ONUMBA.COM – The task of creating jobs in Ohio is no longer the responsibility of the Ohio Department of Development. 

It is now that of a non-profit private corporation after Republican Governor John Kasich signed House Bill 1 into law last week, following its approval in both the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate.

It was Kasich’s first major legislative hurrah, coming after withstanding a fierce pushback by House Democrats ferociously opposed to the bill.

Opposition to the orb was led by House Democratic Leader Armond Budish who called it “reckless.” He decried the governor’s ‘JobsOhio’ Initiative, which was created by the law, for lacking ‘transparency’, ‘accountability,’ and partisan involvement.

But more than anything else, Budish called House Bill 1 a bad law, worried that decisions involving job creation and economic development in Ohio will now be made under cloak by private folks.

“House Bill 1 takes a billion dollars of tax payer money and turns it over to a group of private individuals led by the governor, to use those funds for economic development,” Budish said, in an exclusive interview with Onumba.com last week. 

“The problem” he noted, “is that those funds can now be expended in secret.” 

Budish said that House Bill 1 “specifically exempts this new entity ‘JobsOhio’ from the Ohio sunshine laws, from the accountability laws, and from the Ohio ethnics laws.”

“Why in the world would you ever exempt the expenditure of our tax dollars from Ohio’s ethics laws.  To me, that makes no sense.

“I do not understand why anybody would agree to take significant amount of our tax payer dollars and allow it to be spent in private – secretly,” said Budish.

He continued:  “Ohio law for years have provided accountability, and he [Kasich] specifically exempted this group from those laws.”

Kasich, for his part, has assured Ohioans that the implementation of House Bill 1 will be “transparent” and that officials carrying out these policies will be held to the same ethical standards as university trustees.

But Budish begged to differ, maintaining that ‘JobsOhio’ is “exempted” from a number of Ohio transparency laws, which is stoking concern among Democrats that taxpayer dollars would be spent outside of required scrutiny of the law.

Some of the concerns raised by Democrats include “providing for more accountability, reducing the chance for pay to play schemes and requiring that actions of the corporation become public records.”

In the end, the final version of the bill that the governor signed into law was reportedly tweaked a bit to address some of these concerns.

But for Budish, it didn’t go far enough to address his caucus’ core concerns.

“The law even as “tweaked” still allows the expenditure of tax payer dollars in secret.”

Meanwhile, as the bill was making its way to passage, House Democrats had offered a volley of amendments to strengthen it and address these concerns, but proposals were all rejected by the Republican leadership. 

Asked what’s next for his caucus, Budish replied:  “There’s still a lot of concerns with the bill, but we don’t have the votes now,” said Budish. 

Of the 99 members of the Ohio House, only 40 are Democrats. 

“Republicans have not included us in any of the discussions about House Bill 1, and for that reason, I believe it is not a very good law.”

Mgbatogu is a freelance writer and editor of Onumba.com based in Columbus.  He can be reached by email at: Onumbamedia@yahoo.com

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