From the monthly archives: June 2011
Our sister site Ohio Budget Watch has the real story behind the casino deal Kasich announced today, the story Kasich doesn’t want you to know.
While Kasich is running around claiming he got $110 million more from casinos in fees, the deal he struck involving VLTs and casino taxes actually loses the state hundreds of millions of dollars:
we lose about $100 million per year in CAT revenue (based on estimates of CAT at “$tens of millions” per casino, per year
we lose about $215 million per year in license revenue from video lottery terminals by lowering tax rate [...]
Full Story... →Kasich is making an announcement this afternoon regarding his deal with the casinos and as Budget Watcher points out, it seems very likely that video lottery terminals (VLTs aka slot machines) are probably going to be allowed at Ohio’s race tracks. I recommend you read the Ohio Budget Watch post. As with many, many other issues, I think you’ll be very surprised how accurate their predictions turn out to be.
Regarding the VLTs, I thought maybe I’d cover a little background and touch on some recent issues that are suddenly being resolved to make way for Kasich’s likely plan [...]
Full Story... →I recently had a discussion with Kellie Copeland, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, about the State Senate’s unprecedented decision to include abortion-related language in the state budget (more on that topic soon). Her knowledge of pro-choice issues and politics in Ohio was impressive and her passion for the subject was contagious. I immediately invited her to write a guest post for Plunderbund. To my surprise she accepted the invitation. Many thanks to Kellie! — Joseph
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When I was given the opportunity to write a guest blog for Plunderbund, I was thrilled. I mean, who wouldn’t [...]
Full Story... →Courtney Johnson is an English teacher at Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School in Columbus, Ohio. She has worked for Columbus City Schools for over ten years and, recently, she’s been an outspoken critic of Senate Bill 5 and the disastrous budget bills Republicans are trying to push through the legislature.
She’s spoken about workers rights at multiple rallies in Ohio and at congressional hearings in DC and, like many other public employees in Ohio, she’s decided to fight back against Kasich and the GOP-controlled Legislature’s attacks on hard working teachers, fire fighters and police officers and [...]
Full Story... →“Crazy” is the word Ohio House Speaker William Batchelder used to describe the Ohio Senate’s changes to the House-approved budget bill, most specifically the removal of teacher evaluations and performance pay.
In response, Senate President Tom Niehaus said, “We want to honor the commitment that almost half of the school districts in the state of Ohio have already worked out with their teachers unions and administration [through Race to the Top].” If this explanation by Niehaus can be trusted, then he made the correct call. The House version of the bill guaranteed that millions of dollars in Race to [...]
Full Story... →Kasich will tell you he wants to spend “more dollars in the classroom” and that he wants to “improve our schools” but today he attended the graduation ceremonies at ECOT – an online, for-profit charter school with one of the worst graduation rates in the state and an operator who is one of the biggest Republican donors in Ohio.
ECOT, The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, is the 21st largest “district” in the state of Ohio. As Greg pointed out last month, the state spent $59,978,866 on the school last year – millions of which seem to go directly [...]
Full Story... →When Governor Kasich rolled out his original budget proposal, he culminated a months-long effort of trying to convince the citizens of Ohio that major reforms were needed for K-12 Education. Senate Bill 5, while not a significant part of the original budget bill was a major player in this education reform. So assured was the Governor about the necessity of these changes, the headline in his Reforms Book reads:
THE NEEDED REFORMS WE WILL IMPLEMENT
Needed? I confess that until Senate Bill 5 was rolled out in February, I never realized how far the state of [...]
Full Story... →At the risk of beating a dead horse, we just can’t let this one go. We’ve posted ad nauseum about the teacher testing provision as it has evolved in the budget bill starting with the Governor, moving through the House, changing in the Senate during the first set of amendments, and changing one last time before passing on the Senate floor.
In the last revision, a sentence was added to the end of section B:
No teacher shall be responsible for the cost of taking an examination under this division.
Nothing else. No mention [...]
Full Story... →Butler and Warren Counties is about as deep red of a county with a significant population that you’re going to find in Ohio. The default GOP political map for any statewide campaign is to run up the score to offset the Democratic advantages in Cleveland and Youngstown. These are the counties that Ken Blackwell still managed to carry despite getting only 36% statewide.
These counties are not just controlled by Republicans, the GOP holds every virtually partisan office to the point that many Democrats are technically registered Republicans because the GOP primary is just about the only contested race voters [...]
Full Story... →Kasich and his henchman really seem to know no bounds.
As we discussed earlier, Kasich refused to attend the unveiling of Governor’s Strickland’s Statehouse portrait yesterday. And now we’re hearing other Republicans were told not to attend either.
And in case anyone decided to ignored the memo: Kasich’s confidante and top lobbyist Robert “Bob” Klaffky was there writing down names.
We’re told he was there to intimidate Republican lobbyists who would like to stay on good terms with the Administration, and we have no reason to doubt this explanation given ever growing list of other Full Story... →
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