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Trumbull JVS officials hope for line-item veto
Champion School Board member says item in budget bill would reduce accountability at vocational schools
By Ed Runyan
CHAMPION
A longtime Trumbull Career and Technical Center Board of Trustees member is hoping Gov. John Kasich will line-item veto a part of the state budget bill approved by the Legislature Thursday that could change the composition of joint vocational school boards in Ohio.
Roger Samuelson, who is also a longtime Champion Board of Education member, said a provision that requires all joint vocational school board members to have experience as a top business official will reduce the amount of accountability compared with now.
According to summaries of the legislation, joint vocational school board members will need to have experience as a chief financial officer, chief executive officer, human resource manager, “other business or industry professional,” or career counseling professional before he or she can be appointed.
The legislation says joint vocational school board members can be appointed as they are now — by fellow members of the board of education of the vocational school’s member schools — but they must now have “experience in or understanding of workforce needs in the state.”
According to Samuelson, the board of trustees of the Trumbull Career and Technical Center consists of one school board member from each of the 15 school districts that send students to the school.
But the new law will lead to some members of the TCTC board being selected from outside that group. To Samuelson, that means less accountability to the public, because the TCTC board will contain board members never elected by any voter.
“To me, this departs from what board members in Ohio were supposed to be — representing the public,” Samuelson said.
As it stands now, the members of the TCTC board hire professionals — such as superintendent and treasurer — to carry out the mission of the school, Samuelson said. But board members remain accountable to the public as a result of having to be elected to their school board seat.
Samuelson said he wonders whether it will be possible to get top business officials to serve as vocational school board members for the amount of money TCTC pays — $125 per meeting, which works out to about $125 per month.
Samuelson said he thinks the current system is working and wonders whether this change will be a first step toward having appointed people serve on public school boards.
A letter from the Ohio School Boards Association urges joint vocational school board members to contact the governor’s office to ask him to line-item veto the measure so it can be more thoroughly debated in separate legislation.
Kasich is expected to sign the budget bill sometime this weekend — with or without line-item changes.