Governor hopeful John Kasich said Tuesday he would replace the state Department of Development with a nonprofit board of business leaders if he's elected in November.
A story from the AP says, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland's re-election campaign criticized the first real details of his Republican opponent's economic agenda as outsourcing economic development decisions to corporate interests at the expense of Ohio workers. Others doubted it would pass constitutional muster.
But Kasich, a former congressman, said his proposed economic development panel would be better equipped to create jobs than the bureaucratic agency that's been in place as nearly 400,000 jobs have been lost. His 12-member JobsOhio board would include executives, industry experts and entrepreneurs appointed by the governor.
Development Department spokeswoman Katie Sabatino said Ohio has created 80,479 jobs and retained 309,104 jobs through department programs since January 2007, when Strickland took office. Another 104,073 people have been trained, according to projected totals. The department's budget of more than $1.5 billion a year includes $517 million in federal stimulus dollars.
Strickland campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said the estimated 466,000 jobs that have been lost to Ohio since 1995 were the result of trade deals and outsourcing policies supported by Kasich. She noted he was a managing director at Lehman Brothers for eight years before the investment giant went bankrupt and set off the national economic downturn.
Kasich defended his business background, accusing the Strickland administration of being out of touch with the needs of Ohio businesses because of a lack of business-savvy advisers.
Click here to read more of this story from the AP.
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