Morning News and Stuff

Since Ohio sold the Lake Erie Correctional Institution to the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), prisoner accounts and independent audits have

found deteriorating conditions at the minimum- and medium-security facility

. In the past few months, prisoners detailed unsanitary conditions and rising violence at the prison, which were later confirmed by official incident reports and a surprise inspection from the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee. Now, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio is calling on the state to do more to hold CCA accountable. To read the full story,

click here

.

A Northern Kentucky lawsuit backed by the tea party is

threatening library funding across the state

. The problems get into the specifics of Kentucky’s tax code, potentially unraveling the entire library system by forcing the state’s libraries to get voter approval before increasing or decreasing taxes. If the courts rule against the libraries, the libraries could have to set their tax rates back to levels from decades ago, leading to considerably less funding for the public institutions.

City Council is set to approve a budget plan today that will

avoid laying off cops and firefighters

, but it will make considerable cuts to many other city programs, increase fees for various services and raise property taxes. The public safety layoffs were averted despite months of threats from city officials that such layoffs couldn’t be avoided without the city’s plan to

semi-privatize parking assets

. But the parking plan is being held up in court, and City Council managed to avoid the public safety layoffs anyway.

Commentary: “Commissioners’ Proposed Streetcar Cut Ignores the Basics.”

A budget bill from the Ohio Senate would

keep social issues at the forefront

and refocus tax reforms on small businesses instead of all Ohioans. The bill would potentially allow Ohio's health director to shut down abortion clinics, effectively defund Planned Parenthood, fund anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers and forgo the Medicaid expansion, while cutting taxes by 50 percent for business owners instead of going through with a 7-percent across-the-board tax cut for all Ohioans.

The Ohio legislature is moving to

take away

the state auditor’s powers to audit private funds that JobsOhio and other taxpayer-funded private entities take in. State Auditor Dave Yost is looking to do a full audit of JobsOhio that includes private funds, but other Republicans, led by Gov. John Kasich, have pushed back, claiming Yost can only check on public funds. JobsOhio is a privatized development agency that Kasich and Republican legislators established to eventually replace the Ohio Department of Development.

A teacher who was fired from a Catholic school when she got pregnant through artificial insemination when she was single is taking the Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati to court, with hearings

now underway

. The Church’s critics argue that the Vatican’s stance on single pregnant women is discriminatory, since it makes it much easier to enforce anti-premarital sex rules against women than men.

Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) is

facing $14.8 million in deficits

in its next budget — a sign that years of cuts are continuing at the school district. CPS says the shortfall is driven by state cuts, which CityBeat previously covered in greater detail and how they relate to CPS

here

.

Hamilton County commissioners are asking Cincinnati to

merge its 911 call centers

with the county. The change would likely save money for both Cincinnati and Hamilton County, but it remains uncertain how it would affect the effectiveness of 911 services.

Scientists are using yogurt to study how food

interacts with the brain

.

CityBeat is doing a quick survey on texting while driving. Participate

here

.

To get your questions answered in CityBeat’s Answers Issue, submit your questions

here

.