Madison graduation 2012
Warren County CC graduation
New Miami graduation 2012
Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2011 > September > 19
Monday, September 19, 2011
“Heartbeat” backers, opponents plan Tuesday rallies
Supporters and opponents of the “Heartbeat” bill plan rallies Tuesday with the legislation now before the Ohio Senate.
The legislation would ban an abortion once a heartbeat is detected.
Backers of House Bill 125, already approved by the House, said they will stage a three-hour rally starting at 11 a.m. in the Statehouse Atrium.
“This may be the most important pro-life rally you have ever attended,” Janet Folger Porter, Faith2Action president, said in a press release. “It will signal the end of abortion on demand. Babies with beating hearts are about to be protected.”
NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, a key opponent, however, plans to kick off its “Trust Women Watch” outside the Statehouse, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., a press release said.
“We will be a constant reminder to legislators that Ohioans are in no mood for an anti-choice agenda to take over the Statehouse,” Kellie Copeland, the group’s executive director, said in the release.
John McClelland, spokesman for Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, said the “Heartbeat” bill still is under review and no action has been scheduled.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment |
TweetSchool superintendent blasts Kasich in letter
In a letter to 240 district employees, Southeast Local Schools Superintendent Mike Shreffler criticized Gov. John Kasich for saying public employees get free pensions and free health care coverage.
Shreffler said he attended a private meeting with Kasich and House Speaker William Batchelder, R-Medina, on Sept. 1 at a factory in northeast Ohio with about 200 mostly Republican supporters.
Shreffler said he got irritated when he heard the governor allege that Ohio’s public employees don’t pay anything toward their pensions and health care coverage.
Kasich press secretary Rob Nichols said Shreffler’s recap of the governor’s remarks is inaccurate and reflects Ohio Education Association talking points.
“What he claims to have happened didn’t happen. It’s not true,” Nichols said. The governor often says that in some instances, some public employees do not pay toward their retirement or health care, Nichols said.
Mike Baach, a business owner in Medina County who attended the meetting, said his recollection is the governor was responding to a question about what was being asked of government workers and Kasich said they would be asked to pay 15 percent of their health care costs and some percentage of their pension contribution.
State law mandates that public workers pay 10 percent of their wages toward their pension while their employers pay between 14 percent and 26 percent. However, about 6.6 percent of public employees have union and individual contracts that call for the employer to pick up all or part of the workers’ share as well, according to the state’s five public pension systems.
Pension contribution rates, eligibility and benefits are prescribed in state law, not union contracts.
A 2011 survey by the State Employment Relations Board of public sector health care costs shows that public workers pay on average 9.5 percent of the premium costs for a single plan and 10.7 percent for a family plan. Township and city employees pay the lowest percentage — 4.9 percent and 7.7 percent, respectively — while county and state employees pay more than 15 percent. The employee share crept up faster last year than the employer share, the SERB report said.
Nonethless, public sector workers, in general, are paying less toward their health care coverage than their private sector counterparts.
The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in March that private sector employers paid on average $2.12 an hour toward employee health care coverage compared with $4.72 an hour state and local government employers paid toward worker health insurance.
Shreffler, a registered Democrat who votes a split ticket and used to be a Republican, said his letter “has gone viral” within the education community and he has received emails from educators across the state.
Shreffler said he sees good and bad reforms in Senate Bill 5 and he likes some of the policies advanced by Kasich but disagrees with him on many of his education reforms.
“There are policies he is pushing that I like. There are some things that he has got some real common sense on and he is right. But I’m an educator. That is my profession. And I feel like I’m seeing public education disappear before my eyes,” Shreffler said.
In the five page letter, Shreffler referred to the governor as a bully and the legislature as his posse.
Shreffler disputed Nichols’ characterization of him as a “big time Democrat” who is spouting union talking points. Shreffler said he has never belonged to the OEA or any other teacher union.
Permalink | Comments (34) | Post your comment |
Tweet
