Four House Democrats say JobsOhio needs to operate under the ethical and transparency standards that all state agencies do.
Their plan would require salaries, meetings and records to be made public, for JobsOhio to be subject to audit, and for a website to be set up to track its funds. The Democrats developed a new take on the JobsOhio logo -- renaming it “RobsOhio."
I asked Rep. John Carney of Columbus how he expected that to go over with the Republican supermajorities in the Statehouse.
CARNEY: “I think we certainly expect to be taken seriously by the taxpayers of the state of Ohio. So whether or not the Republican legislature wants to wake up to the fact that right now, they are allowing all of this money to be shielded -- they’re acting as if liquor profits are now private money again...John Kasich didn’t bless this money and turn it into private money.”
Gov. Kasich’s spokesman Rob Nichols responded with a statement that reads in part, “People who care about job creation and who understand that the law’s accountability and disclosure requirements on JobsOhio make it the most transparent private company in Ohio understand the wisdom of the reforms that have been made and which are working."
