Good morning, Cincinnati! Here are your morning headlines.
Two top officials at Cincinnati’s VA Medical Center have landed in hot water with the The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. On Thursday, The feds removed Dr. Barbara Temeck, the chief of staff for the medical center, from her position. Officials from the department also proposed that Jack Hetrick, director of the regional Veterans Integrated Service Network, be removed from his position. Hetrick submitted his notice for retirement Thursday after he was informed of the department’s proposal. The actions come in response to the results of an investigation by the VA Office of the Medical Inspector and Office of Accountability. The preliminary results found Temeck was referring veterans to clinics outside the VA as a way to cut costs for the clinic. The move resulted in many veterans reporting issues with the quality of care from other clinics and difficulties navigating the bureaucracy that came along with it.
• Ohio’s Department of Education released its state report cards for each school district Thursday, and based on its report card results, if Cincinnati Public Schools were a bratty 16-year-old, it’d be grounded for sure. The report cards rank districts based on students’ results for state tests, district spending of public money and how well the school addressed achievement gaps for different groups of students. According to the scores, CPS is falling far behind in its graduation rates and how it handles students with disabilities, earning “Fs” in these categories. It is doing well with the gifted kids, however, earning an A in this category. Overall, the district got 2 “As,” 1 “B,” 1 “C,” 1 “D” and 5 “Fs.” But even though CPS’s scores appear to be very sub-par, some have questioned the relevance of the information, which is based off of a standardized test the state no longer uses.
• The Tracie Hunter saga continues. Supporters behind former Hamilton County are claiming that officials have allowed critical computer evidence in her case to be destroyed. At a press conference Thursday, they claimed that special prosecutors or juvenile court officials allowed one computer with the vital evidence to be erased while mishandling the other computer’s hard drive and called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the issue. Hunter was convicted in 2014 on a felony charge of mishandling confidential documents. She recently lost an appeal on the conviction and has asking the state’s Supreme Court to review the case.
• Gov. John Kasich has held on tightly to his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, and he’s not giving up any time soon. He told a crowd of his supporters on Wednesday that he will not be dropping out of the race. But political experts are speculating on how long Kasich will actually stay in following poor results in Nevada and South Carolina during the past week. Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges says he might do better in Mississippi, Virginia and Vermont, the neighboring state of New Hampshire, where he came in second behind Donald Trump in the state’s GOP primary. But it’s still going to be a long, difficult and unlikely road for Kasich to actually catch up to frontrunner Trump.
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2016.
