VOLUME 9 (SCPR SERIES) GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN STARK COUNTY?

The Stark County Political Report began a new series focusing on gender (equal pay for equal work) eight weeks ago with Volume 1 with an examination of "the commissioners office," "the Stark County treasury" and "the recorder's office."

Seven weeks ago  in Volume 2 the perusal was of the county auditor's and prosecutor's office.

Six weeks ago (Volume 3 in this ongoing series) the look was at the clerk of courts office and the Stark County sheriff department.

Five weeks ago  (Volume 4) the SCPR examined the Stark County Engineer's office and the Stark County coroner's office.

So far The Report has been less than impressed (in an overall sense) of how Stark County's elected officials are doing on the matter of gender equity.

And that experience squares up with the state and federal governments.

A primary document to be familiar with for anyone who cares whether or not American women are treated equally in the job market is in the Equal Pay Act of 1963.  However, the fight for fairness for more than half the American population continues inasmuch as the fact of the matter is that the 1963 act has not resulted in pay equity for women.

Still, in 2014, on average, women are paid 79 cents for every dollar that men are paid in the American workplace.

Of course, the law is one thing.

The underlying facts of the rampant discrimination and hardship that American women from the early 1600s on have had to endure and thereby necessitating the 1963 law is something that we all should familiarize ourselves with.

The SCPR recently completed reading Gail Collins' America's Women and recommends that readers of this blog series take time to read.

Anyone who thinks that our great nation has overcome this blight, needs to think again.

In 2009, population demographics showed that women outnumbered men 158.6 million to 151.4 million.  And there is no reason that the tilt to a distinct majority women is not growing.

One danger in citing national statistics is that you, I and our neighbors might think that here in "good ol' Stark County" there is very little if any gender employment discrimination going on.

Already, the SCPR believes that this blog's series is showing that the fact of the matter is that there are pockets of real and substantial differences in how men are paid depending on what department of Stark County government one is looking at.

Of course, the only place that information is readily available to assess is in government.  There is no right to obtain data from the "private sector" as to what the pay scales are between males/females as there is in the public sector. Accordingly, we have no choice but to rely on national statistical studies to get a feel for what is going on locally among privately owned entities.  And there is no reason to believe that the Stark County private sector varies significantly from the national scene.

As far as Stark County is concerned the blog of three (3) weeks ago (i.e. the Court of Common Pleas, Family Court and the Public Defender's departments of Stark County government) showed complete turnaround from Volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4 in terms of women getting equal treatment in terms of pay and position.

But the blog of three (3) weeks ago (9-1-1 EMA, the Stark County Board of Elections and the Veterans Service Commissioner) showed a reversion to a indication that women are not by and large seeming to get equal pay/opportunity in county employment.

That trend appeared to continue as reported two weeks by the SCPR in this series of blogs with regard to the Dog & Kennel, Facilities and Health departments of county government.

Last's week report on Stark County Regional Planning, the Stark Parks and the Stark County Sanitary Engineering Department did nothing to dispel the notion that work needs to be done to achieve a better measure of gender equity in Stark County government.

Today, however, the SCPR's analysis of Stark County Developmental Disabilities (SCDD) does change the overall picture somewhat in that The Report thinks the numbers show that women not only get more than their fair share of jobs but the equity in pay seems to be on a parity if not advantage women.

The only fault that the SCPR can find with SCDD is the male-dominance of the governing board.

Apparently, Mr. Bucka was replaced on the board inasmuch as the SCDD Website in its current listing does not have him including but rather shows a Todd Franks as being a board member.

The board members are appointed by a combination of the Stark County commissioners and Judge Dixie Parks of the Stark County Probate Court.

This combo needs to pay closer attention to having a better balance of female/male on the governing board.

While the gender equity factor is a thumbs up, perhaps, the fiscal operation is not.

A county officials has pointed out that SCDD has about a $30 million reserve.

This is an agency of government (which gets about 56% of its annual revenue) directly from Stark County taxpayers which has about $52 million in revenue (from all sources) and spends about $51 million and faces a $5.6 million in State of Ohio support (2011 - 2016) and lost about $1 million on Stark County real property evaluations in recent years.

Development Disabilities is labor intensive.

Six hundred plus employees to serve 2,000 children which is about a 3 to 1 ration.

However, according to its literature is moving to a model where is provides less direct service to being more of a referral/coordinating service to connect the developmentally disabled to existing services.

In the SCPR's ongoing gender equity series, the SCDD stands out so far as a prime example what can be done to achieve gender equity fairness.

One might say that SCDD is "more than fair" toward women given the predominance of women over men employees.

However, an answer to such an observation is likely that women are more into the "caring professions" than men are.

As men are more likely to predominate in "engineer/technical fields" of endeavor; women gravitate to agencies of government that are nurturing and caregiving.

LOCAL OFFICIALS (VIDEOS) ARE A "LOT OF HOT AIR" WHEN IT COMES TO STATE FUNDING OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT?

As early as December 20, 2010  the Stark County Political Report began writing about the draconian state funding cuts that were coming to local government (villages, cities and townships) in the wake of Republican John Kasich's election as governor in November.

And such talk was not just "whistling Dixie" on a dark, scary night to comfort oneself in the face of feared disaster.

The fact of the matter is that the Kasich administration has done what it was feared it would do on taking office on January 1, 2011.

As an Ohio political subdivision and one of the state's larger counties, Stark has absorbed the full brunt of the cuts which over the entire state has turned into a $575 million in cuts whereas Ohio now has several billions in surpluses in its "rainy day fund."

What the SCPR notes is that a few of Stark County's local government officials have struck out at state officials but that they for the most part are out-of-power-at-the-state-level Democrats.

A recent new entrant into the jawboning has been Democratic Canton city treasurer Kim Perez, who, the SCPR thinks is fixing to run against Canton mayor William J. Healy, II come next year's Democrat primary election (May, 2015).

The SCPR thinks Perez may be "more of the same" in terms of local officials (again, emphasizing mostly Democratic ones) whining about the state cuts in a grandstanding fashion and not doing anything about it.

In the following video of Perez at Canton's June 2, 2014 meeting of city council, he talks about "new" potential devastation to Canton and other Stark County and Ohio cities at the hand of proposed Amended Senate Bill 5 and of his effort to bring all of Stark County officialdom together in united action in bringing pressure to bear on the Ohio General Assembly and, of course, Stark Countians Oelslager, Hagan, Schuring and Slesnick.



As The Report wrote in October,2012 right before the 2012 general election:

The SCPR projects that Stephen Slesnick (Democrat - Canton, the 49th), Kirk Schuring (Republican - Jackson Township, the 48th) and Christina Hagan (Republican - the 50th) will win re-election next month by fairly comfortable margins.  And The Report is ready to project that the Stark County Democratic Party chairman Randy Gonzalez (who, as Jackson Township fiscal officer, 9-1-1 governance committee chairman and Canton Municipal Court employee frequently complains about the drop off  of funding of local governments) will offer up a "sacrificial lamb" in opposition to Scott Oelslager two years hence when he seeks re-election.

In re-electing this Stark County legislative foursome, the message they receive is a loud and clear:  your seat is safe and secure no matter that you have done nothing to stop the carnage of Ohio's Local Government Fund funding of Stark County's cities, villages and townships.

To add insult to injury, beginning January 1st, there will be no more revenues from what used to be Ohio's estate tax.

And there are other legislative initiatives and failures to hold harmless that the four have participated in to one degree or another.

The SCPR really has no sympathy at all for local officials and their complaints about what Governor Kasich and the Ohio General Assembly is doing to them and to Stark County taxpayers.

Who among them has organized any pressure on the re-elective future of any of the four?

Answer:  none!

All they do is whine.

And when any one of the four shows up in local government venues, they are likely to be treated as if they are political royalty.  Kissing up to those who are hurting you seems to be the standard protocol most local government types dish out notwithstanding the financial grief that none of the four has done anything to stop.

Not that the four should be treated uncivilly, but they should receive a barrage of criticism and they should be subject to meaningful and threatening to their political longevity opposition as the come up for re-election.

The SCPR's take is that local officials really do not care so long as they can convince locals to ante up with local tax increases.

 And what has changed as we approach the 2014 general election?

Exactly nothing!

As a parting reminder that he is Stark County's "whiner-in-chief," recently retired Canton Municipal Court chief deputy and former (as of June 5, 2014) Stark County Democratic Party chairman Randy Gonzalez has offered up a bevy of sacrificial lambs to the Republican side of the Stark County delegation in this fall's election and, in the case of his seeming "best - political - friend" J. Kirk Schuring:  nobody!"

Democratic Canton City Council president Allen Schulman is one of the foremost critics of the Kasich administration and members of the Stark County delegation of the Ohio General Assembly; namely,

• Republican Scott Oelslager of Plain township representing the 29th Ohio Senate District which includes most of Stark County
• Republican J. Kirk Schuring of Jackson Township representing the 48th Ohio House District,
• Democrat Stephen Slesnik of Canton representing the 49th Ohio House District, and
• Republican Christina Hagan of Marlboro Township representing the 50th House District

because they have done absolutely nothing to curb the $575 million in cuts despite pleas that they do so from area "mostly Democratic" local officials.

Here is a April, 2013 Schulman "rant" about the legislators.



As a consequence of the political impunity with which the Stark County delegation has failed to act to stop the financial bloodletting on local government funds, local voters have been asked (with varying degrees of success/failure) to make up for the cuts.

Accordingly, the recent outcries by Perez, Schulman, Healy and a few other outlier Democrat officials and a few whimpers by a scant few of Republican officials should be scoffed at by Stark Countians.

As far as the SCPR can tell, the protestations are all mouth.

As long as local officials can get the voters of Stark's cities, villages and townships (as, of course, school districts) to ante up new local revenues, all we will get from local officials is political rhetoric.

It could be that as voters consider new income tax increase requests and/or income tax credit reductions and the like (e.g. Alliance, Canton, Massillon and North Canton) and should they reject them, the seriousness and the authenticity of the clamor by "state cut" complaining Stark officials might actually bear fruit in terms of putting Oelslager, Hagan, Schuring and Slesnick on the "hot seat."

And, perhaps, Stark County voters ought to reject any and all new revenue requests so as to give local officials no other choice than to push back and push back hard on state government through the locals who we send to Columbus.

A CASE STUDY: WHO WILL PAY FOR STARK CO SCHOOLS? VOLUME 1

On October 21, 2013, the Stark County Political Report did a blog on the battle between the Canton City School District and a company by the name of Amerimar with respect to a fight between the two over who is going pay real property tax on Canton's major office building complex; namely, The Huntington Bank (Huntington).

The Amerimar/Canton City Schools battle is a microcosm of the on going battle between Stark County "individual" property owners and taxpayers "in general" as to who is going to foot the bill for funding Stark County's schools.

In March, 2013 the Canton City Schools (CCS) filed a complaint on the valuation/tax appraisal by the Stark County Auditor's office on Huntington.

Accordingly, the Stark County Board of Revision (a division of the Stark County auditor's office) sent notices (three in all) to Amerimar notifying the company of the CCS complaints.

In preparing the October 21 blog, the SCPR put together this estimated analysis of the taxes stake.

By The Report's calculation, the CCS has about $130,000 at stake over and above what Amerimar is conceding in terms of property tax increase.

In November, 2013 the Board of Revision sided with the CCS and send Amerimar this notice: (again, one of three notices)

Consequently, on December 16, 2013, this:

So the battle is on in the courts as to whom will pay the taxes that the Board of Revision is saying is owing for Real Property Tax Year 2012 and, of course, ensuing tax years.

While this case is only one case, the SCPR thinks it is emblematic of the rather large overall fight between individual property owners and Stark County school districts over whether the county assessed tax bill is to be borne by the "individual" property owner or spread out over "all" taxpayers in a given school district.

And most real property taxes are for schools.

Witness this SCPR extract from a rate schedule published by Stark County treasurer Alex Zumbar.

The Report has embarked on an investigation of the factors that the  Stark County taxpaying public should focus upon in coming to an opinion on how the Board of Revision functions and whether or not a proper balance is struck between individual property owners and the county's school districts.

While the SCPR will fan out to cover nearly every one of the 17 school districts that seem to be involved in the process of challenging individual real property valuations for real property tax purposes, the main focus will be on the Amerimar/CCS legal fight.

As this blog is written, each side has written a brief.

In ensuing blogs the SCPR will touch on the keystone legal issues that the court will decide and bring other battles (including videotapes of proceedings) taking place at the Board of Revision level.

One thing that is readily apparently is that the Stark County auditor's office Board of Revision is doing an exceptional job in processing valuation of complaints.

Do not look for a headline like this one to be appearing in Stark County media:

And a sampling of school districts and the costs absorbed.  (LINK to entire list)

Using the Amerimar/CCS case as an example, the Stark County auditor's office came to a decision in the case within an eight-month timeframe.

Given the number of complaints filed and other work handled by the Stark County Board of Revision, the SCPR thinks an eight month administrative process is quite acceptable.

Each week from here on out, The Report will be reporting/analyzing on the particulars of the Amerimar/CCS case and on the many other cases pending before the Board of Revision.

After all, YOUR TAX DOLLARS are at stake!