But the only thing that’s clear about the possible sequester is there’s a lot of confusion.

If the sequester kicks in on March 1, the White House says some 26,000 Ohioans who are civilian employees of the Department of Defense would be furloughed. Half of those are at the state’s largest military installation, Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton. Commander Col.

Colonel Cassie Barlow says she’s not sure how operations would be affected.

It’s really hard to look at a reduction of any employees and not see mission impact. So certainly we expect some mission impact, and certainly the goal is to minimize and mitigate any mission impact that we have here at Wright-Patterson.

Outside the military, the biggest losses of federal funds in Ohio would be in K-12 public education.

The White House estimates more than $25 million in lost funding for education, which it says puts some 350 teaching jobs at risk, along with a $22 million cut in funding for children with disabilities.

But Department of Education spokesman John Charlton says there’s no panic.

We have not put a lot of energy or effort into analyzing what might happen just because it is such an unknown. We’re not, first of all, we’re sure if it’s going to happen or not. Secondly, this is really the first time that we’ve seen solid numbers come out, and I think they’re just projections anyhow but it’s the first time we’ve seen projections come out of the White House that kind of indicates where we might be.

And Charlton says since the affected funds are targeted to the school year that starts in August, there’s time to deal with the cuts if they happen.

That’s similar to the approach at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. The White House is reporting $1.7 million in cuts to job search assistance and training, and says up to 800 disadvantaged kids could be cut out of child care.

ODFJS spokesman Ben Johnson says it’s unclear how those cuts might affect programs, if they happen.

We don’t know if there’s going to be a hole, we don’t know exactly when the hole will occur. And we don’t know if there will be any other parameters set around the funding restrictions.

But the Ohio Head Start Association is worried. The White House says 2,500 kids would be shut out of Head Start. But Barbara Haxton with the Ohio Head Start Association says because Ohio’s Head Start costs are lower, more kids could lose access with a cut of 23 million dollars.

“If we take the average allocation per child across Ohio – $6,900 – that would results in the loss of 2804 preschoolers and almost 300 early Head Start children,” Haxton says.

The Federal Aviation Administration is saying overnight shifts could be eliminated at the control towers at Akron-Canton, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown airports, and the air traffic control facilities could be closed at the Cuyahoga County and Mansfield airports, and at Ohio State University’s airport and Bolton Field in Columbus.

But statements about the impact on transportation in particular have riled up President Obama’s critics. Tom Zawistowski is with the Tea Party group Ohio Citizens PAC, and says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood should resign because he flat-out lied with scary claims of delays and closings at small airports.

“All of your listeners have seen this before in the form of the school board that cuts, that immediately goes to cut busing and athletics when the levy doesn’t pass, when busing and athletics are not the problem in the budget.

So this an old playbook that they’re playing, and we’re sick and tired of it. It’s disingenuous. It’s insulting to every taxpayer.

Gov. John Kasich, who often talks up his budget expertise as a former member of Congress, hasn’t addressed the sequester issue, perhaps because he’s been busy selling his state budget, which includes an expansion of Medicaid and transportation programs that would not be affected by the sequester.

The state’s Office of Budget and Management said in a statement that reads in part – “While sequestration may not be the most desirable means of addressing this problem, it’s our general sense that we will not see significant disruptions to state operations or federally funded programs…OBM is prepared to work with all state agencies to manage any other impacts the sequestration might create.”

The Department of Education has awarded several rounds of Race to the Top grants. This competiton was a little different. In the past the grants were given to states who awarded the money to districts, this time individual districts had to apply directly to the feds

Three Ohio districts made it on to a list of about 60 finalists, but none from Ohio were among the 16 winning districts.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he can never be sure the right districts were picked.

“This is a human process,” Duncan said.

But, Duncan says he has faith in the more than 300 peer reviewers who evaluated the applications.

Cleveland Schools and Maysville Local Schools in Zanesville were among the finalists that lost.

And Reynoldsburg City Schools near Columbus just narrowly missed out. Its application which stressed individualized student instruction scored a 195. The lowest winning district scored a 196.

“We had a lot more high quality applications than we were able to fund.,” said White House Domestic Policy Director Cecilia Munoz.

“We had to stop due to funding limitations. So they had a very high quality, high scoring application.”

The winners split the $400 million dollar grant, with awards ranging from 10 million to 40 million per district.

Stan Heffner resigned last month after State Inspector General Randall Meyer said Heffner inappropriately testified before a state Senate committee on behalf of a bill that could directly benefit a company that Heffner had already agreed to work for.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien says Heffner acted “inappropriately,” but not criminally. O’Brien says Heffner didn’t disclose the apparent conflict to legislators, but it wasn’t exactly a secret.

“It was known to multiple people that he’d had the discussions with the potential employer. In fact I think he’d given notice to the fact,” O’Brien says.

Click the play button above to hear an extended conversation with Prosecutor Ron O’Brien.

Heffner also caught criticism for allegedly having state employees conduct his personal business. O’Brien says there wasn’t enough evidence to merit charges.

Heffner said Monday he never committed a crime and he’s pleased that prosecutors agreed with him.       Heffner, of suburban Columbus, says he’s enjoying retirement and deciding what comes next, but says it won’t involve education.

The state Board of Education voted unanimously Monday for the delay as it awaits results of a probe by Ohio Auditor Dave Yost.

Related: What the Ohio 2012 School Report Card Delay Means for Parents, Teachers and Communities

Acting Ohio Superintendent Michael Sawyers recommended not releasing the report cards until the state can be sure the underlying data is accurate.

“The report cards are intended to give an accurate picture of how well schools are doing, and they shouldn’t be released with a cloud hanging over their reliability,” Sawyers said. “It’s not fair to the parents and educators who depend on them to see how their schools are doing.”

Yost launched a statewide probe after irregular enrollment and attendance practices were discovered in Columbus, Toledo and suburban Cincinnati districts. He’s investigating whether low-performing students were improperly removed from rolls to improve school performance rankings.

Sawyers said the U.S. Department of Education has signed off on a temporary delay until the board meets again in September. The release had been scheduled for Aug. 29.

Ohio was required to issue the local report cards this month in exchange for having certain requirements of federal No Child Left Behind Act waived, Sawyers said. But he said federal education officials agree that questions about the integrity of the underlying data need to be answered before the reports are issued.

The report cards give parents and other members of the public a snapshot of each school’s year-over-year performance and how it compares with state education standards.

Building rankings drawn from the reports help determine whether students are eligible for the EdChoice program, which provides vouchers for private schools to students at consistently underperforming public schools.

They also can determine whether charter schools that pledged to outperform their public-school counterparts stay open.

“The trickle-down effect of this will be massive,” said Emmy Partin, director of Ohio policy and research for the Fordham Institute. “When you think of all the state programs that will be delayed or unable to move forward because they’re dependent on this data, it’s huge.”

Sawyers said further delays will have to be negotiated, depending on how long Yost’s investigation takes.

“He’s trying to expedite matters,” Sawyers said. “It’s my understanding he’s in districts already, with boots on the ground.”

At Yost’s request, the Ohio Department of Education identified schools that had a markedly high number of students withdrawing. The list included about 100 of Ohio’s 3,500 school buildings — or less than 3 percent, Sawyers said. He did not know how many of those buildings were being investigated.

Sawyers said districts are required under Ohio law to withdraw students after lengthy absences, and so showing up on the list with a high number of withdrawals doesn’t imply wrongdoing.