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Job growth, education
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are key to Ohio’s future
BY: MARILYN H. KARFELD
Senior Staff Reporter
A growing economy, revitalized with innovative biotechnology startups and alternative energy ventures, holds the key to Ohio’s future, state leaders agree.
But in Gov. Ted Strickland’s speech this week to The Press Club of Cleveland, he also emphasized Ohio’s past.
As the third largest manufacturing state in America and the fourth largest producer of durable goods, Ohio needs to strengthen and support that sector of its economy, Strickland said.
“Manufacturing is and must continue to be a vital part of Ohio’s economy,” he noted. “We can’t give up on the manufacturing sector.”
Last December, when Rolls-Royce plc invited Ohio to bid for a new jet-turbine plant, Strickland, then still governor-elect, went to Washington, D.C., to pitch the state’s strengths to the British company’s CEO. Ohio is competing with seven other states for the industrial facility; Rolls-Royce has said it will soon narrow down the list.
The CEO of Rolls-Royce North America, who used to live in Strongsville, praised the region’s workforce as “superior” to any he’s encountered in all of the places he’s worked all over the world, Strickland recounted. “Jobs of the future will go to places with highly skilled workers.”
Ohio currently ranks 51st among the states, lagging behind even the District of Columbia, in obtaining federal funding for job training through the Workforce Investment Act, Strickland said. The governor vowed to take advantage of the federal funds Ohio has not tapped thus far.
To encourage companies to hire more people, his administration has guaranteed to customize free training programs for any business that creates 20 or more quality jobs per year.
Ohio faces challenging times, but the state’s economy remains the 7th largest in America, with the fifth biggest concentration of Fortune 500 companies, the governor said. Economic growth is his top priority, Strickland said, repeatedly emphasizing that he and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, director of Ohio’s department of development, are aggressively pursuing that goal.
On March 15, Strickland will submit his proposed two-year budget to the state legislature. With flat growth in Ohio’s economy, he said the state will have to “tighten its belt” and make do with less. While the governor never mentioned raising taxes and insisted the state must live within its means, he said investing in a stronger economy would produce a stronger state budget.
Former Gov. Bob Taft said he was leaving the state with a surplus, but Strickland said that was only true for the current fiscal year. With 1.4% growth in state revenues estimated and 2% inflation factored in, the governor said the state’s purchasing power may decline by as much as $1.5 billion for the 2008 fiscal year beginning July 1. In fiscal year 2009, the state faces losing an additional 0.9% in spending power.
Revenues are growing slowly, Strickland said, because of changes in Ohio’s tax code. The state is phasing out the personal property and inventory taxes levied on businesses. Replacing them is the commercial activity tax (CAT). But CAT revenues are being diverted to school districts and local governments that lost funding due to the changes in the tax system.
Turning around Ohio’s economy involves taking stock of regional economies that have different strengths and needs, the governor noted. For instance, Strickland said he is establishing a governor’s office on urban development and infrastructure to help big cities like Cleveland.
Speaking to the CJN after his speech, Strickland said he would try to to grow the region’s economy by fostering alternative-energy producers. To that end, he wants to establish an energy summit here.
Last week, he toured NASA-Glenn Research Center and saw research that turned coal into liquid fuel.
“Ohio could be a leader in research to produce renewable energy,” he said, citing wind, solar, biodiesel, ethanol and clean-coal technologies. “Our geography, our size, history, and natural resources make us well-positioned for this.”
Cleveland is known throughout the world for its superb medical research and health care at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University, Strickland said. “To overlook that economic development asset (health care and biotech ventures) doesn’t make sense.”
Located within 500 miles of a large part of the American population, Cleveland is also well-positioned to be a “logistics center,” the governor maintained. Northeast Ohio’s highway capacity, proximity to Lake Erie, rail lines, and air transportation facilities make it a logical center to distribute goods throughout the country.
While he’s interested in regionalism, with cooperative arrangements between the 57 municipalities surrounding Cleveland, the governor noted that this first has to be embraced by local leaders. “We want to stop one community from poaching jobs from another,” he told the CJN. “Otherwise, there’s no net gain.”
Ohio’s department of development would provide unspecified “advantages” to those communities that agreed not to compete for jobs with neighboring suburbs, the governor said. “If we saw ourselves as partners rather than competitors, it would be to the mutual benefit of all in the region and throughout Ohio.”
The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that Ohio’s reliance on local property taxes to fund its public schools is unconstitutional. In response, the legislature has increased state spending on schools but has not significantly reduced schools’ dependence on local property taxes.
“School funding is something I have to address, or I’d consider myself a failed governor,” Strickland pledged. “For too long we’ve talked, which has come to naught.”
A consortium of education groups has begun collecting signatures to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would increase the state’s contribution to school funding. Strickland noted that he has not signed on as a supporter.
Instead, he insisted that all the “stakeholders” must compromise on a solution. The business community, he said, has come to understand that Ohio can’t improve its economy without fixing how it funds its schools.
The suggestion of Speaker of the House Jon Husted, a Republican, that the governor should fix school funding in his first budget was just “political games,” the governor said. Instead, Strickland, Ohio’s first Democratic governor in 16 years, tossed the ball back into the Republican-dominated legislature’s court.
“If it’s my understanding that it’s impossible for the legislature to deal with the problem, at that point, I will get behind a constitutional initiative n a Democratic initiative,” he said pointedly. “That would be unfortunate, as this needs to be a bipartisan initiative.”
He refused to specify a new school-funding source, saying to do so now before all the stakeholders work together on a compromise would be counter-productive. “I have the specifics up here,” he told the CJN, tapping his head. “I’m not talking right now.”
However, his budget proposal next month will provide some direction, he claimed, with funding earmarked for early childhood education.
Responding to questions after his speech, Strickland touched on other concerns, such as identifying ways to expand healthcare coverage for the uninsured, particularly Ohio’s children.
Doubts about the accuracy of Ohio’s electronic voting machines and the lack of a paper trail worried him. But he said it would be too costly to scrap Ohio’s current electronic touch-screen machines in favor of paper ballots and scanners.
His top priority is rejuvenating Ohio’s economy, he said. Business and labor groups, urban and rural areas, suburbs and cities, and the faith community all have to “stop fighting each other and pull together to build a better Ohio.”
mkarfeld@cjn.org
BY: MARILYN H. KARFELD
Senior Staff Reporter
A growing economy, revitalized with innovative biotechnology startups and alternative energy ventures, holds the key to Ohio’s future, state leaders agree.
But in Gov. Ted Strickland’s speech this week to The Press Club of Cleveland, he also emphasized Ohio’s past.
As the third largest manufacturing state in America and the fourth largest producer of durable goods, Ohio needs to strengthen and support that sector of its economy, Strickland said.
“Manufacturing is and must continue to be a vital part of Ohio’s economy,” he noted. “We can’t give up on the manufacturing sector.”
Last December, when Rolls-Royce plc invited Ohio to bid for a new jet-turbine plant, Strickland, then still governor-elect, went to Washington, D.C., to pitch the state’s strengths to the British company’s CEO. Ohio is competing with seven other states for the industrial facility; Rolls-Royce has said it will soon narrow down the list.
The CEO of Rolls-Royce North America, who used to live in Strongsville, praised the region’s workforce as “superior” to any he’s encountered in all of the places he’s worked all over the world, Strickland recounted. “Jobs of the future will go to places with highly skilled workers.”
Ohio currently ranks 51st among the states, lagging behind even the District of Columbia, in obtaining federal funding for job training through the Workforce Investment Act, Strickland said. The governor vowed to take advantage of the federal funds Ohio has not tapped thus far.
To encourage companies to hire more people, his administration has guaranteed to customize free training programs for any business that creates 20 or more quality jobs per year.
Ohio faces challenging times, but the state’s economy remains the 7th largest in America, with the fifth biggest concentration of Fortune 500 companies, the governor said. Economic growth is his top priority, Strickland said, repeatedly emphasizing that he and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, director of Ohio’s department of development, are aggressively pursuing that goal.
On March 15, Strickland will submit his proposed two-year budget to the state legislature. With flat growth in Ohio’s economy, he said the state will have to “tighten its belt” and make do with less. While the governor never mentioned raising taxes and insisted the state must live within its means, he said investing in a stronger economy would produce a stronger state budget.
Former Gov. Bob Taft said he was leaving the state with a surplus, but Strickland said that was only true for the current fiscal year. With 1.4% growth in state revenues estimated and 2% inflation factored in, the governor said the state’s purchasing power may decline by as much as $1.5 billion for the 2008 fiscal year beginning July 1. In fiscal year 2009, the state faces losing an additional 0.9% in spending power.
Revenues are growing slowly, Strickland said, because of changes in Ohio’s tax code. The state is phasing out the personal property and inventory taxes levied on businesses. Replacing them is the commercial activity tax (CAT). But CAT revenues are being diverted to school districts and local governments that lost funding due to the changes in the tax system.
Turning around Ohio’s economy involves taking stock of regional economies that have different strengths and needs, the governor noted. For instance, Strickland said he is establishing a governor’s office on urban development and infrastructure to help big cities like Cleveland.
Speaking to the CJN after his speech, Strickland said he would try to to grow the region’s economy by fostering alternative-energy producers. To that end, he wants to establish an energy summit here.
Last week, he toured NASA-Glenn Research Center and saw research that turned coal into liquid fuel.
“Ohio could be a leader in research to produce renewable energy,” he said, citing wind, solar, biodiesel, ethanol and clean-coal technologies. “Our geography, our size, history, and natural resources make us well-positioned for this.”
Cleveland is known throughout the world for its superb medical research and health care at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University, Strickland said. “To overlook that economic development asset (health care and biotech ventures) doesn’t make sense.”
Located within 500 miles of a large part of the American population, Cleveland is also well-positioned to be a “logistics center,” the governor maintained. Northeast Ohio’s highway capacity, proximity to Lake Erie, rail lines, and air transportation facilities make it a logical center to distribute goods throughout the country.
While he’s interested in regionalism, with cooperative arrangements between the 57 municipalities surrounding Cleveland, the governor noted that this first has to be embraced by local leaders. “We want to stop one community from poaching jobs from another,” he told the CJN. “Otherwise, there’s no net gain.”
Ohio’s department of development would provide unspecified “advantages” to those communities that agreed not to compete for jobs with neighboring suburbs, the governor said. “If we saw ourselves as partners rather than competitors, it would be to the mutual benefit of all in the region and throughout Ohio.”
The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that Ohio’s reliance on local property taxes to fund its public schools is unconstitutional. In response, the legislature has increased state spending on schools but has not significantly reduced schools’ dependence on local property taxes.
“School funding is something I have to address, or I’d consider myself a failed governor,” Strickland pledged. “For too long we’ve talked, which has come to naught.”
A consortium of education groups has begun collecting signatures to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would increase the state’s contribution to school funding. Strickland noted that he has not signed on as a supporter.
Instead, he insisted that all the “stakeholders” must compromise on a solution. The business community, he said, has come to understand that Ohio can’t improve its economy without fixing how it funds its schools.
The suggestion of Speaker of the House Jon Husted, a Republican, that the governor should fix school funding in his first budget was just “political games,” the governor said. Instead, Strickland, Ohio’s first Democratic governor in 16 years, tossed the ball back into the Republican-dominated legislature’s court.
“If it’s my understanding that it’s impossible for the legislature to deal with the problem, at that point, I will get behind a constitutional initiative n a Democratic initiative,” he said pointedly. “That would be unfortunate, as this needs to be a bipartisan initiative.”
He refused to specify a new school-funding source, saying to do so now before all the stakeholders work together on a compromise would be counter-productive. “I have the specifics up here,” he told the CJN, tapping his head. “I’m not talking right now.”
However, his budget proposal next month will provide some direction, he claimed, with funding earmarked for early childhood education.
Responding to questions after his speech, Strickland touched on other concerns, such as identifying ways to expand healthcare coverage for the uninsured, particularly Ohio’s children.
Doubts about the accuracy of Ohio’s electronic voting machines and the lack of a paper trail worried him. But he said it would be too costly to scrap Ohio’s current electronic touch-screen machines in favor of paper ballots and scanners.
His top priority is rejuvenating Ohio’s economy, he said. Business and labor groups, urban and rural areas, suburbs and cities, and the faith community all have to “stop fighting each other and pull together to build a better Ohio.”
mkarfeld@cjn.org
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| Grave Challenges | şB e a c h w o o d K e h i l l a a c h i e v e s i t s g o a l o f p e r m a n e n t s p a c e |
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