Columbus Dispatch...
On SB 5, which study to believe?
By Alan Johnson 

In comparison with their private-sector counterparts’ total compensation, public employees in Ohio earn ... A) more, B) less, C) about the same, or D) depends on which side of the Senate Bill 5 debate I’m on? 

With yesterday’s release of a study concluding that public employees have a 43.4 percent edge in wages, benefits and job security, both sides in state Issue 2’s collective-bargaining debate now have facts and figures to support their position. 

Which figures to believe? That’s another matter. 

The Ohio Business Roundtable, representing the chief executive officers of the state’s major corporations, fired the latest salvo in the wages-and-benefits skirmish. 

A study commissioned by the business group, which is expected to endorse state Issue 2, concluded that employees of state and local governments and schools are paid slightly less than private workers. However, their overall compensation package — bolstered by paid pensions and job security — is far greater, the study found. 

“Fears that public employees are being treated unfairly, or that many will quit their jobs and the government will be unable to recruit replacements, are almost certainly unfounded,” the business group’s study concluded. 

Ohioans will vote on Nov. 8 on state Issue 2, a referendum on Senate Bill 5, which limits collective bargaining. State legislators passed the bill and Gov. John Kasich signed it this year. 

Kasich and his supporters say the law is important to help the state and local governments make ends meet by cutting labor costs that are grossly out of proportion. Opponents counter that the law is a partisan-inspired effort that unfairly penalizes unions and middle-class employees. 

The study for the Roundtable said: “Even if the provisions of SB 5 were implemented in full, it is very likely that Ohio public-sector workers would continue to enjoy a substantial compensation premium over private-sector Ohioans.” 

The research was by Andrew Biggs and Jason Richwine, who have doctorates in economics and are affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group in Washington, D.C. Many officials from former President George W. Bush’s administration are part of the institute. 

The Roundtable study differs sharply from one released in February by opponents of Senate Bill 5. That research, by Rutgers University professor Jeffrey Keefe, came from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group in Washington. 

Keefe concluded that the overall compensation package of government and school workers was 6 percent less than that of comparable workers in private jobs. He said public workers, in general, are more educated and experienced than their private-sector counterparts. Although their benefits are allocated differently, he said, the result is still that their compensation is lower. 

Asked about the discrepancy between the studies, Biggs, co-author of the Roundtable research, said Keefe’s research failed to adequately address the value of public-employee pensions, retiree benefits, health-care coverage and job security. Biggs’ study calculated the economic value of job security as the equivalent of a nearly 10 percent increase in total compensation for public employees. 

“Nobody came to us saying, ‘We want you to produce a study that says the gap is 43 percent,’ ” he said. “We are very confident of the basic approach we use.” 

A national study, covering two decades of analysis, concluded that total compensation for state employees was 6.8 percent less — and for local employees, 7.4 percent less — than comparable private-sector workers. 

That research was by two University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professors for the National Institute on Retirement Security and the Center for State and Local Government Excellence. 

Read it at the Columbus Dispatch