During his fourth day on the job Governor Mike DeWine paid a visit to Akron. In an appearance at the Akron Roundtable he touched on a range of things his administration is already working on, including how to upgrade funding for local governments.
The governor said most services in Ohio are delivered through local government and the state isn’t sending enough money back to the local level to support all that needs to be done. Children’s services especially concern him. “Ohio is fiftieth among all fifty states in the union in the amount of money the state puts into our local children’s services. That’s not acceptable.”
He believes there should be more funding for dealing with addiction too. But he said his administration wants local feedback. “We’re going to listen to what the concerns are. We’re going to take each law as it comes. But you’re going to be at the table.”
At one point in his address the new governor made the general comment to local government: “we’re going to be a good partner.”
He also reported on a meeting he had earlier in the day in Detroit with General Motors CEO Mary Barra.
Lordstown was on the agenda and he said she did not commit to anything new regarding the complex. He said he nonetheless made it clear that the state is poised to help if the company decides to put a new product line at the plant.
“But I also said if that’s not going to happen, they’re not going to do that, we are there to help facilitate getting another company in. That we’re going to do everything we can to work with the UAW, everything we can do to work with General Motors, to get somebody else in there.”
DeWine touched on the issue of funding for roads and bridges too. He said his administration is studying current needs and resources and will issue a public report in a few weeks.
