On December 17, 2009 state Senator Kirk Schuring voted to put the funding of 17 Stark County school districts in jeopardy.
House Bill 318 in its essential part delayed the effective date of a 4.2% state of Ohio income tax decrease so as to come up with about $850 million to balance Ohio's 2010's budget.
Had it not passed, Governor Strickland was set to do an "across the board" funding cut of about 10% for each and every school district in Ohio including, of course, Stark's 17. The core of the 51st, which Schuring is running for in 2010, Jackson, GlenOak and Massillon schools would have suffered big time had Schuring's "no" side prevailed.
Who would think that Schuring would put Stark County education at risk? Schuring, when he ran for Congress against John Boccieri, had a backdrop on his website of his visiting a school within the 16th Congressional District.
Before he began his campaign against Boccieri, Schuring did a political grandstand move in proposing that the Ohio General Assembly place a proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution on the ballot (November, 2008 - at the same time his race with Boccieri was to be decided) that Schuring said would solve Ohio's unconstitutional funding of public schools problem.
The fact of the matter is that it would not have and, being the astute politician that Schuring is, he had to know that the proposal had no chance to make it to the ballot.
The SCPR has long maintained that neither Schuring nor Oelslager are serious about solving Ohio's education funding problem but that they do play the obligatory "lip service" to the cause.
Stark County educators and parents of school age children could, if they would make it their cause, send a huge message to the Ohio General Assembly by defeating Schuring and Oelslager at the polls and make it clear that the defeat was inextricably tied to this Republican duo's failure to solve the problem over more than 40 years in the Legislature and much of it when Republicans were in the majority and supermajority.
Oelslager and Schuring play musical chairs in an "in your face" voters (on your having approved term limits) every 8 years move between Ohio's 51st House District and 29th Senate District. Schuring now wants to move from the Ohio Senate to the Ohio House.
It will be interesting to see whether or not Schuring's announced opponent - Andrew Haines - will be able to hang Schuring's no vote on House Bill 318 and his chronic failure to achieve results solving the pubic education funding problem like a albatross around the good senator's neck?
1 comment:
Although Schuring's vote is somewhat surprising, the ENTIRE Ohio State Legislature over the past 12 years is to blame for not solving the school funding problems. Unfortunately, voters seem to continue to drink the "Kool-Aid" every campaign season of many incumbents, and return them to office regardless of their failure to fix this ongoing problem.
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