A Look Back at the Budish Administration

As your community newspaper, we take a serious look at all of our local elected officials’ records. We!

Since being elected County Executive in 2014, the Budish administration has taken on a number of key issues.

Here’s what we found:

Economic Development & Jobs- The Budish administration has made key investments in our community and throughout Cuyahoga County, a change from the previous administration era of only investing in downtown. Our County unemployment rate is now almost half of it was eight years ago. Our young people are choosing to live here again, with our age 25 to 34 populations over 170,000, the highest it has been in decades. Cuyahoga County has also been a leader in job training and providing skills to incumbent employees to advance with their current employers.

Pre-Kindergarten- One of the signature achievements touted by Budish has been his Pre-K initiative. Cuyahoga County has more than double the number of children in Pre-Kindergarten to nearly 4,500 by raising over $13 million from private sector donations and investing $10 million in budget savings from other county departments.

Safety Net Services- Budish’s administration has made a large commitment to the new campus project at MetroHealth. In joint efforts with Cleveland and the State of Ohio, Budish raised millions to fight infant mortality. This year we are seeing the first dividends, with a nearly 20% reduction in preventable deaths. Budish also announced that his administration will be doubling the number of Opioid treatment beds and are fighting to do more next year. It’s important to note that Cuyahoga County has done this while balancing two challenging budgets in the face of dramatic state cuts.

Civil Rights & Elections- Budish’s administration has been a key advocate of protecting the right to vote, including by mail and early in-person voting at the Board of Elections. When the State of Ohio tried to disenfranchise voters by voter purges and in limiting 18 years olds rights to vote, Cuyahoga County stood up to Columbus for us and had success.