Eric J Brewer:  That ain't Mayor Frank Jackson. It's his brother, Nicholas Jackson. He's the Assistant Deputy /Associate Superintendent of Assignments for Cleveland school CEO Eric Gordon. I have no idea what the fuck he does. Last year Nicholas worked 260 days for $143,931. Governor John Kasich's salary is $148,316. Jackson's wages in 2013 were $136,758. His brother has far less responsibility than the state's governor and mayor of the Ohio's 2nd largest city. Gordon's salary is $239,000 with $12,000 annual bonuses if he performs well. He makes $103,000 more than the mayor who appoints him and $91,000 more than the governor. I do not believe any public employee of the state should earn more than the governor.

That's the kind of money they're paying administrators in the Cleveland "Metropolitan" School District to get big fat "F's" on academic report cards. This is where the Issue 108 money is going. And no, Gordon better not get a $12,000 bonus. Whatever bonuses he's already received should be returned. Go to this link and type in your kid's teacher's name. The prinicipal, too, and the janitors. Type in everybody you know who works for the Cleveland Municipal School District to see what they're earning.http://www.tos.ohio.gov/State_Salary/

I could care less that Jackson's brother got hooked up with a job, and this is not about the Jackson's. I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't hook up, some legal way, folk I loved or dear friends. But I'm not the mayor, Jackson's the mayor. He's asking voters of Cleveland to continue a levy that raised $40 million and promised results. The money was supposed to be "for the children." All levies are "for the children."

But Cleveland school employees - teachers, administrators, bosses - are working 260 hours a year for the kind of money Jackson's brother is making, and they want more. They'll always want more because levies are needed every two years to cover their cost of living adjustments. None of this shit is about "the children." It's about wages, benefits and pensions, and don't ever forget it. It's why not a lot of educators are commenting.

Money is indeed the problem. Judge Linton Lewis of Perry County was the first to rule in 1994 on a claim against the state by the Coalition for Equity and Adequacy in school Funding for failing to adequately fund schools. He ruled that the state had a constitutional duty to provide 100 percent funding for all schools. William Phillis, the guy who led the legal fight, wanted the state to run all schools and abolish local school boards. I interviewed both him and Lewis. George Voinovich came up with a scheme to avoid Lewis' ruling and got Mike DeWine, as attorney general, to jump in with DeRolph. That stripped the case from Lewis, who'd retained control. He was going to be the "Frank Battisti" of the state. Battisti was a federal judge who retained control of Cleveland schools after attorney Jim Hardiman won Reed v. Rhodes 1977 for the NAACP.

Voinovich's scheme was to invest the money into new school buildings and got the legislature to create the Ohio School Facilities Commission. He put his driver, turned state architect, Randall Fischer, in charge; and dude single-handedly, and illegally, awarded $2 billion in no bid contracts to Voinoich contributors like R.P. Carbone Construction to build new school buildings. Carbone early on got 40 percent of the state's school contracts. Fischer should have went to jail, but Voinovich's boys manuevered the complaint against him to the Ohio Ethics Commission where his handpicked director got Fischer a $1200 fine and a words of advice. It was former Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, who I believe referred him for prosecution when she was a common pleas judge in Franklin County. She was outraged by his audacity.

22 years later schools still aren't adequately funded. But it's not because the money isn't available. The district's budget is $1.5 billion. It's bigger than Cuyahoga County's $750 million annual budget. Seriously. It's because of these high assed salaries, benefits and pensions we're paying public employees like Jackson's brother, principals, teachers and everybody else over there working. Jackson's brother earns $5000 less than the governor who oversees a $60 billion budget and 50,000 employees ... full fucking time. No way should his earnings be anywhere close to the governor's.

The average principal is knocking off around $100,000. One teacher got $82,000 in wages for 260 days on the job and they still want more. Striking teachers don't give a shit about kids missing class. All they fucking care about is the gotdamned money. This shit will never end until public employee wages are driven down to a level voters can afford. I have a relative who relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina and earned $35,000 a year as a public school teacher. Southern states do not allow public employee unions to negotiate wages and benefits, and we shouldn't be allowing it in Ohio. Taxpayers can't afford the "inflation" that comes along with these high assed, family income draining public employee union salaries. And for the record, we're only talking about 5.5 percent of the entire U.S. workforce. 90 percent of us are non-union.

This shit is why services in all areas of government have deteriorated. The public employee unions get more money for "their members." We say no to tax increases to cover it. The superintendents kill student extra-curricular activites and layoff younger, lower paid workers because the union is all about "seniority." The older higher paid worker. It's the same in city or county government. Keep in mind that not all government employees are in a public employee union. Only a "select" group are unionized. The majority of public employee workers are non-union. So when cuts come the non-union government workers are the ones who get fucked the most.

This foolishness is killing our local tax bases and all we're getting for these inflated assed salaries is nothing-assed results and a bunch of fucking excuses. "Lack of parental involvement," is the excuse a parent was told by Gordon two days ago. They were saying that shit when I ran for the Cleveland school board in 1983 at 29. Teachers earn $82,000 today. Back then Fred Holliday was the district's $80,000 a year superintedent with 78,000 students.

Our fucking schools are failing. They've been failing. Instead of education employees demanding raises, voters should be demanding refunds for the way children are being educated. Many can barely read. Teachers don't even teach them cursive writing anymore. Haven't for years. If they can't write in cursive they can't read it. Signatures are printed. Shit's deep.

When I was a kid you get caught with a calculator your ass was failed. We learned to calculate math problems on paper and in our heads. We had to work it out. Today it's calculators and kids are still strugging with math. It's not right.

So here's my proposal to the mayor. He's got to fire Gordon and replace the school board. We'd be voting for new school board candidates if we elected them in Cleveland. We'd also be demanding the superintendent's head on a silver platter.

If the mayor doesn't fire him, then Gordon should resign and leave the money left in his contract on the table. Either way, for what we're paying, it ain't working.

No on Issue 108. Voting starts October 12 and ends November 8, 2016.