Proponents of the biennial budget that the Ohio Senate passed said the spending plan would entirely phase in Ohio’s Fair School Funding Plan.
However, The Columbus Dispatch reported that while school districts will not receive any less than they did in fiscal 2021, some might receive less than in fiscal 2025.
Both the House and Senate versions of the spending plan would limit the amount school districts can carry over from one year to the next. The House cap is 30%, while the Senate cap is 50%.
“What the state legislature is trying to do is trying to limit how much money a school district can have on hand at the end of a given year,” Bailey Williams, a tax policy researcher with Policy Matters Ohio, told WCMH-TV. “It’s going to increase levies on the ballot. It’s going to increase voter fatigue, and it’s not going to offer voters and Ohioans the property tax assistance that they need.”
Lawmakers devised the bipartisan Fair School Funding Plan as a formula for funding school districts across the Buckeye State. Critics note it has not been fully implemented.
“The state funding formula is not stable. As this committee is well aware, Ohio’s school funding formula is subject to change every two years with the passage of a new biennial budget,” Hillsdale Local School District Superintendent Cathy Trevathan said in prepared testimony to the Ohio Senate Finance Committee. “This constant volatility makes it difficult for districts to project revenue accurately and reinforces the need for financial reserves.”
The All In for Ohio Kids Coalition said state lawmakers “failed to provide the necessary resources to properly educate the 90% of students – about 1.6 million children – who attend our public schools.” They also criticized state lawmakers for including a $600 million handout for a new $3.4 billion Cleveland Browns stadium in Brook Park.
“They figured out a way to give $600 million to a billionaire political donor for a football stadium, but abandoned the Fair School Funding Plan they promised would be fully implemented in this budget,” the coalition said in a statement. “The budget passed by the Ohio Senate is a betrayal of the bipartisan work that went into the creation of the Fair School Funding Plan, which requires lawmakers to include up-to-date costs and fully account for the needs of every child in every community. What the Senate passed this week is a cheap knock-off of the original Fair School Funding Plan," the coalition added.
“Without proper funding from the state, our schools will be forced to cut staff, electives, or enrichment programs, increase class sizes, and reduce support services for students with special needs,” the group continued. “Our schools will be forced to continue to overly rely on local tax levies, which the budget also makes more challenging for districts to pass. Our coalition is grateful for the Senators who stood up for Ohio’s children, families, and educators, but it’s difficult to see this budget as anything but an attack on public education.”
According to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, at the end of fiscal 2024, Ohio school districts “sat on nearly $11 billion—the highest amount on record—with some districts having six months to more than a year’s worth of cash on hand.”
The House and the Senate are poised to convene and discuss their differences before sending the budget to Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who must sign the spending plan by June 30.
“We’ll have the next two-plus weeks to deal with it,” the Dayton Daily News quoted Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima,. “Our staff and some of the leadership and other folks are set to spend the weekend reviewing these items, so I think there’s already discussions going on among a variety of people in different areas about what we may do.”
