An Ohio Super with intestinal fortitude to call Issue 2 as he sees it!

From John Curry, September 19, 2011

Note from John...in a personal correspondence with Southeast Local Schools Superintendent earlier this morning Dr. Shreffler advised me that he could not "confirm nor deny" the "letter" but that he was going to discuss this matter with his board this evening. He also advised that there were at least two versions of "the letter" being circulated. I will attempt to retrieve the (real) 5-page letter and distribute it when (and if) I can get a copy of it. This is very damning to Kasich and should be! What goes around comes around doesn't it, Governor Kasich!

http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/ohiopolitics/entries/2011/09/19/school_superintendent_blasts_k.html?cxtype=feedbot

School superintendent blasts Kasich in letter

Dayton Daily News, September 19, 2011
By Laura Bischoff

In a letter to 240 district employees, Southeast Local Schools Superintendent Mike Shreffler criticized Gov. John Kasich for saying public employees get free pensions and free health care coverage.

Shreffler said he attended a private meeting with Kasich and House Speaker William Batchelder, R-Medina, on Sept. 1 at a factory in northeast Ohio with about 200 mostly Republican supporters.

Shreffler said he got irritated when he heard the governor allege that Ohio’s public employees don’t pay anything toward their pensions and health care coverage.

Kasich press secretary Rob Nichols said Shreffler’s recap of the governor’s remarks is inaccurate and reflects Ohio Education Association talking points.

“What he claims to have happened didn’t happen. It’s not true,” Nichols said. The governor often says that in some instances, some public employees do not pay toward their retirement or health care, Nichols said.

State law mandates that public workers pay 10 percent of their wages toward their pension while their employers pay between 14 percent and 26 percent. However, about 6.6 percent of public employees have union and individual contracts that call for the employer to pick up all or part of the workers’ share as well, according to the state’s five public pension systems.

Pension contribution rates, eligibility and benefits are prescribed in state law, not union contracts.

A 2011 survey by the State Employment Relations Board of public sector health care costs shows that public workers pay on average 9.5 percent of the premium costs for a single plan and 10.7 percent for a family plan. Township and city employees pay the lowest percentage — 4.9 percent and 7.7 percent, respectively — while county and state employees pay more than 15 percent. The employee share crept up faster last year than the employer share, the SERB report said.

Nonethless, public sector workers, in general, are paying less toward their health care coverage than their private sector counterparts.

The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in March that private sector employers paid on average $2.12 an hour toward employee health care coverage compared with $4.72 an hour state and local government employers paid toward worker health insurance.

Shreffler, a registered Democrat who votes a split ticket and used to be a Republican, said his letter “has gone viral” within the education community and he has received emails from educators across the state.

Shreffler said he sees good and bad reforms in Senate Bill 5 and he likes some of the policies advanced by Kasich but disagrees with him on many of his education reforms.

“There are policies he is pushing that I like. There are some things that he has got some real common sense on and he is right. But I’m an educator. That is my profession. And I feel like I’m seeing public education disappear before my eyes,” Shreffler said.

In the five page letter, Shreffler referred to the governor as a bully and the legislature as his posse.

Shreffler disputed Nichols’ characterization of him as a “big time Democrat” who is spouting union talking points. Shreffler said he has never belonged to the OEA or any other teacher union.