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State Senator Cliff Hite visits Quadco
State Senator Cliff Hite toured Quadco Rehabilitation Center in Stryker and spoke with the members of Quadco’s Administrative and Non-Profit Board at their regular meeting on Oct. 25.
Before taking the tour, he met with the board members and told them, “I know a lot about Quadco. I’m really here for good news and to see the good things that Quadco is doing.”
In response to a question about the state budget and what he foresees for the future, Senator Hite said, “It was a tough year. We balanced the budget and didn’t raise taxes,” he said.
Because of the decisions made, he noted there was a shared burden for a number of groups including local governments throughout the state.
Still, he explained, state leaders realized that they had to respond to the economic challenges or there could be even worse consequences.
“We have to change our way of doing things or we are going to be in worse trouble. The Federal Government is completely out of hand. They can print their own money, but we can’t, so we had to make cuts,” he told the board members.
The senator explained that when state leaders devise their plans to respond to the budget, they have tried to look at a big overall picture of how best to respond to the challenges.
“Because we were $8 billion in the hole, there’s been a whole paradigm shift of thinking down in Columbus with our governor and the general assembly,” Senator Hite explained, “and it includes things like Issue 2, but also combining mental and physical health as far as Medicaid is concerned to try to lower costs which really ended up being a pretty good idea.”
“We’re trying to maintain the cost of Medicaid because the percentage that we pay at the state level of our budget is extremely high. And if you add schools and prisons, there’s about 8 or 9 percent left over for everything else,” he said.
There may still be the need for additional changes before it is time to consider the next state budget. He said there will probably be a budget corrections bill or what will likely be referred to as a budget reality bill before then.
The senator did note that their work has shown its benefit for the state. When Standard and Poor’s downgraded the country’s credit rating, he observed that the firm raised Ohio’s rating because of the fiscally responsible things the state was doing.
Senator Hite said that one of the “fantastic things” that got done during the budget response but got overlooked was the JobsOhio program. He said the public/private corporation’s mission to bring jobs into Ohio is working.
He said he recently heard that there are 80,000 to 85,000 jobs in Ohio that aren’t being filled because there aren’t qualified people to fill them.
JobsOhio is the start, he said, of work by a group of entrepreneurs that are addressing those kinds of economic development issues.
On the issue of selling or leasing the Ohio Turnpike, Senator Hite said he was going to do what the people of his district along the turnpike corridor want him to do.
“I don’t want to sell it. I don’t really want to lease it, but if we do lease it, I want us to get a whole lot from it. And if we don’t get a lot from it, I’m a ‘No,” he said.
Following his question and answer period, Senator Hite toured Quadco’s Stryker building stopping to speak with people working at their jobs and with the seniors in their Senior Activities Center.
In the picture above, Sen. Hite watches as Rebecca Rebeck (center) shows him how she completes the assembly of a part at Quadco while Sharon von Seggern, Stryker Facility Manager, looks on.
He also traveled to the Stryker SUBWAY® Restaurant and Mama DeLuca’s® Pizza Now! to meet the people who are part of Quadco’s food service training program. The restaurants are owned and operated by Quadco.
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