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Task Force Takes Steps to Save Military Bases Around Ohio

photo of Col. Cassie Barlow
JO INGLES
/
STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU
Former Col. Cassie Barlow says the task force wants to establish a state office for military affairs, along with funding for it.

A statewide committee that’s been looking at military base realignment during the past year has made some recommendations.

The task force wants to work to make sure military bases in Ohio don’t end up on the chopping block  if the federal government decides to downsize. Retired Wright Patterson Air Force Base commander, Col. Cassie Barlow, says the group came up with two recommendations.

“To create a state-level office of government and military affairs, independently reporting to the governor’s office. And second, to create a funding line in the state budget to support this office in their work,” she said.

Barlow says other states have such an office and find it helpful in keeping bases open. Military bases in Ohio have a collective payroll of more than $5 billion and provide more than 60,000 federal jobs.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.