility $300,000 for the Transplant House of Cleveland to support organ recipients and caregivers $300,000 for Friendship Circle of Cleveland to provide support services and respite care for children with disabilities and their families. $300,000 to support the IConnect Program, which helps senior citizens use technology for social interaction and activities. The program is administered by the Neighborhood Centers Association in Richland, Medina, Lorain, and Cuyahoga County. $300,000 to Canalway Partners to support the 2027 bicentennial of the Ohio & Erie Canal $279,000 for Hudson Community Living, which offers residences for adults with developmental disabilities, to help pay for maintenance and operations. $250,000 for University Circle $200,000 to the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging, a Cleveland-based nonprofit, for services for disadvantaged seniors. $200,000 for S.U.C.C.E.S.S. for Autism in Wickliffe to expand an interprofessional professional training pilot program $200,000 to Cleveland State University for two scholarship programs for youth aging out of foster care: the Sullivan-Deckard Scholarship Opportunity Program and the Helen Packer Scholarship Program $200,000 to Applewood Centers, Inc., to expand their foster-care program in Cuyahoga and Lorain counties. $150,000 for the Wadsworth Area Historical Society and to preserve St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Wadsworth $150,000 to the Student Mentoring and Career Development Program at Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Public Affairs and Education. $150,000 to the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron $100,000 to the Battered Women’s Shelter of Summit and Medina Counties to operate its commercial kitchen facility in Akron $45,000 to help install baby boxes at one fire department each in Geauga, Lake, and Portage counties

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