Ohio Senate acts on concerns involving JobsOhio initiative

If the chairman of the state Sen- ate Finance Committee is to be believed, all the major concerns raised about the privatization of Ohio’s job-creation effort will be addressed in the legislation to be voted on next week by the chamber. That certainly is an encouraging development, given the haste with which the Republican-led House passed HB1, creating Republican Gov. John Kasich’s JobsOhio.

“We are working on a lot of language to tighten up the transparency, the ethics, the constitutionality concerns, and the administration has said they are supportive of every one of those efforts,” Sen. Chris Widener, R-Springfield, told the Columbus Dispatch after his committee had its first hearing on the bill.

Indeed, House Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, raised similar questions about the constitutionality of the initiative despite the fact that all his members voted for the bill, and all the Democrats voted against it — after raising numerous objections about the legislation and questioning the rush to judgment.

After HB1 passed the House, we urged the Republican-controlled Senate to take its time in considering the legislation and to address the concerns voiced by the Democrats and others about a nine-member private board chaired by the governor conducting the state’s business in private.

The Dispatch, quoting from an Ohio Ethics Commission analysis of the proposal, reported that the issue of disclosure of travel paid for by private businesses, definitions of terms such as “transaction” and “incentive,” and exactly who would conduct periodic reviews of the entity, are not addressed in the legislation. There isn’t language showing when the reviews would occur, whether the review results must be made public, and what constitutes an “excessive” private benefit, the newspaper said.

Putting such a major piece of legislation on a fast track is not only irresponsible, but it raises questions about Gov. Kasich’s intentions. He has made no secret of the fact that privatization of government is his goal and that he believes the current formulation of state government has hindered Ohio’s ability to attract private investment and has undermined job-creation.

Kasich won last November’s election by portraying Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland as the architect of Ohio’s economic collapse. He blamed Strickland for the loss of 400,000 jobs in the past four years. Although he won by a slim margin, Kasich believes the voters gave him the green light to reform government from top to bottom.

Accountability

The problem with this steamroller approach is that laws designed to ensure accountability and transparency get crushed.

It is fortunate that the GOP leadership in the Senate has slowed down the Kasich machine — at least with regard to JobsOhio.

It is telling that Mark Kvamme, the new development director, has conceded that he is now working on changes to the House bill to ensure disclosure of travel paid for by private companies, making meeting notices public and allowing the Ethics Commission to enforce its laws.

Why were these issues not addressed in the original legislation?

It is clear that HB1 is flawed. The Senate must do everything it can to ensure that JobsOhio doesn’t become a private entity operated by the governor in secret.