The Ohio Statehouse, Columbus

With 129th General Assembly and new governor, legislative priorities of Ohio Jewish Communities continue to focus on care for the elderly

By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer

Joyce Garver Keller, executive director of Ohio Jewish Communities, says she’s optimistic about access and the Jewish community’s ability to make its case to the members of the new Ohio General Assembly as it goes through its legislative calendar.

“The first thing a lot of members of our community need to deal with is to accept that there’s a new sheriff in town,” she says.

Ohio Jewish Communities is the lobbying arm of the state’s eight Jewish federations and concerned Jewish agencies such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. Dayton’s Jim Jacobson sits on OJC’s executive board.

The aging community
“On the Jewish agenda,” Keller says, “in terms of health and long-term care, our big issue is services to our aging community.”

Joyce Garver Keller, Ohio Jewish Communities

These home and community based services include senior transportation, congregate and home-delivered meals, adult day care programs, Passport (the Medicaid program for home and community services), assisted living and skilled nursing care.

“The economic impact of what’s happened in Ohio has had two effects on our Jewish community,” she explains. “One is, some of our donors no longer have an income to donate from and they’re actually knocking on our doors for help. And the second thing is, more and more people are knocking on our doors for help and looking for us to deliver the services. Because we have less children but more bubbies, our focus on providing services for the elderly continues to increase and we don’t necessarily have a growing pool of resources on the other end.”

Keller says she’s “very excited” about the cabinet appointments Governor John Kasich has announced in human service areas.

“The new aging director, who’s Jewish, Bonnie Kantor Burman, is from Columbus and is certainly familiar with Wexner Heritage Village and the services that the community provides. She’s been working in the health care arena.”

Keller also lauds Kasich’s creation of a new office, to be headed by Greg Moody, which will restructure the state’s health and human services agencies.

“The people all sound like they have terrific backgrounds, that they’re really interested in working with human service advocates and certainly we look forward to working with them.”

The governor is required by law to deliver his 2012-13 state budget to the Ohio House by March 15. The two-year budget, which goes into effect July 1, must pass the General Assembly by June 30.

“We don’t expect huge changes,” Keller says of the budget Kasich will propose, “because these are all Republicans. These are all folks with relatively the same philosophy on how Ohio’s problems should be addressed.”

Ohio’s constitution prohibits deficit budgeting; the administration and General Assembly’s challenge this cycle is to cut $8 billion from the state budget.

“There will be tough decisions that have to be made by state government and this group of folks signed pledges that they would not raise taxes or increase fees,” Keller says. “Now, whether they’re able to come to the end of the road and continue to do that, whether there is a way to cut their way out of $8 billion remains to be seen. That is really the challenge.”

Issues that are not on OJC’s legislative agenda — such as unions, state employee benefits, pension funds, teachers and tenure — will effect the Jewish community’s ability to support the safety-net services it provides, Keller says.

“The outcome of those conversations will have an impact on how much money is available from the general revenue fund and other federal funds.”

Access to leadership
Keller says the Jewish community already has access to the new speaker of the Ohio House, William Batchelder, and new Ohio Senate President Thomas Niehaus.

“William Batchelder is from Medina. We’ve known him for a long time and always had a good relationship with him,” Keller says. “He is what one might call a traditional conservative, focusing on smaller government and fiscal issues rather than on necessarily the conservative social agenda. I think he sees himself — and I think it’s true — as having close ties with the Jewish community, especially since he’s from Medina, with the Cleveland area Jewish community. He’s very familiar with the Cleveland area Jewish agencies.”

She also describes Niehaus as a fiscal conservative. “He’s from Richmond, down in the Cincinnati area, and Tom also has been around for some time. His wife is a breast cancer survivor; we’ve had a lot of conversations about that. When I was going through my treatment, he often reached out to me just to see how I was doing. I think that does give him a special perspective on health care kinds of issues simply because of his own family experiences. He has a very good relationship with the Cincinnati Jewish community.”

Some expected good news, Keller says, is the opportunity for increased state funding for chartered non-public schools in the areas of administrative reimbursement and for auxiliary services.

“These aren’t really big things, but our schools appreciate every dollar that’s available to them.”

Keller’s advice to organized Jewish communities around the state: be part of the solution, not the problem.

“We have a governor who has come into office and elected leaders who have come into office and have said they’re willing to change things, they’re willing to take on people who say it can’t be done this way,” she says. “And I say, well, let’s be part of that. How would we develop the program if we were creating a program for funding long-term care in our community? What would it look like? I think we should think creatively and look at these opportunities and present them to the governor and his staff and talk about where those opportunities are, and not just be part of the old system that was just to say, ‘well this is how it’s done and we need more money to do it.’ Because I think that’s a formula for failure.”