Cleveland's mayor and the Cuyahoga County executive took aim this week at the Brown's plan to move to Brook Park, a bill to fight what conservative backers call liberal indoctrination in higher education cleared the Ohio House and the Cleveland and Akron school districts continue to struggle with budget woes.

Ideas is next Hello and welcome to IDEAS.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Cleveland and Cuyahoga County leaders dug in on defense against the Cleveland Browns plan to move to Brook Park.

Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and county executive Chris Ronayne this week dissected the Brown's elaborate public funding game plan, then teamed up in an attempt to sack it.

The public school systems in Cleveland and Akron continue to make budget cuts.

In Cleveland, it could mean the end of extended instruction in some schools in Akron, 59 positions could be on the block.

Senate Bill one, which bans diversity, equity and inclusion programs at public universities, breezed really Ohio House this week.

Joining me to discuss these stories and more from ideastream Public media reporter Connor Morris and deputy editor for News Andrew Meyer in Columbus.

Statehouse News bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to roundtable Cleveland.

Mayor Justin Bibb called the Brown's plan for a Brook Park football and entertainment complex a scheme and a betrayal of taxpayers.

Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne called the plan a risky bet the county cannot make.

Andrew.

They weren't mincing words, were they, this week?

No, I would say the gloves are really starting to come off at this point.

And, you know, the Browns are back in court and they amended their federal filing.

They said that the city is looking to hold them hostage over its own failure of vision.

I think that is pretty blunt, pretty direct.

What was interesting to me is it was last week when we laid out this plan that Ted Tai Wong from the Hazim Sports Group gave to the legislature.

By the way, it worked.

They put money into the budget or proposed a bond to pay for that part of the public funding.

And it took a little bit of time, Ronayne said, for his finance people to go through it.

One of the things he's arguing for is he wants an independent review of this because he said it's all based on very lofty projections.

Yeah, well, what it does is and you know, Ronayne laid this out point by point looking at the various funding sources where the revenue would be coming from, various taxes, parking, lodging, car rental, and saying, look, essentially they are banking on those revenue projections.

The Browns are being 100% capacity, which is I'm using these words not not ronayne, but a pipe dream, Right.

100% capacity, meaning the parking lot is always full.

The seats, every single space and the amount for the tickets they mentioned would be very expensive.

7 to $800 was what they were floating.

Basically, they're saying let's talk about the bet for the public that moving here would be to expensive of a bat.

But by the way, if you would like to stay in Cleveland, there still is a public portion portion that would come locally.

And I think that brings into question the model law.

And what does it mean to move a city from its location.

That's one thing the Browns deem.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, it's location the Browns are banking on.

They filed a separate court brief in Cuyahoga County this week where they said, you know, we're talking about one mile move.

That's not a violation of the model law.

Yeah, we'll find out how that applies.

And that's a whole separate subtext.

You know, as I mentioned, the saga is now on and we're here for it.

We're here for the the arguments are going on, the dissection of the finances, whether the model law applies.

All of that stuff is still to be worked out.

And meanwhile, Karen, Governor DeWine was not in favor of bond money from the state, although the legislature saw it sure seems to be his idea to double the sports gambling tax to pay for stadiums, which, by the way, wouldn't bring in as much money at a single time as this bond issue would.

That seems to be dead in the water from the legislature.

Well, he's he's still been a little cautious about saying he's opposed to this bond package because he's certainly trying to sell the sports facilities fund, which, as you just mentioned, will be funded by this doubling of this tax on sports gambling operators.

That's what he wants to see lawmakers do.

But he hasn't 100% come out against the bond package, though he did say when I asked him last week about it, he said $600 million is a lot of money.

It's going to be $900 million for the state over 30 years.

And he said that's a ton of money, money we would not have as the state is paying that back to spend on other things that he says are priorities.

Now.

I'm just not sure, though, if lawmakers really are sold on this.

I mean, when you watch the Ohio House Arts, Athletics and Tourism Committee, where Ted Dowling made the presentation last week, and I got to say this was a very colorful presentation, lots of beautiful pictures and not a whole ton of detail on how exactly the revenue that the Browns say are going to be generated by this project is broken out.

You know, sales taxes, income taxes, that kind of thing.

There were lawmakers who seemed really interested, optimistic, thinking that this is a win win kind of a thing.

But then digging deeper this week for our TV show, the state of Ohio found out that that's not necessarily true.

In fact, Representative Terrence Upchurch, a Democrat on the committee whose district includes Huntington, Mansfield and whose constituents include Jimmy and Dee Haslam, says he's standing with Mayor Bibb and executive Ronayne.

He says that their position is the correct one and he has real concerns about the Brown's projections and all the money and everything involved in this.

Andrew We're talking about an overall budget for this proposed brook Park Stadium of $2.4 billion.

It's not chump change.

1.2 would come from the Haslam's under this proposal, the rest from Bonds.

What's interesting about this, and Ronayne pointed this out this week was the $600 million that would come from the state in bonds.

The Browns are saying that they'll put funds in escrow to help cover that.

They're looking for another 600 million in bonds from the county.

No protections there that have been mentioned.

Interesting.

Also, go ahead to that.

I'm wondering to hear is and I haven't heard anybody be able to address this, that if the state goes ahead and issues these bonds, then the state is on the hook to pay those bonds back.

But what if the other parts of the deal don't come together?

The state is still going to be on the hook to pay those bonds back.

And so I think that's a question that's out there.

And once again, the real question of the Browns, Ted, Taiwan's performance, the handsome sports group, I should be saying, said that this was going to create $2.9 billion in economic activity, but didn't really break down exactly how that would come about.

If income taxes are a big part of that, what happens if the legislature makes further changes on the income tax rate, which in the last seven budgets there have been cuts to the income tax rate.

So what would happen?

How would that affect that?

And one member of the committee, Representative David Thomas, who's the former auditor of Ashtabula County, asked that question.

He said he feels confident in the answer and he's actually supportive of the plan.

He thinks it's a good idea.

Darrell's got a question via email.

So how much will a maintenance and inevitable renovation to this cost to the public on top of the building cost and interest on that that interestingly hasn't Haslam sports group said any overruns on construction they'll cover.

But what Chris Ronayne pointed out in his press conference is there isn't anything in this proposal at this moment about who then takes care of maintenance and upkeep.

And right now, Cuyahoga County is on the hook for maintenance and upkeep when it comes to the gateway facilities.

Yeah, and one of the thing that's also in this mix to here is infrastructure.

Who's going to pay for all of that?

And the has some sports groups presentation to the committee said that those costs could be 57 to $73 million.

Who's taking care of that?

Is that something they're going to come to the legislature for, or is that going to be a local or a county obligation?

I think that that's another question that's out there.

Got another thought here.

This one from Jaffe says, I'm tired of the city leaders always being asleep at the wheel.

They should have been out in front of the stadium issues years ago.

Instead, they jump in when it's probably too late.

Now the city wants to put on a show for the residents to make it appear they're fighting to keep the team in the city when in fact, the city should know they have no chance of winning the suit with the model law, etc.

wasting more money with no chance of winning.

That's Jeff's point of view.

And what's interesting about that, Karen and Andrew, is that they have argued the model group that the city is doing wrong by US residents, by wanting to keep the team here because it will cost the city somewhere around $500 million, which it has offered is its portion.

It's saying, listen, you're going to squander that money to pay for part of this stadium when usually the argument is, you know, opposite where a city is the stadium, the people, the team would be happy that the city is paying that kind of money.

Well, when you're looking at the average lifespan of a stadium, I think a lot of sports economists pegged that around 30 years.

And looking at the Browns current stadium, it's at the end of its lifespan.

And it's not mean it's going to fall down, but it's going to require a whole lot of maintenance.

So where's the money this spent?

Is it in updating that or is it in creating this whole new.

Let's remind everybody that it's not just about a stadium in Brook Park.

It's an entire entertainment complex.

Right?

Yeah.

And the Hassam Sports Group is really selling this is a $3.4 billion complex with shopping and office space and apartments and all of this.

And that's, again, raising the questions of exactly what the mix would be that would create the economic activity.

But another thing here, too, is do people want this?

This will not come up for a vote.

This is something that potentially the legislature could add to the budget, though I think we would be more likely to see it later on in the process, like in conference committee were or frankly, there'd be less discussion on it than if it were inserted in, say, the House version of the budget.

That's coming probably in the next two weeks.

There's a lot of money.

I mean, $800 a ticket by in 30 years.

I mean, that's a lot of money.

The assumption that there would be sellouts for all of that time.

Browns games do home games do sell out.

The last year we were, what, three and 14 and still had eight sell out home games, but $800 a ticket and every parking space filled.

I mean, these are really big assumptions here.

And of course, the question that has been asked by some who are concerned about this is what if those projections are wrong?

Then what happens then?

Senate Bill one sailed through the Ohio House this week, sponsored by Republican State Senator Jerry Serino of Kirtland.

It bans diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public state universities and community colleges.

would ban faculty strikes and would subject tenured professors to review for poor performance.

It went through the Senate and it now through the House as well.

That's a representative.

I mean, Senator Serino Right.

Which one is that it?

Senator Right.

They all jump back and forth so many times they do.

That's what term limits is brought.

I'm not saying he did, but yes.

So I meant Senator Jerry Serino.

But yeah, so it was already passed through the Senate.

Now the House concurs.

There will have to be some sort of agreement on some of the changes made and it'll go to the governor's desk.

It brought a lot of protests, some of it happening while the bill was debated, but it passed pretty easily.

Karen Yeah, there was a big group of students and faculty groups that were protesting this who have been very loud in opposition to this bill.

Even last session when it was Senate Bill 83, they marched down from Ohio State to be at the state House during the debate.

The debate went on so long that they ended their protest and went home.

So but they continued to be out there for at least part of it.

It did pass easily in the sense that it passed along party lines.

Majority the supermajority is Republicans in the legislature.

There were five Republicans overall in the legislature who voted against it, two in the Senate and three in the House.

All Democrats voted against it and now it goes back to the House or the Senate for a couple of changes.

And then on to Governor Mike DeWine, who has said he will probably sign it.

Among those who protested Connor were students.

They came out.

Yeah, there were folks just I believe was yesterday on Kent State University's campus that marched Ohio State students marched to the state house several days ago.

And students are arguing, you know, this is they say that this is looking like they're trying to erase history.

This is a quote from one of the students in the case, Kent State.

You know, without learning about the people or the things that have happened before us, you know, how are we expected to navigate this world?

So we had a discussion about this Thursday on Sound of Ideas.

Lisa wrote in to the programs that both of my children want, a top college grad, want a skilled creative who went right into the industry, have rejected Ohio due to the anti DIY and anti LGBTQ energy in our state.

I don't think this is also true for other younger people who are rejecting the political issues.

I do think this is true for other younger people rejecting the political climate in Ohio.

The the notion I think you're probably hearing this too, Karen, from Democrats who voted against this is that this makes Ohio a less welcoming place.

Yeah, and they're very concerned about the loss not only of people writ large, essentially seeing this as the climate, but also specifically faculty members and students who may decide to choose colleges and universities outside of Ohio because of their concerns about this.

But Republicans will tell you that this pushes back on liberal indoctrination college campuses, and they feel that this will make this a more welcoming place, a place for more free speech.

That remains to be seen.

And the question that Democrats have been asking is the same one I had to ask in the last segment What if they're wrong?

What if these ideas are about bringing out intellectual diversity on controversial topics and eliminating diversity training programs and that sort of thing, and banning faculty strikes?

What if that actually has the opposite effect?

Also interesting here is the Democrats voted against it, you said largely along party lines, but there were three Republicans that also voted against it.

One of them, Jason Stevens, who was a Republican representative, used to be the House speaker.

That's why we didn't see this thing make it past this point last time.

But since he's not the speaker, a leadership change makes a big difference.

Yeah, that was one that we were watching.

We were actually wondering if he was going to be a no vote because he had always said that the vote, the vote on then Senate Bill 83 did not come to the House floor because the votes weren't there to pass it, not because he was blocking it, but he obviously was opposed to it.

He was one of the five total Republicans who voted against it.

And that one was just kind of interesting.

Now, the House is different than the House he presided over because there's been turnover.

New Republicans have come in, some Republicans have left.

But clearly there was the the support this time, too, to get it through.

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District must cut at least $160 million over the next two years, according to its CEO.

One casualty, which has drawn protest, could be the extra instruction time at schools with extended academic calendars.

Also in Akron, the public schools are considering cutting nearly 60 positions as part of a financial reorganization.

To counter.

Let's start with Cleveland.

They laid out places where the district could lightly cut, and that extended instruction time is one that's really getting pushback from teachers.

Parents as well would cut teacher pay, first of all, but also the instruction time in the classroom.

What's the justification for saying we don't want these longer school years in these specialty schools?

Sure.

So they're about 24, a little bit more than that.

Schools that have these extended year calendars, they've also got a number of schools have these extra minutes per day.

So about 30 minutes per day in extra instruction.

The school district says they did a research study.

They found that there wasn't really a lot of benefit from this.

And they also say that it would save this amount of money, about almost $10 million a year, 9.3 million annually.

And so they're in kind of a hard spot here because if you look at their their budget, you know, their budget forecast, it looks like, you know, almost $100 million in the negative.

So all any cash reserve completely obliterated, you know, at the end of like the next two years, basically.

So it doesn't look good.

I found it interesting, too, that they said that the extra time a lot of that is teacher development and it's not necessarily classroom time.

There was one teacher who got up and said this extra time would be great if we were actually teaching the students.

That seems to be what one of the arguments is, is if we have the extended school year, don't think that means kids are in classroom a whole lot longer.

It's a lot less than you think.

Yeah, and it depends on there's a couple of different models.

So it's a little confusing to kind of report on for me.

But you know, some schools, they've got like 24 extra days, for example, and all of that is on instruction.

Those are classroom days.

Some of the schools, they've got 19 days and it's all professional development in three extra classroom days.

And that's where you heard that one teacher from John Adams High School in Cleveland.

She was saying, you know, we've got all this professional development.

You know, we're developing some some good positive things.

But also our students really need that extra time just to get caught up.

And there have also been some issues with these extended year schools as well.

One of the principals actually out also, John Adams, said actually because there are so many different calendar models at CMC, there's four or five different models our students are and families are really confused.

He said that there are a lot of students that aren't even showing up for the first three or four weeks of class because of confusion with the way that the schedule works.

So that is a real problem for the school district.

I mean missing even a week of school, two weeks of school is horrible for a student's academic achievement and ability to to move forward.

Talk We talked about the need to make these big cuts and the nearly $100 million hole at the end of the 2728 school year.

It could get a whole lot worse depending on what the federal budget is.

Yes, exactly.

So, you know, Trump had just said this week that they're they're moving forward with really dismantling the Department of Education.

One of the big things that they provide is funding for students with disabilities.

The poorest school districts in Ohio and in Cleveland and across the country often are dealing with large numbers of students with disabilities.

There's also some funding for lower income students as well that is coming from the Department of Education.

So Trump has said, you know, he wants that stuff to continue eventually could all be sent back to the states.

And there are some real questions about how that could be administered at the state level.

You know, is there the staffing, you know, available to do that at that event yesterday with President Trump, Governor Mike DeWine was there right in the second row.

Karen Yeah, he was.

And as I understand it, he was invited.

There were several other governors who were there, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, some other folks, he was called out by name.

It was interesting because I think some of us were a little surprised that he would be there because he just overhauled the Ohio Department of Education to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, and that maybe he and the president differ on this.

But he was he was there.

All right.

Looking at Akron, real quickly, Conner, they're looking to right size the district.

They're also looking to cut positions.

They're facing similar money woes.

Yeah, absolutely.

They're trying to do about 10 million in cuts overall over the next couple of years.

And what's that look that's looking like currently is almost 60 positions that they want to cut over the next.

They're trying to get this figured out in the next month or two.

They're negotiating with their various unions and that could be a mix of, you know, people that are actually in positions, but also they're hoping more.

So folks retiring, eliminating empty positions, things of that nature.

So we're going to see I mean, they just cut 285 positions last year, which is quite a bit as well.

And there are a lot of teachers with that, too.

The 10th District Court of Appeals this week declared the Ohio law banning gender affirming care for minors unconstitutional.

The three judge panel, all Democrats, ruled that the law prevents parents from exercising a fundamental right to seek medical care for children.

Karen, the legal case is not over for House Bill 68, and I don't think anybody expected it to be over until it goes to the Ohio Supreme Court, because this was a law that had essentially two laws put together in it.

It was the ban on gender affirming care for minors and then also a ban on trans athletes and girls sports.

Now, the district court or the appeals court here dealt with only the first part of that and said that, yeah, it's unconstitutional because it violates the rights of parents to make decisions for their minor children and noted that the legislature banned that care for minors but not for adults.

So why are adults being trusted for their own care but not being trusted to decide the care for their minor children?

So this is going to be appealed again.

It's already been appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court.

That's the next step.

And Yost is also trying to I'm sorry, Attorney General DeVos is also trying to get a stay to stop the blocking of this law from going into effect, because right now the law is not in effect because of that.

There's an order to stay that.

Kent State University's Board of Trustees gave the green light this week to a reorganization plan that will consolidate colleges and significantly reduce the number of deans and department heads.

think it still came as a surprise when saw how many deans and department heads would be reduced and either put into other positions or who we don't know the fate of those folks.

Yeah, it's the transformation 2020.

It should all be in place by 2028.

So it's going to be some time before this all kind of happens.

But yes, 78 academic leaders, you know, department heads, deans, etc., that's been chopped down to 30.

Pretty significant reduction there.

But, you know, the university is saying we're going to most of these folks are going to be returning to a faculty position.

They're going to lose a significant amount of their of their salary.

But still, you know, faculty salaries are nothing to sneeze at, of course, And they are nine month appointments versus a 12 month thing.

So there are some savings there for the folks that are left that aren't returning to faculty.

You know, it's kind of too soon to say.

The university says there's a lot of kind of synergies that the university is trying to put into place here with all of these different colleges and schools being placed under kind of singular umbrellas.

So they're hoping that support staff can be shared and some money can be saved that way.

What remains to be seen, though, is does that mean the folks that are, you know, kind of having these synergies in place here, does that mean those folks are going to be fired if they say we don't need you anymore?

In addition to this transformation 2028 plan, which as we note, is being pushed by all kinds of financial pressures at all kinds of colleges are feeling.

They've also talked about other moves like inactivating nine majors at the university.

Yeah.

And the university.

I talked to the spokesperson briefly about this because I was like, is this part of the transformation plan?

And they're like, no, this is something we do every spring, essentially to try to look at all of the under enrolled programs.

And then we cut.

But we're seeing that at colleges and universities across the region, across the country.

You know, Youngstown State, just, you know, about a year or two ago did the same thing.

CSU just last year did the same thing as well, along with cutting staff.

So they're kind of looking at and lawmakers generally are very supportive of this.

It's kind of a pitch almost that they're making to the state House as well.

Like we are being responsible stewards.

We are looking at the demand for these programs.

And we see that there's low demand.

So we're going to cut some of these.

It sounds like the plot of a space station themed Gilligan's Island.

Two Nassau astronauts who arrived at the International Space Station last June for an eight day mission just a bit longer than a three hour tour, returned to Earth nine months later than anticipated.

And the reason we're talking about it here on the local Sound of Ideas roundtable is something I didn't know until I started seeing some of the coverage.

Is that one of those astronauts was born in Brooklyn, born in Euclid, and went to Case outside Case Western Reserve University.

Her father went to Case where it was a worked a case where her father worked the case.

Yes.

So?

So Suni, with roots.

Roots, In fact, you know, in doing little research on this, I also learned a little bit more.

Previous mission she took with her to the two space, some Slovenian smoked sausage from assignments meets market assignments.

Meat market because she has is also of Slovenian descent.

I'm guessing she didn't take any on this most recent trip, or at least not enough to last for nine months.

Certainly not a nine month.

Her mother was from northeast Ohio, as well as Slovenian descent, which is explains the sausage.

But it was interesting, she didn't stay here very long, but still has these local roots.

This is kind of like how it always goes.

You know, like astronauts return probably.

Page four was from Euclid.

Page one, Right.

Trump famously complimented her her hair as well, too.

And when he was saying that he was going to bring them home, he was saying she's got the most beautiful hair.

Big hair.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 seven, KSU Americans are spending a lot more time at home.

But when does a long time become loneliness?

Will consult researchers and a psychologist.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching.

And stay safe.