Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Med Mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP, now with eight locations across the country.

Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

Moore and Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association, representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA.ORG A special audit coming on the State Teachers Pension Fund after a critical report commissioned by retired educators gets attention.

This off year election is busy, but the commission that's drawing a new congressional map isn't publicly active, and the head of one of the state's most influential organizations talks about why it both opposes COVID vaccine requirements and bans on those mandates.

All this weekend, the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio, I'm Karen Kasler.

The state auditor is planning a review of the pension fund for Ohio's teachers.

The State Teachers Retirement System confirmed a letter obtained by the Statehouse News Bureau, which says Auditor Keith Favre's office will do a special audit based on numerous complaints after a report by Ted Out.

He is a former SEC asset management lawyer and head of a firm called Benchmark Financial Services.

Retired teachers like those who demonstrated at the board meeting in September haven't had a cost of living adjustment since 2017.

They raised $75,000 to hire Satel to review CRC as stated performance and management fees.

State House report says in part, that stress quote has long abandoned transparency, choosing instead to collaborate with Wall Street firms to eviscerate Ohio public records laws and avoid accountability to stakeholders.

Predictably, billions that could have been used to pay teachers retirement benefits have been squandered over time as transparency has ceased to be a priority.

I talked to Seidel about his report last week.

Any time anybody says to you that there is a need for secrecy when managing public money, your ears should perk up.

There is never a need for secrecy when it comes to managing public money.

And one of the key problems at story says if they've lost the trust of their participants, schoolteachers don't trust them anymore.

They hired me because they don't trust the R's.

So if you want people to trust you stories, be forthright, be fully transparent, then we can see whether your numbers are correct or not.

In its response to Cedella report, Stress says it includes quote misstatements and allegations not supported by evidence.

And it said it's handed over 22,000 pages of documents over to Segal, who stressed Notes is not an auditor or an accountant.

Stress is also said the pension fund has beat established benchmarks and outperform the market over the past decade.

SDRA says it's cooperating with the auditors office on that special audit, and we'll have more on this next week.

Early voting is going on now for the 2021 election, which features local races and two congressional special elections in Cleveland and central Ohio, and new maps for Ohio.

House and Senate districts have been drawn but are now in court.

The congressional map that goes from 16 districts to 15 needs to be drawn by the Ohio Redistricting Commission by the end of October, or state lawmakers must do it with a constitutional deadline of the end of November.

Voting rights groups and the commission's two Democrats have asked for majority Republicans to call a meeting.

Speaker Bob Cup's office has only said quote work on the map is being done and a hearing will probably be scheduled in the near future.

I talked about those issues and more with political science professor David Brian Cohen at the Bliss Institute for Applied Politics at the University of Akron.

I think, you know, as we've talked over the years, you know, we've spoken about how incredibly gerrymandered the congressional districts are and how General Assembly districts are.

There is hope with the 2015 referendum in the 2018 referendum issue one for both years.

With over 70% of Ohioans voting in favor that they could get gerrymandering out of the process or at least minimize it, at the time, I thought it was unrealistic based on how it was written, and the process has played out like I suspected it would.

And, you know, it was a Band-Aid put on a much, much bigger problem.

And I do not expect the maps that come out for either the state level or for the congressional district level to be less gerrymandered than they were in the previous decade, and that the one caveat to that is the Ohio Supreme Court could rule against the maps and force the Legislature or the Ohio Redistricting Commission to go back to square one and redraw the maps.

So it really the future of the maps really hinges on what the Ohio Supreme Court is going to say.

And the great irony is that one of the justices that's serving on the Ohio Supreme Court is the son of the governor, who is one of the people that's mentioned in the lawsuits, and he is failing to recuse himself from the process.

So this is, you know, this is an altogether.

It's very disappointing because the the maps, at least for the General Assembly that came out, absolutely violate the spirit and the language of the referendum, from referendums from referenda from 2015 and from 2018, which is you cannot favor or disfavor a political party.

And and they clearly do because with the General Assembly maps, they've drawn maps that essentially entrench the supermajority for the Republican Party, which isn't.

Anywhere close to what how the party identification or voting results break down in Ohio.

Do you think that the delay in all this wrangling over the maps is going to have an impact on potential candidates who might run, who might not run, who might even consider getting into the political business in general?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's no doubt that it's going to have an impact and that there are some people that are kind of waiting to see what the map is going to look like.

Others have haven't waited.

You know, for example, in the 16th Congressional District, where you have Anthony Gonzalez now retiring, you know, you've already got a couple of Republicans that have announced for that race not having any idea what the map or what the district is going to look like.

I find it baffling that you actually do have candidates that are all in on these campaigns when they have no idea what the what the map will look like.

Let's talk a little bit about this year's off year election, though I'm sure you and others would argue there are no off year elections.

But this is the year that we don't have any statewide elections.

No State House elections.

We have two special elections for Congress.

But that's it.

A lot of municipal elections and judicial elections and school board elections.

Do you think that there's an unusual amount of interest in this off year election?

And if so, why?

I do think that there is more interest in I've ever seen in an off year election since I've been studying studying these matters.

And I think it's it's because, you know, you have a real effort to inject a lot of politics and even the most lowest level what are supposed to be nonpartisan elections, I mean, even going all the way down to school board, I mean, you've seen the viral videos that are happening all across the nation and all across Ohio.

And so I think there's an awareness that these Off-Year elections are happening.

And, you know, people understand, I think are starting to understand what the stakes are for their local schools or for their local government.

And like I said, I've not seen this really happen or usually these off year elections happen.

Oftentimes, you know, candidates incumbents are not even challenged for a lot of these positions, but that really doesn't seem to be the case this year.

Yeah, there are about 17,000 poll workers that are still needed for this election to go off.

And I'm just wondering, why do we still seem to be having this problem in getting poll workers or people just not interested because it's a long day and the pay is not great?

Or is there a real concern?

Do you think that people who are working as poll workers were getting bullied, they were getting attacked?

These sorts of things were happening after 2020 and during 2020?

Well, yeah, I mean, it is a long day.

You don't get paid a decent amount, I suppose.

And you know, it's always been really a hard thing to be able to recruit people to work on Election Day and give up their whole day.

But I think COVID certainly has played a role in this.

I mean, there are a lot of poll workers that are worried about COVID getting sick, you know, being exposed to the public, potentially.

And I think that was especially the case last year.

But I think there are still a number of poll workers that are worried about it.

Poll workers tend to be disproportionately older people who may be more susceptible to serious illness from COVID.

But I think many people saw what happened, especially with the 2020 election and the fact that these nonpartisan public servants who believe in our democracy and are a really important part of our electoral process, we're getting bullied, they are getting death threats and they were, you know, the whole poll worker process has been politicized, going all the way up to the former president.

You know, doing this and it's I think it's a real scary thing for some people and and I think many have decided, you know, it's just not worth it.

I don't want to put myself in that position.

Is the discussion about the 2020 election maybe playing a role in recruiting poll workers, specifically the Big Lie, I've been told by former President Trump and his supporters and not rejected by some Republicans, even perpetuated in some cases in Ohio, our major candidates for U.S. Senate on the Republican side have suggested that the election was illegitimate.

I mean, doesn't that?

Or does that play a role in trying to get people to come to the polls and work this election?

Well, well, certainly.

I mean, I think it's kind of a double edged sword, you know, at the same time that that these people are saying that the election was illegitimate and we can't trust it.

You know, they're trying to recruit their own people to actually fill these, you know, poll worker positions.

And so I think, you know, part of the strategy is to get some of the people that work the polls for years, you know, to quit and then to replace them with their own loyal people so that potentially, you know, they could have some influence in the process, perhaps.

And and I think, you know, we'll have to wait until election today in Election Day to see if that strategy has worked or not.

But I think it's it's a really bad thing for democracy.

Finally, are you concerned about any election or changes that might be coming out of the Ohio Legislature?

There are two bills in particular.

one would allow only three ballot drop boxes a board of elections only for ten days before the election.

It would shorten the window to request early ballots.

And it says absentee ballots must be received ten days before the election.

Another more broad bill would eliminate those ballot drop boxes at the 28 day early voting period that's been in place since 2014 to 13 days and later to six days along with some other things.

Are you concerned about either of these bills and what are your thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, I think they're absurd.

I think they're clearly anti-democratic.

You know, just personally, I just use the the drop box a couple of days ago to hand in my vote.

It's extremely convenient.

It's safe, especially when we've just, you know, we've been for the last year and a half living under a black cloud of a global public health pandemic.

Why in the world are we trying to make it more difficult for people to vote, not in person?

You know, whether that be through drop boxes or whether that be through requesting an absentee ballot?

And the only thing that I can see is that, you know, there are people in power that truly don't want to make it easier and convenient for people to vote, and they're doing it for political purposes.

It should be called out for what it is.

There's no reason from a security standpoint, you know that, for example, you can't have a drop box on the premises of a board of elections and have it be, you know, open for a month or really all year round if people want to request absentee ballots or get in touch, you know, with with the Board of Elections , it's it's absurd, it's abominable and it should be called out for what it is.

It's just, you know, a naked power play.

Ohio's daily confirmed COVID case average is going down now at 3337 per day in Ohio for the month of October September, as daily confirmed case average was 4849.

But there have already been more COVID deaths reported in Ohio in October so far than in all of September.

16 hundred and 38 deaths so far this month, compared to 1090 in September.

A White House plan to require businesses with 100 or more employees to mandate COVID vaccines or test those workers regularly is coming soon.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is not opposed, but the Ohio Chamber of Commerce is.

I talked with Steve Stivers, the Republican former congressman for the 15th District in central Ohio, who left the spring and became the president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

Well, we have concerns for several reasons, and I've had the conversation already with the Secretary of Labor at the federal level.

We have a schedule scheduled call with the White House coming up.

You know, we have a concern about the dynamic of labor.

Will people move from employers of 100 or more to 100 or less if they don't want to get the vaccine?

That's unfair for the country or the company over 100 to have to compete in the labor market when they have additional requirements that the under 100 would not have.

We also are very concerned about the fine level at a 13,000 dollar fine per incident.

I'll use a simple example of 100 employees, a company that gets 80% vaccinated.

That's 20 people they have to test every week or 1000 tests is one test, one incident.

If so, a 13,000 dollar fine becomes a 13 million dollar fine because of 1000 incidents.

If you mess up the paperwork, there's also no.

It doesn't look like there's going to be any kind of good faith effort that says if you in good faith tried to do this, but you messed the paperwork.

We will hold you liable because you really did the right stuff because, oh sure, we all know a great organization that's done a lot of great things for occupational health and safety, unfortunately, is a paperwork organization, and they're going to look at the paperwork.

They have no interest in looking at good faith, so we have some real concerns about how it would be administered.

We also believe pretty strongly, and we saw this week with Southwest Airlines that the free market of labor and the free market of customers will hold individuals individual companies accountable for decisions they make, whether it's on, you know, decisions of how they run their company or decisions of what they do with the vaccine mandate.

Southwest Airlines mandated the vaccine their pilots called in sick.

In mass, they had to cancel 800 flights for several days in a row.

And guess what?

They backed off the vaccine mandate, so the free market's going to be much more efficient at managing this than a heavy state government, which will we're about to talk about or a heavy federal government.

And it's not businesses place to solve the COVID problem or create herd immunity.

Businesses are still recovering after a really tough.

You're with Koven in 2020.

And so putting another requirement on companies over 100, I think is really onerous or could be very owners.

That's why we've come out opposed to it.

And when I talked to the U.S. Chamber, they've said we don't favor or oppose it.

We just haven't come out as opposed as you guys because we want to work with the administration and try to bring them along on it.

So they they have some concerns, too.

I want to be clear, I don't want to speak for the U.S. Chamber, but they've told me they do have the same concerns we have.

They're just taking a different approach.

We're being a little more aggressive.

Even though there's evidence that vaccine mandates do work.

There is evidence that vaccine mandates would work and if we could do it in a universal way, not just companies over 100.

That would be a little bit better, but again, the labor dynamic you create when you only enforce it for companies over 100 in the burden you place on them, the financial liability burden, you know, the federal government, if they want to mandate it, then they should mandate it.

But not just mandated on some companies and not others.

It creates a really unlevel playing field that's onerous in the free marketplace.

Let's talk about the state level issues here.

We had there were two specific bills, one that would basically create huge exemptions for the COVID vaccines.

So basically anybody who wanted it exemption could get one.

And then there was also a bill that would ban all mandatory vaccines.

The chamber has come out against both those bills, and now they've both been kind of pushed aside by House leadership.

Was it your pressure that shut down those votes?

It wasn't just us.

A lot of folks were opposed to those bills.

And again, it's the other side of the coin.

Just like a big, heavy federal government shouldn't force business to do things that those businesses don't want to do.

A big state government shouldn't tell business that they cannot protect the health and welfare and safety of their business, their private property, in the way that they want.

And again, right now, only one half of 1% of chamber members have mandated the vaccine, and those that have have gone through the process that worked for them about, is this right in the labor environment we're in?

Is this right for the health and safety of our customers and our employees?

And a few of them have decided they might have medically fragile customers or clients?

They might have some other reason why it's important to them.

And they went through the analysis and did it, and their customers and their employees will hold them accountable for the decisions that they've made.

But to tell them they could never protect the health and safety of their workplace in the way they want is just as onerous as saying, you have to do this by big federal government .

So it's there are two sides of a very heavy handed big government that frankly is bad for business.

And the state's unemployment rate has been steadily rising since hitting a post-pandemic low of 4.7% this spring.

The US unemployment rate for September is 4.8.

Ohio's is right around 5.4%.

Why is our jobless rate higher?

When you have restaurants and businesses, so many people saying that they have a labor shortage, they're having to close or change hours because of all this.

And Ohio has not been paying those 300 dollar weekly checks to unemployed people since the end of June.

So what's going on?

Well, Karen, it's a complicated situation, I think.

But there are more open positions in Ohio today, then unemployed people, they might not have the right skill match for those jobs that are open.

They might not have the right soft skills that they need, showing up on time, being able to pass the drug test.

Pretty basic things and those are complicating factors.

There are also issues of child care.

There's less child care capacity today in the post-COVID world than there was before COVID.

You probably already knew that, Karen, but it's it's keeping some people out of the workforce.

And so we've got work to do to bring people back in the workforce and to improve our job training skills that help people that need hard and soft skills.

You know, we helped encourage the state and they put $50 million of new money in the tech credit program, which helps existing employees get up skilled and get raises and opportunities.

It also can be used for new employees to get the skills they need.

An employer has to be willing to hire and pay that person.

And then the tech grad program will pay for the certification for that person if it's a certification.

And obviously, tech grad doesn't pay for everything, but they pay for a lot of things.

one of the things they don't pay for is like commercial driver's license cuddles.

There are great needs out there.

We're working to try to encourage the state to include Curdles commercial driver's license in that tech credit program.

We think it's really, really important.

And so there's a lot of work to be done.

But unemployment is a very complicated problem in Ohio.

I personally believe we should do some things to transform our unemployment system.

For example, the average claim you can go up to about a 26 week claim in Ohio, so about a half a year.

The average claims about 14 weeks.

But I believe if you get a job before, say, twelve weeks, we should pay you a bonus because there are costs associated with going back to work and we should get people have people have incentive to get a job as soon as they can.

That bonus would do that if you are after twelve weeks, still not quite to the average claim, but you know, still at twelve weeks, you have 14 weeks of unemployment left.

That gives you enough time to get through some job training program.

I think if you go beyond twelve weeks, you should be required to be in a job training program to keep getting your unemployment check because at that point you're three months unemployed.

Let's acknowledge that at three months unemployed, when there's more jobs available than unemployed people today, you must not have the skills you need to be employed in today's workforce.

And so you should probably be enrolled in a job training program and it would help you.

The point of unemployment is to get you that next job and to give you the transition, the cushion between those jobs when you're unemployed.

But it should help make that happen, and a job training program for long term unemployed people would do that.

So we're going to pursue some legislation that would encourage those type of incentives in the system.

one on the front end that says we'll pay you if you get a job earlier than the average claim and the other that says if you're not employed by near the average claim, you probably need to get some additional training and we're going to require that for you to keep getting your unemployment.

Is there a concern, though, that some people have left the workforce entirely because they don't?

They say they weren't being treated well, they weren't being paid appropriately.

They have problems getting child care.

Some of these issues that are kind of bigger and longer term than just job training and open positions.

Well, there's a lot of anecdotal evidence, although I don't have statistical evidence, but anecdotal evidence that some people have left the workforce caring for the so-called gig economy.

They might be driving for Uber or Uber Eats, or they might be doing some other gig work.

And I took an Uber recently and talked to my Uber driver, who used to be a paralegal, and he said, Hey, I make as much driving for Uber.

I control my own schedule.

I work when I want, and that's what I do now.

And so there are people moving to that gig economy, and we need to acknowledge that.

But I will tell you, the other thing that's going on in the real workforce today is wages are going up, especially at the lower level.

You know, I was talking to a member company the other day and they're raising their wages to $18 an hour for starting workers.

And that's not because some government mandate said they had to pay $18.

You know that the minimum wage in Ohio just went up from was eight 85 to 9.35 or something like that in round numbers.

So they're paying twice the minimum wage because that's what the market demands, and that's what it takes to get employees.

And there's a benefit to be the first mover or early in raising wages because as you probably have seen, once everybody does it, then you start to lose people again.

So then you have to raise them again.

It's been happening for the last year and a half that people at the lowest into the wage rate are seeing the highest increases in their wages.

And that's a good thing.

It's healthy for those families and it's good for the economy because that's what it takes in a free market economy.

So the free market will eventually catch up.

It just takes a little while to adjust.

And finally, Ohio has its first license plate overhaul since 2013.

It features a sunrise reminiscent of the one in the state seal or the city skyline in silhouette, rolling green hills, a river and a wheat field, along with a girl on a tree swing and a dog.

This will be the state standard vehicle plate starting on December 29th.

And that's it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at State News Dawg and you can follow us and show on Facebook and Twitter.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Med Mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP, now with eight locations across the country.

Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

Moore and Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association, representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA.ORG