Latest / Chuck Douglas / State Senator Andrew Breener in studio and working from home

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State Senator Andrew Breener in studio and working from home · Chuck Douglas

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Well, our final segment together on the Power Hour this week.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: This is going to be it got Andrew Britder, State
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Senator in the studio. He will be heading the Education
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Committee again and you're one on which you're serving on
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: one other committee.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: I'm on actually a bunch of committees. I'm on Finance
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Committee because we will be dealing with the budget later
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: this year. I'm on Government Oversight and Reform, which deals
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: with a lot of the controversial bills sometimes like elections bills.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I'm actually working on an elections bill. And then I'm
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: on Rules and Reference. And what's the other one, Housing Committee,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: And that's one that we're trying to address, you know,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: the housing shortage and what can we do to try
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: to streamline processes, cut government regulations and costs, you know,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: still have accountability, but make sure that you know, we
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: can get more product, more homes onto the market.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: And here's one of the cool things about Andrew Britter.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to say it straight to your face.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: He's accessible even if you are not in you know,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: what you would consider to be his area, or you
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: know something that falls under one of his committees or whatever.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: You know, he's a state Senator, if you've got a
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: concern and nobody else is listening to you and you
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: think he might be able to help, call the office
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: or hit him, he's all over He's on Facebook and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Twitter and all that kind of stuff, so it's not
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: hard to track him down. And and like today, he
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: could have been on the phone and given me ten
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: minutes and instead here he's been in here for almost
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: two hours, live and in person to talk and answer
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: and talk to you guys. So if you need him,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: there he is. We have been waiting. Hang on a
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: second here, let me. I pushed the wrong button and
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I put that one back on hold. We have been
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: waiting for this call. I do not want you to
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: be nervous. Jericha, how are you good? How are you
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: doing any call?
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Well?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I thank you, And you wrote a very I mean
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: it was very long, but you wrote a very nice
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: message and response to the going back to going back
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: into the office made some really valid points. And I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: don't know, are you like a union rapper or anything,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: because if not, you should be No.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: I am not a union red.
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  Speaker 1: I mean somebody like you. Honestly, your words were very
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: concise and your points were strong. If I were working
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: in your office. You're the kind of person I would
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: kind of like speaking up on my behalf. So go ahead.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: And this is this whole idea of returning to work.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: You said there's a downside here, you want to make
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: sure people know about.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and again, thanks for taking my call. I wish
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: that people would stop saying return to work and have
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: it listed as return to office. The work has never stopped,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: at least for my department. And I know state workers
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: get a stigma around being lazy and they don't get
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: anything done. From my experience with working in the state,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: that is far from it. I started two weeks before
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: COVID started and got sent home and I didn't even
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: know most of my team member's names. I was that
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: new to my department. I learned my whole job remotely.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: And I understand that politicians want us back in the
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: office to save the businesses downtown and they're losing money
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: on real estate. But let let's just come out and
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: say that's why they want us back down there. It's
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: not because of productivity. If that was the issue, we
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: would have been brought in years ago.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: So few works are downtown though, now, aren't they? I
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: mean most most of them are in suburban office buildings
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: and things like that, so you're kind of in a
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  Speaker 1: you're in a small group of state employees. If you're
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: still working in downtown Columbus.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I'm in the tower. Downtown is a
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  Speaker 3: big one, Okay. And one of my complaints about going
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: back into the office is it feels like it's just
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: because they can't there's no real issue or there's no
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: real reasoning behind it. The governor even said we have
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: saved I think he said fifteen point one million dollars
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: by having workers work remotely. My job that I do,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: i'm customer service. Ninety five percent of my job is
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: on the computer. I actually am able to help the
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: state buy working from home because I can get back
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  Speaker 3: to the customers quicker because I don't have the office politics,
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: the office drama, the interruptions by being in the office.
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  Speaker 3: When I come into the office for our meetings, I
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: don't even have a debt. I have to sit away
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: from my team. So coming into the office, they're going
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: to have to spend money to rearrange and redo our
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: office to make sure our team can sit together. Because
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: there's not enough office space for us and then parking
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  Speaker 3: garages have already started raising prices from twelve dollars to
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  Speaker 3: I've seen seventeen to twenty dollars to go into work.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not going to be able to afford that, and
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  Speaker 3: I'm not going to be able to afford to save
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  Speaker 3: the businesses downtown because of this added expense.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you, Jerko, when you got your job
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: and they said, okay, here's how much we're paying. You know,
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  Speaker 1: I don't need to talk about how much you're making,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: but here's how much we're paying. That was two weeks
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: before the COVID go home thing, right, Yeah. Now if
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: you were still, if there was no such thing as
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: COVID and you were working, how what would you be
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: doing with the parking money? I mean probably it would
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: have been a little bit less because they wouldn't jack
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: up the prices, but you'd still be paying for the
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: parking every day. Is it? Are you going to realize it?
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  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I was.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Just going to ask you. Between paying for parking and everything,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: all right, I'm assuming you're going to realize a pretty
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: big hit. It's almost like taking a pay reduction. But
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: on the flip side of that, you've had a couple
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: of years where you were promised, you know, X number
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: of dollars and you were actually making X number of
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: dollars plus bonus of not having to pay for downtown
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  Speaker 1: lunch or downtown parking. So does that does that balance
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  Speaker 1: out in your mind at all?
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  Speaker 3: It does not, just because of the prices of everything
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: has gone up. And now since the time I started
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: to now, I have a child, and so now and
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: I understand mister Brinner's argument about the childcare. I have childcare.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: My family takes care of my daughter, so I don't
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: have to worry about that, but there there are costs
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  Speaker 3: with that. Even though I was able to say five
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  Speaker 3: years of parking, it's not it doesn't balance out for me.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: I think most I can't speak for most employees, but
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: it's so much that goes into it that it's not
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: going to balance out.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is Center Brenner again. I mean, we think
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  Speaker 2: about what's also happened is the federal government has stopped
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: spending the additional money. I mean, the state of Ohio
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: had billions of dollars also poured into it, on top
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: of the fact that you all were working from home.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: But you know, and I think you said the state
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: may have saved fifteen million dollars there, but you know,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I mean we're spending you know, tens of billions of
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: dollars per year, and almost all of that is paid
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: to people to work employment, whether they're in an education
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: or working in a medicaid department or working for any
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: of our other state agencies. You know, we're paying people
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: to work, and the bulk of the money that we
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: get and spend in taxpayer revenue is for that. And
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: I don't necessarily disagree dispute your you're suggesting that you're productive,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: you in fact may be uh. There may be a
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  Speaker 2: lot of uh. And I think there are probably a
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  Speaker 2: lot of highly productive employees that work for the State
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  Speaker 2: of Ohio. However, I also know that there are a
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: lot of employees who are not as productive. And I
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: think that you're you're not seeing some of the innovation
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: and changes that we would otherwise have maybe seen had
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: we had employees in the office. So I I think
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: that there is a need to bring many people back
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  Speaker 2: and and you know, I I agree with the governor
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  Speaker 2: and in trying to do that. Now, you know, if
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  Speaker 2: there's some better way that we can see that shows
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  Speaker 2: that you know, productivity is is good or better and
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  Speaker 2: it's cheaper. Uh, then let's then let's start selling off
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  Speaker 2: some of these buildings and getting some of those taxpayer
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  Speaker 2: dollars recouped.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Is the situation, Jeriica. I mean, is there anything that
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: you'd say, Okay, I don't I don't want to really
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: do that. But if this were to happen, like you know,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: a month at the office in a week work from
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  Speaker 1: home or some kind of rotation like that, would that
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  Speaker 1: be helpful to you in any way? Or is it
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  Speaker 1: at all or nothing kind of thing?
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  Speaker 3: It would be helpful. It would be helpful. And in fact,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: I think maybe a week before the governor came out
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  Speaker 3: with his return to author's mandate, our department was in
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: discussion with having us come in one day a week,
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  Speaker 3: which no, I was not happy with, but I can
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  Speaker 3: agree if they want to send the office, then I
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: can compromise. But I just feel like five days a week,
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: especially when we have to spend money to put everyone
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: in a chair, it's just basically busts and chairs. There's
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: no real reason behind it other than a financial reason,
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  Speaker 3: is what I'm seeing. And then now with policies that
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: are coming out. If you live outside forty miles from
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  Speaker 3: your location, you don't have to come in. It's not
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: that doesn't make sense, that's not providing a real reason.
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  Speaker 3: It's just because big Brother can is what it comes
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  Speaker 3: off at. Its people aren't be productive in their jobs.
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  Speaker 3: Bring them in a matter of fact, if they're not
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: being productive and they're not doing their job and they're
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: wasting taxpayer dollars, get rid of them because we don't
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: want we don't want employees like that.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I agree with that, and actually I agree also if
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: that actually might incentivize people to work forty miles away
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: from where they're supposed to be in order so that
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: they wouldn't have to come in.
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  Speaker 3: But and that's going to take away tax dollars from
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: living in the city. I feel like the state's missing
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: a big opportunity to get and retain talent.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: That's actually been an issue that has come up was
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: the fact that people are working remotely, but they're still
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: being taxed as if they're in the local jurisdiction. That
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: has been an issue. I think we've tried to address
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: it in the General Assembly. We've had some issues with that,
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  Speaker 2: and I don't think it's fair if somebody is working
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: remotely and they're outside of a taxing jurisdiction that they
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: should be taxed on their wages.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Hey, Jake, I'm about to run out of time here,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: but I want to tell you Sally. First of all,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I've never talked to you before, I've never heard from
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: you before today, but you are welcome on the airways
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: anytime when I'm working. And secondly, you said you've been
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: at the job for five years. I hope that you
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: end up running something because even if we disagree on stuff,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: you know what, you're open minded, you're conversive, you are
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: passionate about what you're caring about, and you're willing to
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: sit and talk about it and have a conversation and
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: try to work out something. And that is something that
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: is missing ninety percent of the time when it comes
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: to any situation like this. So you are You're way
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: more valuable on this planet than you might think you are.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you guys so much. Thanks for taking my call.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: You're very welcome. You're welcome here anytime before I say
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: goodbye to you. Any websites, any phone calls, people need
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: to make, anything that they could do to help make
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, a better year in the legislature or
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: for your office. He's looking at me like, no, you
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: can't help me. I got this. Are you a Twitter?
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I follow you on Twitter.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Or now I'm on ed Andrew on Twitter. I've also
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: at Brenner for Ohio on Twitter, probably when I'll announce
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: my many runs for various statewide offices. But no, yeah,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: I'm on there my local office, actually all the offices.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: If you're emailing somebody in the Ohio Senate, it's their
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: last name at Ohio Senate dot gov. So in my case,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: it's Brenner at Ohio Senate dot gov and feel free
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: to send an emails. We check those all the time,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: got staff on there, and we do follow up with
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: constituents on a regular routine basis, and love actually talking
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: to constituents, even once you disagree with me. I had
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: somebody called in, I think it was yesterday, very upset
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: on my vote on Senate Bill one. And actually she
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: was upset. She was afraid that I think we were,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know. She end up hanging up on me, So.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I hate it when that happens. Yeah, it's you know
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: if you'd want to disagree, Let's disagree, but don't just
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: call and yell, use some profanity whatever and then hang
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: up the phone. Let's have the conversation.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she didn't have she didn't use any profanity, but
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: she was upset the way I voted. She felt that
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: it was you know, inappropriate and all that. And I'm
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: thinking myself, No, we're trying to get individual, you know,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: diversity inside our colleges instead of And part of my
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: floor speech was yesterday that I think it was one
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: of the OpenSecrets dot org, like ninety some percent, ninety
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: three percent of all donations went to Kamala Harris from
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Higher Ed. So if there's a diversity of thought there,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry it's not there. And if if you've got
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: that many people voting for one particular person went just
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: back in the nineteen eighties, even it was about a
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: third to third to third in the amount of people
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: who are moderate conservative and liberal that were that taught
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: in higher Eds. I mean, you know you're now looking
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: at like that's about forty years ago. But there's been
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: a huge shift in the last thirty to forty years.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: And this is why we were taking it.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: On yeah, you get the minds of the young people.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: You own the future. That's what it comes down to.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And you'll notice that, you know the whole DEI mental
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and eighty seven gender crowd and so forth. We stopped
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: seven or eight years ago, we stopped hearing the word equality,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: started hearing the word equity. There's a difference there, folks.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Equity meaning I want what you have, Equality meaning I
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: want a chance to have what you have. That's that's
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the difference. And every person in this country is equal.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: We have equality. You come out of the womb and
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: you can be president, you can be a janitor, whatever
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: you choose to be. Equity means whatever I choose to be,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: you get the stuff that I get for being what
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I am. And that's that's.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Not the United States. That's not that's not our capitalist nation.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: That's not about individual freedom. That's about redistribution. That's all
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: this is about. And unfortunately, my colleagues on the other
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: side of the aisle, they believe that that is in
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: fact what Martin Luther King wants, and that's definitely not
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: what he wanted.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Dream of a time in the land where my children
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: will not be judged by the color the color of
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: their skimbit, rather by the con tent of their character.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Not judged by the color of their skin, not judged well,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: not judged badly, not judged at all by the color
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: of their skin. It doesn't matter what they are, how
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: they conduct themselves, how they act, what they bring to
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: this world. That's what determines how they're perceived and how
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: they're treated. That's what the dream was all about. It
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: wasn't about you getting what I get just because you exist.