Ohio's firefighters, officers, nurses, doctors and child care providers all worked outside the home throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
But who among them deserves a $1,000 bonus check from the American Rescue Plan Act dollars allocated to the state has now become a heated debate in Columbus.
Three Republican representatives and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost introduced a plan to give first responders (fire, police and EMS) $1,000 checks if they worked full-time throughout the pandemic and weren't disciplined during that time period. Part-time first responders and volunteer firefighters would get $500 checks.
"We are doing this because we want to show our first responders we value you guys, we care for you guys, we love you guys," Rep. Phil Plummer, R-Dayton, said at a press conference.
The checks would cost Ohio about $83 million from the $5.68 billion in direct assistance the state is expected to get from ARPA.
But Rep. Erica Crawley, D-Columbus, told the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau that she thinks all frontline workers deserve these "hero pay" checks.
"I don't think we should be pitting one essential worker against another," Crawley said. "We all needed them in their respective fields as we navigated COVID-19."
Shannon Jones, a former Republican state senator who now runs early childhood advocacy group Groundwork Ohio, went a step further calling it a "punch to the gut" to see the Senate put lines in its budget proposal to prohibit Ohio from giving child care workers these kinds of bonuses.
"The average wage for child care professionals is $10.60 per hour," Jones said. "They could have earned more money on unemployment during the pandemic."
But they didn't, she said. They stayed in their jobs, so that the police officers, firefighters, nurses and doctors could go to work.
But Plummer said the difference between first responders and other frontline workers was "they don’t work in a controlled environment. They don’t know what they are getting into. They don’t know what they are responding to."
Crawley called it an absurd delineation.
"If you compare who was exposed more and who contracted it at a higher rate, it was doctors and nurses versus our police," she said.
More:Ohio never released COVID-19 numbers among hospital staff
The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund found 145 police officers who died from the coronavirus in 2020. A similar accounting of health care workers by KHN and The Guardian found more than 2,900 lost their lives during that same time period.
Rep. Craig Riedel, R-Defiance, explained the decision to focus on first responders another way.
"This is a way for the State of Ohio to make a statement ...," Riedel said. "We are saying we have your back. We have your back. First responders and law enforcement, the State of Ohio has your back because we know you have our back."
And it's a message to the rest of the country.
"If you believe in these values," Riedel said. "If you believe in respect for authority, then come to Ohio because we do too."
Anna Staver is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.
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