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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > August > 06 > Entry
Editorial: Director’s firing made no sense
As much as possible, decisions like how to build schools should be made on the local level.
That has been a prime lesson from Dayton’s experience, but one that Gov. Ted Strickland isn’t concerned about.
Last week, Gov. Strickland unceremoniously dumped Michael Shoemaker — a champion of local decision-making on school construction projects — as director of the Ohio School Facilities Commission. Gov. Strickland isn’t saying much about why.
That’s led to speculation. Was Mr. Shoemaker too outspoken in noting how Gov. Strickland’s school reform plan would complicate local districts’ lives? For instance, he warned that lowering class sizes could require more classroom space than just-completed new schools could offer.
Of course, Mr. Shoemaker was making an obvious and valid point.
Other observers wonder if the move wasn’t also done to appease construction unions that were frustrated that Mr. Shoemaker wasn’t pushing school districts to require “prevailing wage,” or union scale wages, on their building projects.
The removal of Mr. Shoemaker is disturbing. A former southern Ohio lawmaker and longtime political ally of the governor, Mr. Shoemaker was doing a fine job. He played a personal role in solving problems and had taken a particularly sensible tack on prevailing wage: he said each school district could do what made sense for it because the law gave them a choice.
Dayton is a prime example of his effectiveness and the pay-off of his approach. In the early days of Dayton’s $627 million, 10-year construction program, school leaders were deeply frustrated with the construction commission. To facilitate a major goal — ensuring local construction workers and small and minority-run businesses get a share of dollars spent building the city’s new schools — the district wanted to hire a local company, Dayton-based Shook Construction, to manage the project.
School officials felt Shook would use more local workers and subcontractors, but the commission nixed that plan in favor of a different management group.
The school board also wanted to require that the local workers they hoped would build the schools earn union-scale wages. But under the Taft administration, the commission also wouldn’t permit that.
Enter Mr. Shoemaker, Gov. Strickland’s appointee. When Dayton went looking for a new construction manager, the commission this time gave Shook a thumbs up. Shook urged the district to require union wages, arguing that more union-affiliated local companies would bid for the district’s work. The commission did not stand in the way.
With Shook and the wage requirement, the district’s progress toward its goals improved. In the construction program’s first phase, just 27 percent of the work was done by local companies. That percentage jumped to 45 percent for phase two and 35 percent for phase three.
Economically disadvantaged small companies performed just 7 percent of phase one work, a number that climbed to 32 percent in phase three. Minority-owned business were 2 percent of the workforce in the first phase and 10 percent in the third phase. John Carr, who heads the district’s construction program, said the district has seen more bids on its projects in the past two years, and he believes it’s at least partly because of the change in direction. At the same time, the schools have remained on budget.
Working with Mr. Shoemaker, Dayton was able to follow a plan that made sense here. In other cities, districts preferred not to require union wages, and Mr. Shoemaker backed those decisions, too.
Before Mr. Shoemaker, prevailing wage requirements were kryptonite under an administration that was less union-friendly. Perhaps labor leaders feel it’s payback time, that with a political ally as governor, prevailing wage should now rule the day. But a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t serve the best interests of local school districts, or the state.
Mr. Shoemaker did his job well and cared about the needs of local communities. That shouldn’t get you fired.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Editorials, Education, Ohio politics, Scott Elliott
Comments
By concerned taxpayer
August 7, 2009 12:59 PM | Link to this
Wow, for once I actually agree with what the DDN editorial says. That doesn’t happen very often.By Labor for labor
August 14, 2009 9:06 AM | Link to this
Nail on the head. Prevailing wage is the new credo for Ohio Government. Small businesses are being told the must use union labor or prevailing wage if they want State help in new construction projects. Utter rubbish.