As the bill to reform Ohio’s five public pension plans crawls through the General Assembly, the need to deal with the unfunded liabilities only gets more urgent.

A study issued this month by The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions entitled “Hanging By A Thread” places the total unfunded government pension liabilities at $66 billion.

But Ohio isn’t alone in being threatened by this epidemic. An Associated Press survey conducted earlier this year found the 50 states have a combined $690 billion in unfunded liabilities and $418 billion in retiree health-care obligations...

A liberal policy group that previously sued over Gov. John Kasich's privatization of Ohio's economic development functions has filed a similar lawsuit challenging privatization of five state prisons.

ProgressOhio and several prison employees filed the action Thursday in Franklin County.

The lawsuit alleges selling state-owned prisons to private contractors is unconstitutional. It seeks to prevent the state from proceeding with the sales or to block layoffs. It also wants workers at privatized prisons declared public employees...

Officers have found four inmates who escaped from the Columbiana County Jail sometime Sunday night. Mark Foden and William Merritt of East Liverpool, Jason Heffner of Salineville, and John Hamilton of Salem were reported missing from their cells just before six o'clock Monday morning.

But Investigators say the convicts were spotted even earlier about ten miles away from the jail, possibly driving a dark green '95 Buick that was reported stolen from a nearby driveway. "We know where they were at 1:30 in the morning, in a vehicle which we suspect is this Buick", says Columbiana County Sheriff Dave Smith.

Like something straight out of a movie, the inmates apparently tunneled through the electrical and plumbing duct work in the jail, before popping a hatch on the roof…

Peter Argeropulos, chief operating officer for CiviGenics Inc. of Milford, Mass., flew in Monday after four men escaped from the Columbiana County jail that the company runs.

Argeropulos said he received the call about the escape early in the day, and arrived about 5 p.m. "We take this very seriously," he said. Two company investigators have also arrived.

The escape will be investigated and reports will be sent to the sheriff and county commissioners, he said. Columbiana County commissioners own the jail but lease it to the company…

The price tag for unpaid retirement benefits owed by Columbiana County for some former employees hired by the private jail operator in 1997 remains unknown as commissioners prepare for the 2009 tax budget hearing set for 10 a.m. July 9…

…On April 30, commissioners approved a consent judgment entry to settle a court action filed in January by four former employees who were laid off when the county privatized the jail and then rehired by CiviGenics, the private firm the county contracted to run the jail.

The employees claimed the county failed to pay into the public retirement system for their past, present and future time with CiviGenics as ordered by the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System Board in November 2007…

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — A dozen homemade knives were found Tuesday during a prison search by 180 corrections officers.

Belmont Correctional Institution spokeswoman Kathy Cole said the search, known as a clearout, was a routine operation — something that is done at state prison facilities on a rotating basis. The officers are part of specially trained tactical teams.

She noted what initially was thought by union representatives to be a diagram of the jail and surrounding area was actually a sketch of an inmate's neighborhood…

LISBON, OHIO - A decision by Columbiana County commissioners to settle a dispute over retirement benefits for five former county jail employees could prove costly. Just how much so has yet to be determined, but it could be substantial.

Commissioners voted at Wednesday's meeting to enter into a consent agreement with the former jail employees to resolve a lawsuit filed earlier this year with the Ohio 7th District Court of Appeals.

The lawsuit sought a court order requiring commissioners to comply with a decision by the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS), which ruled last November five former employees were entitled to retirement benefits dating back to 1998, when a private company took over operating the jail…