JOBSOHIO

The AP reports that former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Cupp, now working for Auditor Yost, is “raising unique ethical issues” after meeting with the Governor’s office and JobsOhio in the days leading up to the turn over of financial records to the Auditor’s Office.   While serving on the Supreme Court Cupp dealt with legal questions about  JobsOhio.  The return of public start-up money by JobsOhio could impact the lawsuit.

The Dayton Daily News reports that 19 of JobsOhio’s 22 employees are former state employees, and most got pay raises averaging 20% when they moved [...]

The Ohio House GOP has released their budget, and it’s a doozy. They defund Planned Parenthood, set up the “Parenting and Pregnancy Program” (I’m going to assume this is funding for crisis pregnancy centers), and cut the Medicaid expansion against the wishes of more than 3/4 of the House.

Speaker Batchelder says that there are too many questions about Medicaid to go forward, so he’s denying health care to 350,000 Ohioans.

That’s so ludicrous that the Speaker should resign immediately. Obamacare was passed before the GOP controlled the Ohio House of Representatives. He has had 3 years to seek [...]

When John Kasich came into office in 2011, he immediately scrapped Governor Strickland’s “evidence based” school funding plan.  Kasich promised his own plan in a few months.

Two years later, Kasich finally revealed his plan to a room full of school superintendents, who were initially impressed.  Kasich promised poor districts would be getting more money under his plan.

But just as we predicted, the whole thing was a lie.   Per pupil funding dropped, the majority of poor districts saw no increases in state funding after seeing massive cuts in the last budget, and poorly performing charters got a bump [...]

Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman’s Education Commission could clearly fill a necessary role in coordinating services throughout the city as long as they don’t alienate too many people along the way.

Beyond the Columbus City Schools, the Columbus area has many educational and community services for children that are fragmented and often a challenge for families to navigate.  These services might only be coordinated if they are willing to turn over their public/private management to a city oversight group such as the mayor’s commission.  The Columbus Zoo, the Columbus library system, Columbus Parks and Recreation, COSI, and even COTA, [...]

We’ve been following the path of  Gov. Kasich’s budget message for  the past couple of days before it heads to the legislature where the gifted pizza twirlers will add their spin to his master plan to save all that’s noble in the state.  Bold, is what the media are calling it.  A do-or-die  game changer  in how Ohioans can manage to  live with  dramatic tax cuts spread from Lake Erie to the Ohio River.  As columnist Gail Collins once wondered about another candidate’s flaring promises, “It would have been simpler if he had just given everybody a car.”

The redistribution of [...]

As part of his school funding roll out today, Governor Kasich promised to provide every charter school in the state an additional $100 per child to pay for “facilities”.

In the 2010-2011 school year Ohio had 114,667 children in charter schools.

Total new funds sent to charter schools for “facilities”: $11,466,700