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Ohio Governor John Kasich visited the Central Administration Building in Green on July 12 as a part of a series to promote and inform his 2012-2013 fiscal budget, entitled "The Jobs Budget." His plan is meant to close the $8 billion budget gap in the state, eliminate the Death Tax and, most importantly, create jobs and keep Ohio students in the state after they graduate.
The key words of Gov. Kasich's talk on Tuesday were "collaboration, coordination and consolidation." Another major part of his budget is to reduce government waste by streamlining and combining resources and programs. More importantly, due to their own efforts to combine resources, the governor is using government and school officials from Green as an example. Mayor Dick Norton, Green Superintendent Michael Nutter and Superintendent Larry Morgan from Stark County's R.G. Drage were also on hand to speak.
Mayor Norton introduced Gov. Kasich around 1:30 p.m. to the room full of party officials, local government employees and school administration. He began by speaking about prison sentencing reform, which he spoke about in Cleveland that morning. This new process will take criminals sentenced to less than one year jail stints to community facilities, where they will still be restrained, but will instead by rehabbed there instead of alongside more serious offenders. He then segued into the main topic of the state budget, Medicaid reform and streamlining services, particularly noting how each program cut costs.
"We've saved a billion dollars on Medicaid and the easy thing to do would be just cut. If you have a kid who needs to go to the dentist, you just don't go. But, do you really save money just by not going? I don't think so," he said. "So, what we decided to do was coordinate their care. It saves a lot of money that way. Another thing we decided to do is if mom and dad want are eligible to live in a nursing home but want to stay in their own house, they can do that under our plan. It saves money and they're more comfortable. Great idea, right?"
He then continued by discussing how the $8 billion dollar budget deficit the state experienced was gone, while his administration still managed to cut taxes for small businesses. Gov. Kasich then switched topics to the main focus of the afternoon: how to run government more like a business, and he noted how Green's government was leading in this area.
Ohio Governor John Kasich visited the Central Administration Building in Green on July 12 as a part of a series to promote and inform his 2012-2013 fiscal budget, entitled "The Jobs Budget." His plan is meant to close the $8 billion budget gap in the state, eliminate the Death Tax and, most importantly, create jobs and keep Ohio students in the state after they graduate.
The key words of Gov. Kasich's talk on Tuesday were "collaboration, coordination and consolidation." Another major part of his budget is to reduce government waste by streamlining and combining resources and programs. More importantly, due to their own efforts to combine resources, the governor is using government and school officials from Green as an example. Mayor Dick Norton, Green Superintendent Michael Nutter and Superintendent Larry Morgan from Stark County's R.G. Drage were also on hand to speak.
Mayor Norton introduced Gov. Kasich around 1:30 p.m. to the room full of party officials, local government employees and school administration. He began by speaking about prison sentencing reform, which he spoke about in Cleveland that morning. This new process will take criminals sentenced to less than one year jail stints to community facilities, where they will still be restrained, but will instead by rehabbed there instead of alongside more serious offenders. He then segued into the main topic of the state budget, Medicaid reform and streamlining services, particularly noting how each program cut costs.
"We've saved a billion dollars on Medicaid and the easy thing to do would be just cut. If you have a kid who needs to go to the dentist, you just don't go. But, do you really save money just by not going? I don't think so," he said. "So, what we decided to do was coordinate their care. It saves a lot of money that way. Another thing we decided to do is if mom and dad want are eligible to live in a nursing home but want to stay in their own house, they can do that under our plan. It saves money and they're more comfortable. Great idea, right?"
He then continued by discussing how the $8 billion dollar budget deficit the state experienced was gone, while his administration still managed to cut taxes for small businesses. Gov. Kasich then switched topics to the main focus of the afternoon: how to run government more like a business, and he noted how Green's government was leading in this area.
"What these gentlemen have been able to do, before we even thought about it, is keep costs down and work together so they don't have to raise taxes, which makes your community more competitive," he said.
He noted that by combining services and working together to purchase things such as health care, government is able to buy better together, much like buying goods at a WalMart.
Kasich then turned the mic over to Mayor Norton, who spoke about Green's long history of collaboration to save money, which occurred even before he was mayor. He specifically noted how Green's government worked together with the local school district in building the very Central Administration Building that this meeting took place in, emphasizing that it saved taxpayers roughly $3 million.
"The need to have a new building was real. And they [the school district] were either going to have to lease or build their own. But we talked to them and worked together, and now they don't have to lease a $600,000 building... What we get back from the community is that they love that we collaborate and how we don't waste their tax dollars," Norton said.
Gov. Kasich then asked Superintendent Nutter if coming to Green and combining the school district's resources made him feel like he lost his identity. Nutter emphasized that this was not the case, that the school's vision has never been clearer and that the district still managed to save $4 million in the past 18 months while having the highest student performance in the state.
Superintendent Morgan also stated that he managed to consolidate nine jobs into three at his schools, efficiently cutting costs, while still managing to run things smoothly and successfully place the majority of second semester seniors into the job market in Ohio.
Afterwards, the governor, mayor and Green's superintendent made some final remarks. Mayor Norton once again emphasized the importance of continued communication, not only between government officials but also between the community and the city workers. Superintendent Nutter said that he was going to continue running the school system efficiently, like a business, because "we're in the business of educating kids."
To end the meeting, Gov. Kasich opened up the floor for questions, though he only had time to answer one about the increased level of partisanship in Columbus. He said that the entire concept disgusted him and was as bad as he had ever seen it. However, he did mention that the aforementioned sentencing reform was a non-partisan effort with support from both sides of the political spectrum. He then joked that he would eventually win over Ohio democrats by "charming them."
Gov. Kasich did not leave before mentioning that the mayor and superintendents who spoke today would soon be joining him in Columbus to share ideas about coordinating resources and collaborating with different areas of the government and community. After that statement, however, the governor was off to visit Ashland, Ohio to have yet another discussion of his state budget.
