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The Columbus Dispatch
Coronavirus in Ohio: DeWine ‘fully intends’ to reopen schools this year
By Randy Ludlow
Jun 3, 2020
 
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday state officials “fully intend to have school in the fall,” but stopped short of announcing that schools will reopen to students late this summer as coronavirus remains a risk.

“Our goal is to have kids in the classroom,” he said, adding that if classrooms are reopened, the starting dates are up to local school officials.

Coronavirus precautions and guidelines for classrooms are being developed by education and health officials, he said.

DeWine was the first governor in the nation to close classrooms, ordering them vacated effective March 16, with remote online learning employed to continue K-12 lessons for nearly 1.7 million pupils.

The governor has expressed fears that group settings in classroom were a potential breeding ground for virus cases among children, who might serve as carriers to then transport COVID-19 home to their families.

 “The caveat is, we don’t know exactly where this pandemic is going,” DeWine said. “Anything I say could be washed away by new facts.” DeWine said local districts would have a “great deal of flexibility.”

The governor also said he would have an announcement on Thursday about the apparent reopening parameters for closed venues such as zoos and museums. He said it would be greeted as “good news.”

State health officials reported 366 new coronavirus cases, and an additional 52 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday with the pandemic a week away from the three-month mark.

Meanwhile, DeWine is entertaining the notion of dramatically drawing down, if not draining, the $2.7 billion rainy day fund to offset a huge hole in the coronavirus-cratered state budget for next fiscal year.

And, with state workers’ pay and ongoing cuts to schools on the line, the leaders of the biggest state employee union and Ohio’s largest teachers union are calling on DeWine to spend the savings to offset reductions.

The big money in personnel involves nearly 35,000 state employees represented by unions. The biggest, the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, covers most prison employees and many office workers.

After two years of 2.75% increases, OCSEA-represented workers are entitled in the last year of their contact to a 3% annual pay raise beginning July 1.

The state potentially wants the unionized workers to give up their raise, if not agree to a cut in their current pay, to help reduce the budget as the reopening of the state economy will not begin to fill the hole.

It will be a tough sell, with prison employees sure to point out the risk accompanying their work. Four of their colleagues have died and nearly 700 others contracted infections as COVID-19 also killed 78 inmates.

Chris Mabe, OCSEA president and a former corrections officer, said talks already have begun with state officials about his members’ pay.

“We’ve talked to them about voluntary cost-savings days, reining in expensive contractors, restructuring management teams and saving money through long-term telework,” Mabe said.

“But in times of crisis, Ohioans need public services the most. Now is the time for the administration to use the rainy day fund for what it was intended: emergencies such as this,” he said.

DeWine said Tuesday the money needed for union pay raises simply won’t be there, with a lack of any movement on giving up pay likely to be met with employee layoffs. “It is the discussion we want to have,” he said.

State officials declined to discuss their goal for cost reductions accompanying union pay, saying the state has filed a labor notice to formally negotiate with the unions.

With school funding the single-biggest ticket item in the state budget — accounting for 35% of all spending — K-12 classrooms could be in line for significant reductions absent an infusion of rainy day cash.

Scott DiMauro, a former Worthington high school social studies teacher and president of the Ohio Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union with 122,000 members, also suggests it is pouring.

“Schools got hit disproportionately in the first budget cut, and we really don’t want to see that happen again. We would expect the governor and state leaders to use the rainy day fund to mitigate any potential cuts,” he said.

Di Mauro said he hopes the state savings and federal funding for schools amid the coronavirus crisis will overcome the impact on classrooms.

“We need more resources to deal with needs of our students in this pandemic,” including more money for remote learning necessitated by the closure of classrooms and their uncertain fall fate, DiMauro said.

To deal with the virus-undercut economy and its huge erosion of the state tax take, DeWine and lawmakers face a huge 7% funding shortfall in the coming year.

After enacting $775 million in education-heavy funding cuts to balance this fiscal year’s budget, DeWine has signaled the rainy day fund will be tapped for the first time in more than a decade.

State Budget Director Kimberly Murnieks started the reductions for the coming fiscal year on Monday, announcing a state effort to reduce spending on employee salaries in both management and union ranks.

DeWine’s cabinet directors will take a 4% cut in their salaries, generating a largely token $165,000 in savings.

About 16,250 supervisory, non-union employees will receive a 3.8% cut in their overall pay by forfeiting 10 days of paid leave; lawmakers are being asked to freeze those employees’ pay for the coming fiscal year.

The 366 new virus cases reported Tuesday were lower than the prior day’s figure of 471 and well below the 21-day average of 534 new daily cases.

The additions boosted Ohio’s coronavirus case load to 36,350 and the number of fatalities to 2,258 as the state has reopened much of its economy and is working to increase testing to help check a feared increase in cases with the easing of stay-at-home orders. “Testing remains a work in progress,” DeWine said.

The state leader in virus infections and deaths, Franklin County, reported 134 new cases and eight more fatalities to increase its totals to 5,862 and 279, respectively.

DeWine announced Tuesday there are no longer any restrictions on medical procedures, including those with overnight stays, that have been delayed amid the pandemic to ensure hospitals were not overrun with coronavirus patients. Outpatient procedures previously were authorized.


 
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