Columbus
Dispatch...
Editorial: Don’t miss
the chance
Governor, lawmakers should make historic changes to benefit Ohio
Sunday, June 12, 2011
When the Ohio House and Senate have finished harmonizing the
differences between their budget bills, the finished product should
maintain the governor’s $427 million cut in nursing-home funding and
include an effective reform of the rules governing public contracting,
as well as a system for rewarding teachers based on merit.
State agencies and local governments, along with universities and
school districts, need relief from antiquated rules - no longer in
place in any other state - that force public building projects to use a
contracting system that invites conflict and delays and inflates costs.
Gov. John Kasich and the House have put forward budget language to that
relief, but the Senate is trying to water it down. So-called “multiple
prime” contracting, currently required on major public building
projects, requires the use of separate, independent contractors for
mechanical, heating, electrical and plumbing work, with no single
company in charge. That leads to conflict rather than coordination on a
large project, which often means waste, delays, duplication and
lawsuits. Experts have estimated it can add between 5 and 30 percent to
a project’s cost. The state spends about $3 billion a year on
construction, so even a 5 percent overage amounts to $150 million of
taxpayers’ money wasted.
Antiquated rules are particularly unjustified in construction at public
universities. At Ohio State University for example, state funding makes
up only 13 percent of the total budget, yet 100 percent of OSU’s
construction spending, including millions of privately donated dollars,
is subject to outdated state-construction law. This should change.
Universities should be free to spend their money effectively using
21st-century construction systems.
Kasich and the House have proposed merit-based systems for evaluating
and rewarding teachers, but the Senate declined to include any
merit-based system. A system that evaluates teacher effectiveness and
uses such evaluations to determine staffing, layoffs and pay is vital
reform. The current system rewards teachers for seniority, tying
administrators’ hands when it comes to staffing and pay decisions. The
recent example of the Pickerington Local School District shows the
problem with this: Of the 14 “teacher of the year” winners for 2010-11
in the district, five are losing their jobs in a round of layoffs that
will hit 120 teachers. This is a system that punishes outstanding
teachers and the students who will be deprived of their services.
Development of merit-based systems already is part of Ohio’s federally
sponsored Race to the Top education-reform program, which includes 300
Ohio school districts. It should be made the policy of the entire state.
The governor has proposed a $427 billion cut to nursing homes over the
two years of the budget. This would be a historic rollback for a
politically powerful industry that has helped itself to the public
treasury for decades. Ohio must continue to correct the imbalance
between expensive nursing-home care and the cheaper in-home care that
many seniors would prefer. Some lawmakers have talked about providing
more money to nursing homes than Kasich has proposed. This is
unnecessary. The governor’s cut should stand. Later, if nursing homes
can demonstrate injury, a supplemental appropriation could be
considered. But the state is filled with nursing homes and they are, on
average, at just 85 percent of capacity. There is little danger that
anyone would be denied nursing-home care.
The governor and the legislature are in a position to make fundamental
changes to some of the key institutions in the state that will pay
dividends to generations of Ohioans. They should not let the
opportunity slip through their fingers.
Read it at the Columbus Dispatch
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