Columbus Dispatch...
State Issue 2
A yes vote will restore control of government budgets to taxpayers
Editorial 

As outlined in an August editorial, The Dispatch would have preferred a compromise on collective-bargaining issues that would have taken State Issue 2 off the ballot and revised Senate Bill 5. That didn’t happen, but because several of the provisions of Senate Bill 5 are essential to the fiscal health of state and local governments in Ohio, The Dispatch recommends a yes vote on State Issue 2. 

Elected officials should be in control of public expenditures. For the nearly three decades since the advent of Ohio’s extremely lopsided collective-bargaining law, elected officials have had too little control over the overwhelming majority of their budgets: salaries and benefits for public employees. That was always poor public policy, but in better economic times, it was sustainable. It isn’t anymore. 

As budgets are mercilessly squeezed by the protracted economic downturn, state agencies and local governments need relief from the union-friendly conditions, inherent in Ohio law before Senate Bill 5, that have driven up labor costs and left many public employees with salaries and, especially, benefits that far outstrip those of the taxpayers who pay for them. 

The most important provisions of SB 5 would: 

• Require public employees to pay a bigger share than many currently do toward their health-insurance premiums and pension contributions. This is the area in which public-sector benefits diverge most greatly from those of the private sector. Most private-sector employees no longer even have guaranteed pensions, also called “defined-benefit plans.” In 1975, 62 percent of private-sector workers’ pensions consisted only of defined-benefit plans; by 2007 that number had shrunk to 7 percent. In the same period, the number of private-sector workers who relied only on defined-contribution plans, such as 401(k) plans, for their retirement went from 16 percent to 67 percent. 

If government employees are to continue enjoying generous, guaranteed pensions, they should pay a fair share toward funding them, currently set at 10 percent of their pay. 

The bill would forbid the common current practice in which some government employers pay some or all of that 10 percent share. It also would require all public employees to pay at least 15 percent of their health-insurance premium. State employees already pay that much, but some in local government pay 9 percent or less. Considering that the average employee share in the private sector is about 30 percent, public employees under Senate Bill 5 still would get a better deal than most on health insurance. 

For examples of actual public-employee pay and estimates of their pensions, visit the searchable databases posted by the Buckeye Institute at www.buckeyeinstitute.org. 

• Eliminate binding arbitration, the current provision under which a bargaining impasse can be settled by having a third party, with no accountability to the public, impose the agreement he or she prefers, without regard to the tax increases, employee layoffs or service cuts that might be needed to pay for that decision. Elected officials have a fiduciary duty to spend the public’s money wisely; their authority to do so never should have been usurped and should be restored. 

• Require public employers to use job performance as one of the factors in determining compensation and promotions of teachers and other public employees, rather than basing these decisions solely on seniority and credentials. 

Despite the insistence of opponents, the effort to reform Ohio’s out-of-balance collective-bargaining law is not an expression of disrespect for or dissatisfaction with Ohio teachers, police officers, firefighters and other government employees. It is a much-needed attempt to restore control over public spending to the public officials elected to exercise that control. 

It does not assert that public employees are worth less than the compensation they’re receiving, only that the compensation has grown faster than the public’s ability to pay for it. 

The claims of the anti-Issue 2 campaign have been intellectually dishonest. Chief among them is the suggestion that, with some bargaining-table leverage restored to them, state agencies and local governments instantly will begin slashing positions for firefighters and police and stop buying the equipment needed to keep the public safe. What possible motivation would a politician have for decimating safety services? 

In fact, the opposite is more likely. With more ability to control the escalation of salary and benefit costs, governments won’t be forced as often to impose layoffs, and might be able to afford to keep even more police and firefighters on the streets. 

An anti-Issue 2 ad featuring a nurse claiming that Senate Bill 5 will cause bosses to thin their ranks and endanger patients is even less credible, because only a small percentage of nurses in Ohio work for government-worker unions. 

The key provisions of Senate Bill 5 are common-sense improvements that most fair-minded people embrace. 

There could have been room for compromise on other aspects of the bill, but The Dispatch, like voters, is required to make a call based on the bill as it is. The fiscal difficulties facing the state and local governments demand relief now. Voters should provide it by approving State Issue 2. 

Read this and other articles at the Columbus Dispatch