News

Ohio has not recovered 120,000 jobs lost since the recession: some say number higher

July 8, 2014

Plain Dealer 

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Ohio has yet to regain at least 120,000 jobs it lost since the recession began more than six years ago.

When the national unemployment numbers for May were released last month, they were accompanied by a certain degree of fanfare. The U.S. economy had recovered the jobs it had lost since the recession officially began in December 2007. Ohio’s jobs report for May, released two weeks later, wasn’t as eventful.

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Yost’s Inaction On Charter School Issues Questioned

Reports Point Out Ongoing Problems At Ohio Charters, Little Oversight

COLUMBUS – A report recently published by the Akron Beacon Journal revealed disturbing details surrounding the operation of a chain of 19 publicly funded Ohio charter schools.  The Horizon and Noble Academies were founded by Turkish immigrants and operate under the ‘Concept Schools’ name.  The Akron Beacon Journal report questions the facts that the schools in Ohio were allowed to “hire 325 educators almost exclusively from Turkey” and that “as early as 2002, state audits found thousands of public dollars ‘illegally expended’ to finance the U.S. citizenship process for Turkish employees”.  The report also highlighted another early state audit found “as many as 20 percent of teachers at one school were not licensed”.

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New Data: AG’s Rape Kit Backlog at Highest Level – 3,893 Untested Kits

July 7, 2014

TOLEDO BLADE PRAISES PEPPER’S PLAN TO SPEED UP RAPE KIT TESTING 

CINCINNATI – Data released just before the July 4th holiday revealed that the backlog of untested rape kits sitting in the Attorney General’s Office has grown for the ninth straight month and now stands at a record high of 3,893 untested kits. Thousands more kits from around the state have yet to be submitted to the Attorney General for testing.

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$20 million local heroin treatment shortfall begins today

July 1, 2014

Ohio Republican Party spokesman:  Drug treatment funding is nothing more than “more money for government”

Columbus – Today, a $20 million shortfall in local government substance abuse treatment takes affect under a new Kasich Administration policy in how it handles federal grant money for treatment.  [Source: Toledo Blade, (5/30/2014)]  In addition, recent budgetary changes by the Kasich Administration will redirect funding ordinarily given to local mental health and drug treatment boards and reallocate it for State spending.  [Source: Toledo Blade (6/30/2014), “Risky Budget.”]

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Governor Kasich Veterans Bill is Pure Electioneering

June 30, 2014

Kasich Proposed Cutting Funding for 13 Veterans Organizations His First Year in Office

Today, Governor Kasich will tout his efforts to improve higher education and job opportunities for Ohio’s veterans at a bill signing at the University of Cincinnati. Here’s why that’s just pure electioneering: in his first state budget, Governor Kasich proposed weakening access to state jobs for veterans, and sought to cut funding for thirteen different veteran organizations.

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