[bfsa] Update Regarding Ohio's FY 2006-2007 Budget and Related

[Brenda Scarborough]

SHARING  AS INSTRUCTED


Subject: Update Regarding Ohio's FY 2006-2007 Budget and Related
Legislative Initiatives
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:49:02 -0400
From: "Christine Domhoff" <cldomhoff at ysu.edu>
To: "Ivan Maldonado" <imaldona at cc.ysu.edu>, "Carol A. Hovanes"
<cahovanes at ysu.edu>, "Charlene Yusko" <chyusko at ysu.edu>, "Brenda
Scarborough" <bmscarborough at ysu.edu>, "Willa Mattern"
<wsmatter at cc.ysu.edu>


Please forward to friends and co-workers.



Christine Domhoff, CCNA CCAI HTI+
Youngstown State University, Metro College
Regional Cisco Academy
100 DeBartolo Place, Suite 200
Youngstown, OH  44512



-----Original Message-----
From: O'Donnell, Tina [OH] [mailto:odonnellt at ohea.org]
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 8:14 AM
To: O'Donnell, Tina [OH]
Subject: Update Regarding Ohio's FY 2006-2007 Budget and Related
Legislative Initiatives



To:  All OEA Staff



C:  Executive Committee
      District Leaders



From:    Dennis M. Reardon

 Earlier this month, the Ohio House adopted HB 66 and sent it to the
Senate.  As you know, among its other deficiencies, the House proposal
severely undercuts the funding of Ohio’s schools, significantly expands
vouchers in Cleveland and into other school districts, undercuts our
members’ negotiated health care programs, and attacks collective
bargaining rights.

The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you about what we are doing
to address these issues.



First, we recognize that we all need to:



     Continue to educate our members about these issues.
      Involve our members in talking directly with their legislators,
with specific focus on their state senators.
     Inform legislators about our collective interests and expected
outcomes.
     Convince legislators that our positions are right and that they
must support them.

We believe that we can most effectively achieve those outcomes by:



     Educating our members about the very real impact of these threats.
     Persuading them to personally contact their legislators and let
them know what they want done and why the desired outcome is critical to
public education.
     Continuing to deliver our message directly to legislators through
the efforts of our lobbyists.
     Continuing to work in partnership with other organizations that
share common interests with us.

We clearly understand that the tone and volume of our messages will have
an impact on the ultimate outcome.
We believe that our interests are best served by managing that aspect in
controlled phases.  That is, we believe that - - at this point - - our
most effective method for achieving our intended outcomes is by ensuring

that our members, as voting constituents directly contact their
legislators, particularly their state senators.
 For example, the more than 220 “educator-lobbyists” (i.e., teachers,
support professionals, administrators, parents, and board members) who
participated in the April 19 Educator Lobby Day demonstrated the power
of direct lobbying.



In addition to hosting the Educator Lobby Day activities on May 24 and
June 7, we are considering other ways to ensure that our members have
the opportunity to express their support for public education.  Our
challenge will be achieving our intended outcomes without alienating key
legislators whose support is critical to our ultimate success.



We recognize that regularly you are being asked, “What is OEA doing
about this situation?”  While we realize this can be a tough question,
it’s important to note that OEA is aggressively implementing the
Grassroots Plan as detailed at the February staff meeting, and OEA
leaders and staff are meeting daily with legislators to help resolve
these problems.   Please know that we are as concerned as you and are
working as effectively as we can to ensure that the FY 2006-2007 budget
does not further injure our members' collective interests.   Our plan
for accomplishing this requires as much direct member contact as
possible. That is one other area in which you will play a major role.
In the coming weeks, many of you will be asked to distribute materials
and information about the budget bill to our members at their worksites,
discuss our concerns and ask that they
take immediate action.



We have posted legislative alerts on the OEA website, encouraging our
members to take action on critical aspects in the budget bill.  We
request that when you talk with local leaders, you encourage them to
promptly
pass that information to their members.  At last count, Association
members have sent to legislators more than 1100 emails through the OEA
website regarding the reduction-in-force provisions, the mandatory
health care pool and the privatization threats contained in the proposed
House budget.   Those numbers are increasing daily.



Thank you for your effective work on behalf of our members.  Certainly,
in periods of high stress, it is easy to criticize others, including
those who you would hope are working toward similar outcomes.  Let us
not fall into
that trap.  Let’s continue to work together to educate and mobilize our
members around these critical issues.








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