MetroHealth is laying off non-clinical employees and suspending bonuses as it faces a third straight year in the red.

A new recommendation would result in the draining of Lower Lake and Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights.

The same thing that happened to beloved Horseshoe Lake and Pharisees, and has kicked off with the Ohio State Fair in Columbus.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

After losing $50 million last year and on track to go deeper in the red this year, the MetroHealth system announced yesterday that it's laying off 125 non-clinical workers.

Freezing non-clinical hiring and scrapping an executive bonus program.

The county's safety net hospital system now delivers more than $1 million a day in uncompensated care.

The North Sea Trial Regional Sewer District has reversed course, now recommending the draining of Lower Lake and Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights.

Instead of removing and replacing the dam, there, which would retain the lake, it's akin to what happened with Horseshoe Lake, where a remove and replace plan became a remove and drain plan.

The Ohio House overrode only one of governor Mike DeWine budget vetoes, though more action is expected on that in the fall, with the House voted to restore.

This week is a ban on local replacement property tax levies and certain emergency levies.

The Senate still has to consider an override.

And the Ohio State Fair in Columbus has kicked off, and soon the funnel cakes and once marginally famous musical acts will be coming to your county fairgrounds across northeast Ohio.

Joining me to discuss these stories and more from Media Stream Public Media Senior Arts reporter Kabeer Bhatia and education reporter Connor Morris in Columbus, the fair Maiden of Ohio State House News Bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table MetroHealth.

The county's safety net public hospital is laying off about 125 administrative staffers and considering future moves to, quote, right size, its footprint as it faces a third straight year in the red.

It provided more than $1 million a day and uncompensated care.

And there are significant worries about the reliability of Medicaid dollars in the future.

CEO Doctor Christina Rager Alexander Alexander Rager sent an email to staff yesterday afternoon announcing the layoffs.

The system also has a freeze on non-clinical hiring, non-essential travel.

Also, they'll ask the board to spend a bonus program for leaders in the organization.

She plans to hold an employee town hall meeting today at noon.

Cabinet.

It amounts to about 15% of the administrative staff, really 1.5% of the overall staff.

Doctor Alexander was keen to note that patient care is not being targeted.

Medical staff is not part of this, but they need in some ways to be able to right size because they're upside down with finances.

They're saying that they're upside down, as you said.

And yeah, 1.5% of the overall staff, that's still a lot of people.

And they would probably be handling, functions that maybe the public doesn't see as much or maybe that they would, you know, somebody who checks you and that sort of thing.

But, it's not actual medical staff, as you noted.

So, in theory, care is not being affected by these cuts.

Now, I know there is a large amount of uncompensated care at hospitals like this.

It's, as I said, the public safety net hospital, the county invest some money into it, although it's not a major, massive part of their budget.

But when we talked about uncompensated care, that's people who don't have medical insurance, who aren't qualified for Medicaid or having applied for it.

And they still have to be cared for when a number goes from 180 million to double that in a matter of two years, that that's got to be that's a massive, huge drain on their system.

That's, $1 million a day in uncompensated care as as they noted, when that number has doubled.

And I think we're going to see it probably even continue to go up.

A lot of that is driven by people losing their access to health insurance, and suddenly they're somebody who, is is not covered.

And so they end up having to come under the heading of uncompensated care.

I think in a lot of cases, people are still using ERS as primary care just because of the backlog of trying to get an appointment.

And we're not seeing then, that that's supposed to get any better when we're looking at the state having a rule that says if the federal government doesn't fund the Medicare expansion at 100%, then we're going to look at at cutting that locally when we have the federal government looking at reductions in Medicare reimbursement as part of a budget, tightening measure, as you said, it's not going to get better.

It looks like it's going to get worse.

Federal and state cuts.

I have to imagine the county is going to start feeling the pinch as well.

And as you said, they fund, part of this.

Of course, not a huge, huge part of it.

But all three entities, there's no way, no scenario that I see in the next year or two, we're finding is going to go up somehow.

So this is only going to get worse.

You see, in our health systems across northeast Ohio, a huge expansion, at least, you know, in the last decade, two decades, every highway stop, it seems, has another medical, center, Metro Health, not an exception, certainly not as aggressive as UAH or Cleveland Clinic or some in some of those other places.

But you do see all kinds of satellites of Metro Health.

One of the things that the doctor said was the CEO doctor said was, we're going to see a rightsizing the footprint.

I wonder if that means consolidation.

Well, it wouldn't surprise me because, in addition to the main campus, that's sort of near, Cleveland Zoo, if people can picture that kind of kind of near, they have 30 other facilities throughout the county, and those are not all straight up medical facilities.

There are some that focus on dental.

There's some that are, senior care, that sort of thing.

But they're spread out throughout the county.

And, I have to think that.

Yeah, as these other health systems, which, by the way, have also been reporting some sort of pinch, recently, but, Metro Health has really been feeling it.

And I have to think that those 30 other facilities, there's probably going to be some consolidation in those.

And interestingly, it's the first layoff Connor at Metro Health since 2011.

So we've we've had a long run there where that where the staff has grown.

Absolutely.

Expansion continue to happen.

I mean and we were talking about a 15% cut of Medicaid spending in that's recent federal budget as well.

So that's a significant blow.

And I mean, people are even saying that rural hospitals and hospitals that serve lower income folks are potentially going to close in general because of these cuts.

So it's a pretty serious financial outlook that they're facing in the near future here.

And it's not been a good couple of years for Metro Health.

So in addition to these pressures and what's going on with, Medicaid reimbursement and uncompensated care, they've got still two CEOs who are suing them, over their dismissals or their departures.

Yeah.

It's like it's like a sports team with, having to go through a new coach every year, a new head coach, and then having to pay off their contracts, state and acronym.

Boutros.

Both of them left under, interesting terms, shall we say.

And since then there's been litigation after litigation and it's been ongoing.

I think that, this started probably been going on for at least two years.

And, I haven't heard any updates that it's going to be resolved anytime soon.

So not only that to deal with that, but then the rightsizing, the cuts, as we've mentioned, from various government entities and they had cuts, as you said, in 2011, 2009.

But since 2011, it's been a lot of, positive news out of them until this recent spate of lawsuits.

So who knows what's going to happen.

I got an email from Kerry who says executive bonuses paid in the years when Metro was in the red should be repaid by those who received them, also wasn't Metro in the black when Doctor Boutrous or the CEO?

What happened?

Interesting question.

I think there's been a lot of change in the last few years in terms of, of the amount of uncompensated to care a pandemic happened.

That's another aspect of that.

The question, Kerry also brings up is the idea of inefficiency.

And that's something that, doctor, Alexander Reger has said that she needs to look at, which is we need to use technology and other ways, innovations to make us, more efficient.

I don't know what their, reach is as far as telehealth, but then you have to ask yourself, can patients access telehealth?

Do they have the devices and, access to Wi-Fi, to do that?

Because that would probably be a good, savings as far as efficiencies go for Metro Health.

But she's only been on the job for I think it's 11 months, I think last August.

So she's she's had a lot to deal with in that first almost year.

And this is going to be another thing that I think she's going to dig into.

Certainly not something you want to deal with in your first year on the job at all.

All right.

We'll keep an eye on that story with our health team.

Taylor Wisner was on the story, and we'll continue to bring you updates from Metro Health.

Another medical story we'll move on to.

Though doctors at Cleveland's University Hospitals are continuing their drive to unionize despite the firing of two of the group's leaders last month, the group says there are a thousand strong now.

Pediatricians Doctor Laura Bean and Valerie Fouts Fowler were terminated last month from us for using a company system to get email addresses to contact other employees about their unionization efforts.

They say the firing was illegal, but a spokesman for the hospital system says they didn't properly use company technology, and that's what led to their firing firing, not their organizing work.

Conner most doctors across the country are not using unionize.

It's less than 10%.

But what's driving this movement at U-H and even more broadly in other hospital systems?

Yeah, the the argument from the folks that are trying to unionize is really that, it's kind of a top down approach.

You know, there's a quote from, being here, in the corporate environment that we currently live in, in which all the power is held by the people who are so far removed from the people at the bottom, we're so busy and have no way to make changes that are necessary for patient care.

That's when people are going to get hurt.

So the idea is that the focus has shifted away from, really advocating for patients the best from this kind of top down, corporate kind of approach.

And so they're saying we want to take a little bit of that power back and bring it back to the folks that are providing that care directly.

It used to be when you went to the doctor, it was an independent doctor.

They had a little building, on the corner of your street, and that's where you went.

Now, it seems almost all of those doctors are employed by the major health system.

It's a pretty significant shift that's happened in this country in general.

You know, it really is, folks are mostly consolidated, and there's not so many private practices anymore.

So.

Yeah.

So the hospital system, obviously it fired these two doctors.

It says it's not related to unionizing efforts.

It's because you're not allowed to use our our system in order to get this information.

And so for that, you're fired.

But in terms of the unionization, they clearly are not saying, hey, that's great, we welcome it.

You should all be unionized.

What is their answer to the need for unionization?

Yeah.

Their comms director told reporter Taylor Wisner this week, that, they're they do respond to physicians concerns.

They emphasize that, those two folks who had been, fired, did have opportunities to meet with the leadership.

And they said, you know, there's not one issue that we've ducked or ignored.

You know, we've tried to face their concerns head on.

So they're saying in their eyes, the corporate leadership is they have been addressing these concerns as best as they could have.

They met with the doctors at this point, they have said that they've offered to meet with them.

And, I'm not sure where that lies in terms of did they actually meet or not?

They might have, they might not.

But, at this point in our reporting anyway, they said, the officials said, you know, the doctors were offered opportunities to meet with leadership.

So and then finally, how we're, patients, reacting or responding to this effort.

Have we heard anything from from the, census of patients?

Yeah, there's a community members that are circulating a petition.

It's got like 6000 signatures, asking us to actually reinstate the physicians.

And then, there's, plans to picket, outside of the main campus in Cleveland on July 30th as well.

So.

Okay.

The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District has reversed course now, recommending that Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights agree to removing Lower Lake Dam, draining the lake, and converting the 17 acres to parkland.

It's the same scenario that played out controversially at Horseshoe Lake.

The reasoning is, once again, to avoid the threat of catastrophic floods, the sewer district has called a meeting with the mayors and councils of both Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights to discuss the proposal.

On August 11th.

It'll be a private, closed meeting in order to give them that information.

The reason being, it's in those communities, by the way, it's owned by the city of Cleveland, and the sewer district is in charge of managing, flood waters, etc.. So that's why the sewer district is involved.

But it's not a done deal yet.

Kabeer.

But based on the reactions to the removal of Horseshoe Lakes, or the draining of Horseshoe Lake and eventual removal of that and turning into the parkland, we can see that residents are certainly gonna have a lot to say about this.

Yeah, if you know people who are listening to this or are watching this and thinking, I'm not, I'm not sure what the what the issue is here.

Where's this?

If anyone has been to the nature center at Shaker Lakes, as you're driving from there, sort of towards, University Circle, the museums, that's the beautiful lake that's off to your left.

That it's looks like something out of, well, the 19th century, because it is.

And, there's houses along there.

People are always walking along it, throughout the year, you see people walking.

And so, Horseshoe Lake, of course, if they were upset about that, this, I imagine, is going to be even more upset about trying to remove this and drain it and turn it into, basically a park, which there's plenty of parkland around there.

I'm I sound like I'm advocating, but really there's a good deal of parkland around there.

The 17 acres it's currently a body of water is, kind of you look at a map, you're like, wow, there's no other bodies of water around this.

Really.

So getting rid of that, I think is going to really make people upset.

So the sewer district is not saying we don't like lakes.

Well, what they're saying is that there is better modeling that they had than they had five years ago.

That says the flood damage that could be caused by this is in the tens of millions of dollars.

There could be catastrophic loss of life if a dam fails.

They found that there was structural damage with the horseshoe Lake Dam.

And in this case, if you were to remove and replace the lower Lake dam, it would cost much more money than just removing it, draining it, and creating a parkland space.

And it would not mitigate the flood risk.

The thing for residents, though, is what they were told was the recommendation just a few years ago was, yeah, we're going to replace that.

You're going to at least keep one of your lakes.

Yeah.

That's true.

So now it's within the space of five years, they're suddenly saying the exact opposite, and people weren't thrilled then they're not going to be thrilled now, I guess, is what what the lesson is here as far as this.

But, the sewer district does have a good point.

This is because I'm going to impact not just that specific lake, but all the way up into, Wade lagoon and that area because, they feel like that would be better for, flood control.

So it's a if you look at the map, it's a huge section that doesn't seem like it would be impacted by this one piece being removed, but, yeah, it is pretty significant.

Yeah, it's part of the Doan Brook watershed.

And Steve reported, Steve Litt reported that there would be changes made at Wade lagoon, but he was told by the representative of the art museum who's working on this project as well, that it would not result in any change of the topography of the trees.

Would me, or whether it be something more akin to underground, culvert ING systems.

But the fact of the matter is, losing that lake is going to certainly change the character of that neighborhood.

There's they haven't yet done any community outreach.

As I mentioned, Steve broke that story, but we're sure to see plenty of public, session space trails.

Yeah, they said they're going to have some public sessions, but there's been no specifics.

And like you said, they're going to be meeting with some city leaders.

I don't think that Cleveland City of Cleveland is going to be involved in that meeting.

And but they have sounded the alarm on this already.

And what's interesting is that the city's Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights have to agree to this.

But really, it's not just their own decision.

And what the sewer district is saying is if it involves mitigating flood control, that's our realm.

And we'll pay for it.

If what we are looking at is something that's expensive, that doesn't really mitigate any flood damage problems, we can't pay for it.

So the cities are going to have to come up with something like $44 million.

Yeah, which is significant.

And those numbers only keep going up every time we hear about this.

The Ohio House voted to override just one of governor Mike DeWine budget vetoes this week, but they will likely consider other overrides in the fall.

This week's override means local replacement and emergency property tax levies are banned.

The issue still has to be passed by the Senate, and House leaders said they expect to consider overriding two other vetoes later, both of which also have to do with property tax measures.

And Karen.

They could really override any of the vetoes over the entire session of the legislature.

Yeah, which means they have until December of 2026.

But the Republicans who wanted to do this this time so quickly after the budget was sign, said that they could do this to affect property tax bills that will be coming out in January.

But the one that they did override, the one they have the votes to override, won't affect property tax bills in January because it only affects property tax levies voted on going forward.

So there's still the question about the the urgency of getting back to Columbus and doing this right now.

And then, of course, what's going to happen with the other 66 line item vetoes that the House has not overridden?

The Senate still hasn't overridden anything yet.

So right now we're just in a situation where what they had planned to do, they weren't able to accomplish because they simply didn't have votes.

So what are we hearing?

And I, by the way, as soon as the override happened, you saw all kinds of e-mails coming from the Democratic side of the aisle saying how terrible this was.

And the Republicans saying, hey, this is a way to make sure that we're not getting these kinds of ballot asks, each and every year.

So what is the argument that how would this affect local governments and schools, the override of this particular veto?

Well, this one would be, as you mentioned, a banning of emergency in certain other kinds of levies.

And so obviously that has an effect on what school districts put before voters.

And again, it's only in the process right now of being overridden.

It hasn't been overridden yet.

So school districts could, I suppose, vote to put a levy on now than in the law doesn't take effect then until I believe it's, later on in October.

But I mean, the whole question here is will this provide property tax relief?

Because that's what Republicans have said all along, is that they did these three lines in the budget that DeWine vetoed, as well as the one thing that they weren't planning on overriding, that DeWine did veto this cap on how much collective property tax the school districts can hold without turning the rest over to taxpayers.

Those things, Republicans say, could bring immediate property tax relief.

But you have the other side that says, no, no, no.

The state could do other things that would offer immediate property tax relief, but chose to do things like implement a flat income tax rather than doing something immediate on property taxes.

So there's a real ideological difference here.

I think, among certainly Democrats and Republicans, but even some Republicans, that there are better ways to find relief for taxpayers, but also still helping schools and local governments get the money they need.

That's interesting to me, Karen, because the Republicans have a supermajority, they went with three vetoes in their sights and came away with a vote on one of them.

I was wondering why they didn't just go ahead and vote on the other two.

They didn't have the votes.

They didn't have the votes.

And I think, absolutely.

Obviously the optics of putting it up there and not getting 60 votes, that doesn't look good.

So now it was Speaker Matt Hoffman had said in his comments to reporters afterwards that there were people who were on vacation that had to move plans around, and that sort of thing, and that that the governor had never told them exactly what he was going to veto.

And so they they were they had been working on that.

And so, you know, there were there were some reasons that were offered up afterwards, but it was interesting to know that they were planning on three and they only got one.

A Lorain police officer died Thursday, a day after he and two other officers were ambushed by a man with a rifle who was later killed in a police shootout.

It was the first line of duty death in Lorain in more than a century.

Last night, residents held a candlelight vigil at Lorain City Hall.

Two of the officers were having lunch in their patrol car when they were ambushed by a man with a high powered rifle and a vehicle full of weapons, according to authorities.

Third officer was shot after arriving on the scene.

The shooter was killed after exchanging gunfire with Lorain police.

Connor, let's.

We've understood last night.

Tragically, yesterday afternoon, tragically, one of the officers died.

What's the status for the other wounded officers?

Yeah.

So the other officer.

One of the officers was just shot in the hand, and he's already been released.

And then the, the second officer, I believe he's out of surgery and is expected to recover from what?

I understand, from the news articles I checked up on this morning.

So, I heard Amy this morning.

Kabeer, report.

And it was it was, really an unbelievable moment.

The acting police chief there at a vigil last night told the story that the injured officer, the other injured officer who had had surgery, the first of, I think several surgeries yesterday insisted on being in a wheelchair in the hallway as his fallen colleague was brought out.

It's a tradition where police show up and they they sort of line the route.

And you see, there were there were police officers from all over, northeast Ohio at Metro Health at the time.

But this officer insisted on on being part of it, even though he was still undergoing his treatment.

Yeah.

That, that show of respect from the officers people.

So there was dozens of cruisers outside.

There was, people who were not police officers and were holding, Blue Lives Matter flags, American flags.

And then if you watch the, coverage of people being interviewed, they sound like they've lost a family member, even if they'd never met Officer Wagner.

The one of them said, you know, I feel like I've been violated by this, and I don't think that that person had ever even met the officer, but, yeah, this was, pretty serious for everyone involved as far as how it affected them in Lorain.

Connor, who was the shooter in this case?

And we know that he was killed in a, firefight with police.

Do we know anything about him?

Yeah.

Michael Parker, he's a 28 year old who lived in Lorain.

And he had a whole host of high powered rifles, handguns, loaded magazines in the, in his car nearby.

Apparently some, potential, explosive devices as well.

On him, on the scene.

They executed a search warrant at his home and didn't find any further kind of explosive threats, but they they took they got found some evidence of other things, and they, you know, kind of the usual, you know, news crews descending on the town and talking to neighbors.

And, the only thing that I've seen so far was just a neighbor saying that the family kept to themselves who live there.

There was a civil complaint filed against, Parker, around, negligently operating a vehicle, allegedly, that was settled out of court.

But, Officer Phillip Wagner, was the police officer issued a citation in that in that, case, which was initially a misdemeanor offense.

So and that was, the officer who I believe, had had passed away as well.

So, there is some connection there, although if that has anything to bear, that's, that's really going to have the these investigations take months and months usually.

So, sometimes you never even fully, truly know what a motive is.

But, but that might come out with their investigation.

And Wagner was 35 years old.

Lorain police say he'd been with the department since 2022.

Prior to that, he was with Sheffield Village Police.

U.S.

marine police say just two days before the shooting, after years of training, Philip Wagner earned his Swat team pin.

The Ohio State Fair kicked off this week, which means it's fair season across Ohio.

Funnel cakes, fried Oreos, and rides to mix them all up are coming soon to a county fairground near you.

so it's fair season.

Karen, were you out at the Ohio State Fair at all?

I was not, but I knew it was fair time because there was a heat advisory and temperatures with the 90s, because that's what happens.

The day.

What does that do?

So hot.

What does that do to the cow carved in butter?

Does it melt or that that's one of the best buildings to go into because it's so cool.

And there and there's ice cream.

It's wonderful.

Yeah, that's a good building.

What's the craziest food you ever ate at a county fair, Connor?

Oh, probably like, just like a deep fried Twinkie.

Deep fried Snickers bar was probably my favorite, though I like caviar.

You wouldn't eat anything like that.

I was going to say.

My parents said, don't.

Don't eat that.

Don't eat that.

Don't make I don't make eye contact with that person.

So, you know, Ozzy Osborne, once known as the Prince of Darkness when he fronted Black Sabbath, has died.

He's credited with being a pioneer in the reality television genre the Prince of Darkness, died at the age of 76 at his home in Birmingham, England.

He played his last show there with Black Sabbath just last month.

Here.

Yeah.

And, it was a huge sort of tribute concert to them.

He hadn't played live in a long time, and a lot of people came out for that.

So it's nice that he sort of had that final sendoff for himself.

But even if you weren't into his music, he was everywhere, basically from the 80s onward.

There was the questions about his music and, backwards lyrics, that sort of thing.

There was, his colorful history with the Rock hall here.

So, yeah, very colorful character.

And, made a lot of great music that a lot of people up.

You dig it?

Oh, yeah.

Paranoid was one of my first albums growing up.

Enough for the listeners?

I have long hair, and I. I'm a big metal guy for the lockers.

They know that.

Yeah.

The watches.

Do you know that?

But, yeah, I mean, what a legend for sure.

And he, you know, that benefit concert raised like $190 million or something for, like, non profit.

So is it a good way for him to go out?

I think I kind of liked Ozzy I just and especially after the Osbornes I just watching that thing.

And of course I look back now I'm much older than he was during that show.

He was only like 53 years old.

I was on an iPod in 71 around.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 seven Wksu Drew Maziasz is in the host chai and dives into the history and modern day relevance of the Scopes Trial, which happened 100 years ago this month.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.