Ohio: Westerville

Salcedo, 29, of Westerville, had to quit her job as a bilingual employment recruiter to take care of her son.

Without more than $40,000 from a state fund for crime victims, Salcedo said, she'd never have been able to give her son the attention and therapy he needed to recover.

While the boy, Julien Rader, is doing better, the fund that helped pay for his recovery is clinging to life.

Attorney General Richard Cordray, whose office administers the Crime Victims Compensation Fund, warned lawmakers in April that the fund will be empty in two years without changes. Cordray repeated those warnings in a Dispatch interview Friday.

"I've assured (crime victims) that whatever it takes, we will protect this fund," Cordray said.

The governor's school-funding proposal, which Strickland says accounts for the cost of a 21st-century education based on student needs, spells out the minimum level of support children need.

But a Dispatch survey of enrollment and staffing figures among central Ohio school districts found that many currently aren't meeting those levels.

• All of the 20 districts that responded would have to reduce class sizes in kindergarten through third grade to meet the state's 15-to-1 student-teacher ratio. Bexley's 19-to-1 ratio was the lowest; Dublin, Groveport Madison, Pickerington, South-Western and Westerville were at the other end, with at least 26 students per teacher.

• Only a handful of districts have nurses' aides stationed in the quantities set out by the state.

"I've been traveling around the state of Ohio because, as many of you know, I've been thinking about running for governor of the state of Ohio," Kasich told about 150 here last week at a Lincoln Day dinner jointly sponsored by the Republican parties in Seneca and Sandusky counties.

The former congressman from Westerville has been the hottest speaker on the GOP rubber-chicken circuit for two years and has about a dozen county Lincoln Day speeches lined up in February and March.

But political observers from both parties are beginning to wonder just when -- and if -- Kasich actually will declare his candidacy, contending that he can't wait too long if he hopes to seriously challenge the popular incumbent, Democrat Ted Strickland, who already has a $2 million head start.

Ohioans aren't familiar with the details of Gov. Ted Strickland's new school-funding plan, but they like what they've seen so far, a poll unveiled this morning shows.

A big reason might be that they like Strickland; the survey shows him swamping a pair of possible 2010 challengers, topping former Westerville Congressman John R. Kasich 56 to 26 percent, and former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine 54 percent to 32 percent.

Although fewer than half of those in the Quinnipiac University poll said they were even somewhat familiar with Strickland's plan, 42 percent said it will improve education in Ohio, compared to 22 percent who didn't think it would.

A bare majority -- 51 percent -- back Strickland's proposal to increase Ohio's school year from 180 to 200 days; 42 percent are opposed.