county news online

Toledo Blade...
Kasich’s jobs budget
7/21/11 

Lucas County’s Workforce Development Agency sent pink slips to four employees last week. They are just the tip of an iceberg created at the end of June when Gov. John Kasich signed a two-year budget that was balanced largely on the backs of schools, local governments, libraries, nursing homes, and social-service programs. 

Mr. Kasich has dismissed the idea that the $55.8 billion budget approved by the Republican-controlled General Assembly created a problem for local governments and agencies. “If the State of Ohio can meet its challenges, then local governments can become more creative,” he said. 

Yet that creativity would appear to have few avenues for expression. Senate Bill 5, the governors plan to give local governments more flexibility by gutting the collective-bargaining rights of public employees, is headed for a November ballot showdown. And while some public workers have shown a willingness to make concessions in light of economic realities, others have refused to give back anything. 

Unlike the federal and state governments, local officials can’t just kick the can down the road. They are at the end of a dead-end street. So they have three choices: raise taxes, cut waste, or reduce services. But tax increases are difficult to sell to voters who feel overtaxed already, are unemployed, or have had their wages or hours cut. And because reducing waste, while helpful, won’t balance most budgets, they really only have one choice: eliminate jobs and reduce services. 

The four layoffs at the Workforce Development Agency are the county’s attempt to cut costs without cutting services that, as Commissioner Pete Gerken pointed out, help clients find jobs. Toledo Public Schools will have to cut scores of jobs — and inevitably reduce services — to make up for lost state and federal funding. Toledo got out of the trash-collection business — at an unknown cost to residents — because the city had deficits of its own that were compounded by cuts in state aid. 

This pattern will be repeated by social service agencies, libraries, schools, townships trustees, village and city councils, and boards of commissioners in all 88 Ohio counties. The simple truth is that you can’t cut billions of dollars from all these budgets without impacting jobs, services, or — more likely — both. How many jobs will be lost and how much services will be reduced are anyone’s guess. 

Governor Kasich called his spending plan “The Jobs Budget.” And it’s true that jobs have been created on the JobsOhio board, the Ohio Casino Control Commission, and in new positions on Mr. Kasich’s cabinet. 

But here at the local level — where the can and the road both stop — the immediate impact of Kasich budget has been fewer jobs and the prospect of reduced services. 

Read it at the Toledo Blade



 
site search by freefind
click here to sign up for daily news updates
senior scribes

County News Online

is a Fundraiser for the Senior Scribes Scholarship Committee. All net profits go into a fund for Darke County Senior Scholarships
contact
Copyright © 2011 and design by cigs.kometweb.com