Category Archives: Ohio

Blue Ribbon Task Force Community Update

Posted on February 18, 2011 by | Leave a comment

by U.S. Rep. Steve Austria

Last week, I joined the Blue Ribbon Task Force in Dayton to update community leaders and elected officials on the status of the recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission report. I think it is important now, more than ever, to focus on how our region can bring our ‘A’ game to the table to be more competitive and bring additional jobs to Ohio. With Wright-Patterson Air Force Base being the largest single site employer in the state, it is vitally important that we continue to evaluate how we can help grow Wright-Patt and better do business with the base.

The Blue Ribbon Commission, which was formed in 2009, was made up of small businesses, community leaders, retirees from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) and academia, to evaluate the strengths of the region and better compete for contracts in support of WPAFB. The Blue Ribbon Task Force was then formed to implement the recommendations proposed by the Blue Ribbon Commission Report in July 2010. The recommendations aim to support Ohio’s military facilities and increase the number of WPAFB contracts awarded to local companies, bringing more jobs to the region. The Task Force has done an extraordinary job implementing the Commission’s recommendations, and I am encouraged to hear of their progress and success. This community-based effort has truly taken enormous strides towards returning jobs to the state of Ohio.

Also last week, the Task Force launched and highlighted a social media Web site that was created to address several of the Commission’s recommendations. The Web site was designed to be a resource to the community, where people can share community information. I encourage you to learn more by visiting this page on my Web site to see for yourself how the Task Force’s efforts can help bring the community together. Wright State University’s School of Engineering and Computer Science has also agreed to run and operate the Web site from here on out, and I look forward to their continued efforts.

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Posted in business, economy, Greene County, news, Ohio, politics

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Today’s hearing on Senate Bill 5… Please come to the Statehouse this Thursday in red

Posted on February 15, 2011 by | Leave a comment

By Rebecca Heimlich

I’m sitting in the Ohio Statehouse Rotunda listening to proponent testimony for Senate Bill 5, which would significantly reform Ohio’s collective bargaining law for public employees. I got to the Statehouse an hour before the hearing and saw several buses and knew our side’s buses weren’t coming until Thursday. The Statehouse is packed with union members who have been bused in from around the state. The Rotunda is the second overflow room for those who came to the hearing. Unfortunately, our red shirts are outnumbered.

We have to pack the Statehouse for Thursday’s hearing with SB 5 supporters in red shirts. I recognize it is more difficult for our activists to to get to Columbus. Most of us can’t get a taxpayer paid day off to come like many union members can, and we don’t have unions to pay for our buses. That said… Senate Bill 5 is crucial to balancing Ohio’s budget and getting us back on track to prosperity.

Under Ohio’s current collective bargaining law, public employers (which are ultimately taxpayers) cannot effectively manage their workforce. These laws take away public employers’ ability to decide how much to pay their employees and don’t allow flexibility in employment decisions.

Ohio must be able to hire, promote and pay based on merit.

Please join us this Thursday at 9am on the West Statehouse Lawn and wear red. Please come earlier if you can. If today is any indication, the union buses will already be at the Statehouse at 9am Thursday.

To read more, go to the Americans for Prosperity Ohio website. http://www.americansforprosperity.org/021511-todays-hearing-senate-bill-5-please-come-statehouse-thursday-red

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Posted in economy, news, Ohio, politics, taxes

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Again…

Posted on February 15, 2011 by | Leave a comment

David Zanotti, president of the American Policy Roundtable, recently wrote an interesting article that was partly about the unending vigilance required to maintain the blessings of liberty. In his article titled Again…, he illustrates his meaning with the following:

What is the one word we hear from our kids and grandkids? When little ones find something they truly enjoy they ask us over and over to do it “again.” This is the way of children. What they love never grows old. So what happens to the rest of us as we grow older?

I intentional left the most personal part of the illustration that preceded the quote just as the biblical illustration that follows only because of the need to keep length of this post to a minimum.

Following the illustrations, Zanotti gets to his central point about liberty’s repetitive requirement.

The battle for real liberty is never done. It has to be waged over and over again in every generation because people forget.

Every year we face the same old challenge at the Statehouse and on Capitol Hill. Politicians and the media elites are trying to bring forth “new ideas” that sound exactly like the “new ideas” that failed years ago.

Zanotti continues with several examples of policies that failed to produce promised economic or social benefits. One example was the “outcome based education” reform. Another was the promise that casino gambling would solve our state’s budget crisis. Zanotti seems to bemoan the fact that no seems to remember the debacle of the Clinton “Health Security Act of 1994” or the failure of Medicare and Medicaid to deliver as promised since 1965.

The same can be said about the federal stimulus and bailouts. Past bailouts helped banks, corporations, states, and foreign nations only to increase the burden on taxpayers. They most recent ones helped banks, GM, some states and local communities for a little while. However, the promise that the billions of stimulus dollars would revive the economy has not been realized at least for main street businesses and mortgage owners.

Moreover, most Americans fail to see Obamacare as helping either. If anything, Obamacare will increase our national debt and cause health insurance cost to rise. Worse than that, Obamacare serves another hammer blow to our liberty. For nowhere does the U.S. Constitution give federal bureaucrats the right to dictate what individual citizens will buy and not buy. The Constitution does empower to them to regulate commerce and to facilitate the prosperity of willing citizens and not big corporations. However, taxing the rich in order to distribute wealth to the poor does not appear to be Constitutional either.

As Zanotti reiterates in his article,

Thus we must re-tell the story of Liberty—again.
We must recall and restate those first principles found in the Scriptures—again.
We must present the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—again.
We must email and call lawmakers—again.
We must go to the Statehouse and Capitol Hill and testify—again.
We must recruit and train new leaders—again.
We must cover the costs of all these activities—again.

Source: The American Policy Roundtable eNewsletter, February 10, 2011.

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Posted in economy, education, health care, Ohio, politics, taxes

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Ohio Right to Life Late Term Ban Introduced into the Ohio Senate

Posted on February 14, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Pro-life legislation introduced into the Ohio Senate this morning will ban late term abortions in Ohio. Similar to House Bill 78, the Late Term Ban introduced in the Ohio House last week, this legislation will save babies’ lives.

“This is a huge step forward in putting an end to abortion in Ohio,” State Senator Peggy Lehner, sponsor of Senate Bill 72 said. “When we know there is a way to protect both the mother and her child, it is our responsibility to protect them both.”

This bill would require physicians to test if a child was viable outside of the mother’s womb prior to performing an abortion after 20 weeks gestation. If the child is viable, the abortion cannot be performed. There is an exception for the physical health and life of the mother.

“This late term abortion ban legislation will save lives immediately when enacted. The overwhelming support of our pro-life leaders in the Ohio Senate demonstrates that our government is serious about enacting safeguards to protect babies’ lives,” said Mike Gonidakis, Executive Director of Ohio Right to Life.

Ohio law currently permits abortions through all nine months of pregnancy, up until the moment of birth. Most experts agree that an unborn child can feel pain by 20 weeks. In 2009, 613 children were killed at 20 weeks of life or later in Ohio. 116 of those babies suffered death after 24 weeks. One case was documented at 35 weeks.

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Posted in health care, news, Ohio, politics

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Sex Trafficking Revelations Prompt Noon Demonstration Outside Planned Parenthood

Posted on February 14, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Human rights advocates will gather in the public right of way today outside the Planned Parenthood offices across nation and Ohio from Noon to 1 PM to hold a “Vigil for Victims” of underage sex trafficking. The vigil will raise awareness in the community about the recent undercover video investigation that caught Planned Parenthood red-handed in the act of aiding and abetting underage sex trafficking of girls as young as 14. The vigil will also call upon Congress to immediately strip Planned Parenthood of its $363 million in annual taxpayer funding.

The local vigils will join with other Vigils for Victims being held today outside Planned Parenthood offices nationwide to reveal the danger the organization poses to women and girls. These gatherings represent a massive grassroots response to the undercover sting operation that documented Planned Parenthood workers at multiple locations across several states assuring an undercover investigator posing as a pimp that the organization would secretly provide abortions and other sex services to underage victims of human trafficking, helping to facilitate their exploitation. More information about the coast-to-coast vigils can be found at: http://www.ExposePlannedParenthood.com/vigil

Federal law is clear: “Sex trafficking of minors is a federal crime and punishable by imprisonment for 10 years to life.” (18 U.S. Code 1591) Also, “any person who aids abets, or counsels a federal crime to be committed may be punished as if they had committed the crime themselves.” (18 U.S. Code 2)

The nearest Planned Parenthood Health Center is located in Fairborn.

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Posted in health care, news, Ohio, politics

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Representative Martin Introduces New Legislation

Posted on February 10, 2011 by | Leave a comment

State Representative Jarrod Martin (R-Beavercreek) recently teamed up with his legislative colleagues to introduce two bills in the Ohio House of Representatives.

House Bill 61, which Representative Martin introduced with Representative Andy Thompson (R-Marietta), would afford private sector employers the option to offer compensatory time. This serves as an alternative to employers offering overtime pay to employees, which they must pay one and one-half times the employee’s hourly rate for each hour worked in excess of 40 hours per week by law.

“This bill offers a great alternative for businesses to save money,” Representative Martin said. “Not only is it necessary to find ways for our businesses to be economically efficient during these hard times, but this bill allows for flexibility to employees, creating a more family-friendly work environment.”

Representative Martin also introduced House Bill 54 alongside Representative Ron Maag (R-Lebanon). This legislation allows for the restoration of gun rights that brings Ohio into compliance with a recent Supreme Court ruling that asserted that to restore gun ownership rights for someone under firearm disability, there must be complete restoration.

“It is the Legislature’s responsibility to ensure that our laws are clear and can be upheld as constitutional,” Rep. Martin said. “There are currently people who are unintentionally breaking the current law because of the recent ruling due to the fact there is one category that cannot be restored to those under firearm disability.”

House Bill 61 and House Bill 54 will undergo further consideration and debate in their assigned House committees. Representative Martin offered sponsor testimony to the Economic and Small Business Development Committee on House Bill 61 last week and will soon be giving sponsor testimony on House Bill 54.

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Posted in business, news, Ohio, politics

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Myers’ Letter Urges Rep. Hackett to Support Healthcare Reform Bill HJR 2

Posted on February 8, 2011 by | Leave a comment

February 7, 2011

Representative Hackett,

It is my understanding you have yet to sign on as a co-sponsor of H.J.R. 2, proposing to enact Section 21 of Article I of the Constitution of the State of Ohio to preserve the freedom of Ohioans to choose their health care and health care coverage.

It is my hope, along with many of your constituents in the 84th district that you will do so very soon. The Ohio Liberty Council, The Ohio Freedom Alliance and the several Liberty Groups in your district are ramping up to engage representatives to insure that Ohioans will remain free and not “forced” to purchase healthcare. It is my hope other constituents will also contact you to ask that you very quickly become a co-sponsor.

If you have any questions or if I can be of further assistance please don’t hesitate to contact me. Thank you for representing the 84th district.

Sincerely,
Andy Myers
Policy Analyst
Ohio Freedom Alliance

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Posted in Greene County, health care, Ohio, politics

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Ohio Lawmakers Introduce Life Saving Legislation

Posted on February 6, 2011 by | Leave a comment

The Viable Infants Protection Act (House Bill 78) was introduced by Representatives Uecker and Kristina Roegner. The Viable Infants Protection Act prohibits abortion after 20 weeks when the child is proved to be viable and can live outside the womb. Greene County Representatives Jarrod Martin and Roger Hackett are among its co-sponsors.

House Bill 79 was introduced by Representatives Danny Bubp and Joe Uecker and co-sponsored by Martin and Hackett. HB 79 excludes abortion coverage from the State Exchange created in the federal health care reform law. The Federal law includes a provision allowing states to opt out of abortion coverage.

A related bill would revise Ohio’s current Judicial Bypass for Parental Consent law. House Bill 63 will strengthen current law by requiring a “clear and convincing evidence” standard, requiring judges to specifically inquire about the minor’s understanding of the possible physical and emotional complications of an abortion, and requiring judges to question how much the minor has been prepped to respond to such questions.

Representatives Ron Young and Lynn Slaby sponsored HB 63 with Representatives Martin and Hackett among its numerous co-sponsors.

The Ohio Right to Life supports these life saving bills and asks Ohioans to support them as well. Visit the Ohio Right to Life website to find how. (http://www.ohiolife.org)

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Posted in family, health care, news, Ohio, politics

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Ready To Start A Business? The Ohio’s Small Business Development Centers Partnership with SCORE Could Help

Posted on January 28, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Two organizations are using their combined strengths to offer extensive quality training and assistance to start-up businesses. The Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) of Ohio are partnering with SCORE’s Southern Ohio District to offer services that will encourage small businesses to grow, expand, and increase productivity, providing long-term sustainable success.

The Small Business Development Center of Ohio Network was created in 1985 through a partnership between the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Ohio Department of Development. The SBDC provides quality in-depth business management consulting, training and technical assistance.

SCORE was organized in 1965 and is a resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration. It is a nonprofit organization whose 13,000 national volunteers are successful entrepreneurs and executives who share their “no cost” expertise to start up and in business clients. Some volunteers have mentored their clients for more than 10+ years.

Both Ohio’s SBDC’s and SCORE’s Southern Ohio District will provide counseling and mentoring to individuals and groups where knowledge and guidance are shared from previous experiences, and will host informational seminars and workshops coaching and educating businesses about available services and resources, maximizing business potential.

“Our focus is to educate and guide businesses about the opportunities and resources available, putting the right tools in their hands and allowing company owners to benefit and strengthen their bottom line,” said Karen Shauri, State Director of SBDC of Ohio. “This partnership increases our network reach and maximizes both organizations’ strengths and talents.”

To accomplish these objectives, the Ohio SBDC program links federal and state government resources and local public/private nonprofit resources to meet the needs of the small business community.

“The combined business objective of our partnership is to help strengthen our clients’ opportunities for successful growth and profitability” said Mary Jane Good, SCORE’s Southern Ohio District Director.
The focal point of the collaboration is small business development. This joint effort will enable the organizations to maximize resources to best reach goals. By partnering two organizations, Ohio’s business community can have access to a wide variety of resources, furthering economic growth and success.

The SBDCs foster a strong climate for small business growth with many local community partners including colleges and universities, economic development agencies, chambers of commerce, and other community organizations. In 2010, SBDCs served more than 25,000 clients and assisted with 432 business starts.

SCORE has strong business partnerships with Chambers of Commerce, various universities, schools, libraries, city officials, and organizations. Since October 1, 2010 the Southern Ohio District has provided more than 2,695 services to interested individuals in the form of face to face, online counseling, and seminars. The District has Chapters in Columbus, Dayton, Greater Cincinnati, Newark, Chillicothe and Marietta.

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Posted in news, Ohio

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2010 K-12 Ohio Teacher Salary and Estimated Pensions, Searchable On-Line Database

Posted on January 21, 2011 by | Leave a comment

The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions released on ots website the 2010 K-12 salary and estimated pension data for all Ohio public school teachers. Unlike the data collected for previous years, the 2010 data includes salary and pension information for many superintendents, principals, and other administrative staff members. The pension data includes each teacher?s salary based on a 2,080-hour year (40 hour work-week, 52 week year) so users can properly evaluate teacher pay, as most teachers are contractually limited to working 1,350 hours per year.

In 2010, approximately 1,800 school employees earned over $100,000 per year. Due to increasing staffing costs, Ohio?s 613 public school districts are expected to face a $7.6 billion funding deficit by 2015, with personnel expenses consuming 96 percent of tax revenues. In the last election, citizens used the Teacher Salary Database to hold their school districts accountable for spending choices, citing that average teacher
salaries had grown at rates that, in many cases, far outpaced inflation. In addition to the new data, the website now contains a search counter which records the number of searches performed in the eight database tools (State Salary, Federal Salary, Higher Ed Salary, Teacher Salary, Local Salary, School
Data, County Data, and State Lobbyists). Since the website?s launch on April 30, 2010, visitors from 473 Ohio cities, the 49 other states, and 119 foreign countries have spent over 20,000 hours conducting almost 1.5 million data searches.

Buckeye Institute President Matt A. Mayer stated: “With so many school districts under financial duress, it is now even more important than ever that taxpayers know how school districts are spending their money. Instead of cutting staff positions, sports, bussing, and other programs, most school districts could balance their budgets without raising taxes through cutting staff compensation packages by a small percentage.”

The Teacher Salary data tool is available at www.buckeyeinstitute.org.

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Posted in economy, education, news, Ohio, research, schools, taxes

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