Ohio GOP moves to ban abortion, end funding for planned parenthood
After Kasich Cuts, Ohio Village Receives Donation
We’ve been running an ongoing project – Kasich Cuts = More Levies. While we’ve focused primarily on school levies, from time to time interesting municipal situations catch our eye. The village of Lowell in Washington County may be small, budget amounts don’t number in the millions, but the Kasich cuts to local governments in have had a big effect.
This November voters will decide on a 2-mill tax levy to fund current expenses in the village.
Taten Ayers, Lowell village clerk, told the Marietta Times:
Due to cuts to the local government funds Washington County will receive in 2013, the village of Lowell anticipates receiving $11,686.74 in those funds after repayment deductions, a 74 percent or $34,023 reduction in revenue funds compared to 2011, Ayers said. To balance Lowell’s general fund budget for 2013, ‘We’re gonna need to come up with about $44,000 roughly,’ said [Mayor David] Pitzer.Beyond asking voters to approve a levy request, the village has received private donations to help maintain police and fire services that were in jeopardy due to Kasich’s cuts.
Confused about all the noise on Ohio’s auto industry? Watch this Video
School Levy Profile: Rocky River City Schools
Rocky River City School District is yet another example of how Gov. John Kasich’s 1.8 billion in cuts to Ohio public schools have forced local taxpayers to pick up the tab.
The school district is asking for a continuing 4.9 mill operating levy in order to replace revenue generated by the Commercial Activity Tax . The district stands to lose $3.5 million over the next four years in state funding cuts including $815,000 that was cut in 2012.
Voters in Rocky River defeated a 5.9 mill request from the district and now will be asked to approve a smaller levy in order to avoid steep cuts in staff and programming.
Before going to the ballot, teachers agreed to a salary freeze for the third year in a row and accepted health insurance concessions totaling $800,000 per year. The district also cut foreign language programs, suspended the purchase of musical instruments, and cut all departments by 10%.
If the levy does not pass in November, $1.6 million in cuts would need to be made. This means cutting teachers, administrators, secretaries, transportation and security are all possible. [Cleveland Plain Dealer. ] 2011 Ohio Auto Industry Investments
IO Fellow: Public Schools in Ohio Get the Shaft When Pupils Leave District for Charters, Vouchers
IO Education Fellow Steve Dyer has been on the road participating in school funding forums. Today’s Vindicator has coverage of a forum in Austintown last night, “What Does School Choice Cost Community Taxpayers?”
From their story:
When a student leaves a public school district, “the amount transferred is almost always more than the state would have given to the district for that pupil,” said Steve Dyer, education policy fellow at Innovation Ohio. Dyer said the state’s per-pupil contribution averages $7,004 for charter schools, $6,320 for online schools, $4,971 for vouchers and $3,033 for local school districts. “This is a problem,” he said. “… And it’s up to grassroots activists to go down to Columbus and change the system.”
Just in Time for Halloween: Jeep Ad Meant to Scare – But Claim is Fantasy
Innovation Ohio is on the op-ed page of The Plain Dealer today sharing our research – and the truth – about the positive jobs effect of the auto rescue for Ohio. But, just like Whack-a-Mole, one more lie about Ohio’s auto industry pops up as soon the record is corrected on the previous one.
Why fudge the facts on auto jobs and the importance of the industry to Ohio? Our state is at the center of the political universe until Election Day. Pundits from one end of the country to the other believe the presidential vote in Ohio will determine the outcome of the race. The Romney campaign has rightly identified President Barack Obama’s support of the auto rescue as a huge advantage for the president in the state. Since the rescue was fully implemented – mid-2009 – more than 17,000 auto jobs have been added in Ohio. Gov. Mitt Romney was publicly against the auto rescue – he’s trying mightily not to have to pay the political price for that position.
[Read more…]Auto Industry Rescue: Let’s Hear From the Industry
Only in our current hyper-partisan political environment – where everything must be run through an ideological wringer – could the saving of an entire American industry become such a political football.
Of course, I’m talking about the financial rescue of GM and Chrysler – which was in essence the rescue of the entire industry. Innovation Ohio’s policy staff has tracked the growth of auto industry jobs in Ohio since mid 2009 and the numbers – from the Bureau of Labor Statistics – tell us that more than 17,000 auto jobs have been added. This is the sort of statistic touted by the Obama Administration.
On the other side is Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He famously penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal which argued against federal involvement in backstopping the auto industry. Rather than quietly move on from an issue that didn’t go his way – the rescue worked – he and Ohio Gov. John Kasich talk down Ohio’s recovering economy and the auto industry’s place in that recovery.
Dan Gearino of The Columbus Dispatch has written a well-reported, balanced piece on the raging debate over the auto rescue. What interested me in the story is what auto industry executives had to say about the rescue.
[Read more…]
Early, in-person voting especially important to Ohio’s African-American community
Under the headline: Analysis of Cuyahoga County voting finds cutback on in-person balloting hits minorities most a story over the weekend by The Plain Dealer’s Tom Feran provides more confirmation that GOP efforts in battleground states to tighten restrictions on when and how we vote are part of a larger strategy to keep Democrats away from the polls.
We showed you earlier that Democrats are more likely to vote early and we also just released a report that puts Ohio into the context of wider-ranging right-wing efforts to suppress the vote during this presidential election season. What the analysis described by The Plain Dealer tells us is that there is solid evidence that Republicans stand to gain by restricting early voting in-person before Election Day because it interferes with a traditional way by which many African-Americans vote. From Feran’s article:
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