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SB5 will bankrupt Ohio

 18 Mar 2011

There are more than one budget busters in SB5 but the one I'm going to write about tonight are all the requirements in this bill that "merit be the only basis" for determining wages.  The DoD tried an approach with the intention of getting away from a longevity reliant wage scale and focusing to a larger extent on performance. It took about 4 years for this system to price itself out of existence.  Believe it or not almost every civilian in DoD is a high performer and was able to get maximum allowable raises under the new system.  So last year the federal government ditched that system and went back to a more balanced GS system that depend more heavily on longevity.  

Keep in mind though that the federal system wasn't a system where merit was the only basis for determining pay rates.  I'm not sure how the state system works but one of the ways the federal government lets people know they are doing a good job is handing out airman of the quarter or civilian of the quarter awards.  If the state has the same type of recognition programs would that first year employee then be able to make a case that they should receive the highest pay scale?  By law the supervisor couldn't say "well we can't pay you the highest rate because you have only been here one year".  

A week and a half ago I talked with one of the local Republican State Representatives.  The conversation wasn't very promising that he will take this to his colleagues for correction.  If I were liberal version of James O'Keefe I would characterize his attitude as "we don't care, this is just a destroy the Democrat bill anyway".  But I'm not James O'Keefe and I suspect the assemblyman was just caught off guard that there was such a glaring flaw in the law.  Of, course we will see what the bill looks like when it leaves the assembly. Keep in mind getting the right mix of training, skills, education, longevity and merit to balance compensation rate considerations is not something these republicans have put any thought into yet.  So it is unlikely they will luck out and get it right in the next couple weeks.   

Disclosure:  I did write an article titled "I support the Tea Party, I support Unions"

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