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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
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