Beacon Journal: Districts' school funding burden growing

Districts' school funding burden growing

By Dennis J. Willard
Beacon Journal Columbus Bureau
February 18, 2007
(Click on image to enlarge)

Despite four Ohio Supreme Court rulings that ordered lawmakers to reduce the reliance on local property taxes to fund public schools, Ohio school districts are supported less by state government than at anytime since the school-funding lawsuit was filed in 1991.

An Akron Beacon Journal analysis of school-district data shows that since the high court relinquished control of the case in December 2002, the General Assembly and then-Gov. Bob Taft have reversed progress they made in complying with the court's order regarding property taxes.

In the three years of state budgets since the Supreme Court gave up control, 533 of 609 school districts in the newspaper's analysis saw a decline in the state's share of their revenue.

The state's contribution fell so dramatically that by the 2005-06 school year, Columbus was providing only 41.8 percent of revenue to Ohio school districts -- lower than the 42.6 percent it contributed in school year 1991-92, when the court case began.

As the shift occurred, school districts across the state struggled with reluctant voters to make up the difference.

The number of levies on ballots soared to the highest level in 14 years as Taft and the legislature aggressively shifted funding.

School districts such as Plain in Stark County = [100.0]went from relative stability to financial crisis.

For 21 years, GlenOak High School advanced placement physics teacher Ric Thompson has given his students a ``hands-on, minds-on'' final exam at Cedar Point.

They ride, analyze and then write about the forces at work during a field trip to Sandusky.

But field trips like these -- ones that persuaded Thompson's son, Seth, to pursue a degree in physics after graduating in 2005 -- were canceled throughout the Plain district as voters defeated five levies in the last two years.

``We're holding the district together with bubble gum,'' Thompson said, noting he's worried about the long-term impact on his daughter, Hannah, a fourth-grader at Middlebranch Elementary School.

Plain is a poster child for everything that is right with the state pushing to improve education in Ohio and everything that is wrong with the school funding system.

By state measures, Plain is an excellent academic system, meeting 24 of 25 state report-card standards, and it is financially efficient, spending $1,695 less per pupil than the state average. Only seven Ohio districts spend less per pupil on administrative costs.

Yet, Plain has eliminated 18 teaching positions and sliced $4.3 million from planned expenditures. It is trying to figure out how to trim another $2 million.

Fortunes follow case

Plain's financial problems surfaced shortly after the Ohio Supreme Court in December 2002 issued its fourth 4-3 ruling on school funding, ending nearly six years of decisions ordering the legislature to fix the system.

The court said repeatedly the state's system of funding schools was unconstitutional, mostly because it relied too heavily on local taxes.

But following a political shift in the court in the November 2002 elections, the justices washed their hands of any oversight, leaving the controversy for the legislature to resolve.

And with legal pressure from the court removed, Taft and state legislators instituted a series of spending policies that shifted the burden back to local property owners.

A Beacon Journal analysis of the total dollars flowing to public schools since 1994 -- when Perry County Judge Linton Lewis Jr. first ruled the funding system unconstitutional -- reveals that legislators and two governors began incrementally moving away from property taxes and increasing the state's proportion of funding to as high as 45.3 percent in the 2002-03 school year.

Plain benefited from the changes, witnessing an increase in state funding of $1,047 per pupil in inflation-adjusted dollars from 1995 to 2003.

In the three years after the Supreme Court let go of the case, however, Plain lost $451 per pupil in state funding, adjusted for inflation.

``We don't have a spending problem. We have a revenue problem,'' said Plain Superintendent Christopher Smith.

Divided along party lines

Last week, Gov. Ted Strickland and House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, sparred over the constitutionality of the school funding system.

Husted maintains that Republican legislators and then-Govs. George Voinovich and Taft complied with the court, and that the funding system is constitutional.

But Strickland declared in his campaign last year that the system is unconstitutional, and he pledged to bring all interested parties together to forge a solution.

In response to Beacon Journal questions, Husted said he could not comment without reviewing the data.

``If we spent 6 percent a year and (local districts) spent 7 percent more, then we would be losing ground yet still spending a lot more money on schools. Those statistics don't really tell me much,'' Husted said.

The speaker said the local share has increased in recent years as the state has directed more dollars to poorer school districts to address inequities in the funding formula, as ordered by DeRolph v. State of Ohio, the original case.

``Actually complying with DeRolph forces some types of districts to go back to the ballot more often as we look to put money into low-wealth districts, and as we disproportionately fund those low-wealth districts with state resources, it drives some of the higher-wealth districts to the ballot more often,'' Husted said.

Husted said he believes the system needs to be continuously improved, but the state has addressed the issues raised by the court, including investing state dollars in school buildings and providing parity aid to bridge the funding gaps between high and low-wealth districts.

Strickland had a different reaction to the reduction in the overall state proportion of revenue.

``It looks as if the state of Ohio remains out of compliance with what the courts have said is a constitutional system of funding, based on the percentage of revenue coming from the state versus local and federal resources,'' Strickland said.

The governor said he spoke with Husted about education issues as recently as Wednesday, and the speaker believes the equity issue has been significantly addressed.

``I think it has been addressed to a limited extent, but we have a long way to go,'' Strickland said.

Strickland said he is concerned about widening the gap between rich and poor districts by just putting money directly into basic aid across all districts.

``I think the desirable long-term solution is to reform the system and adequately fund the system,'' Strickland said.

Defense of system

State Sen. Kevin Coughlin, R-Cuyahoga Falls, believes state legislators have adequately addressed the constitutional questions raised in the DeRolph decisions.

``You're looking at irrelevant data. The point you are trying to make is not relevant to the debate on school funding in Ohio,'' Coughlin said. He added that the increase in the local share is a result of taxpayers choosing to spend beyond the basic aid amount guaranteed by the state to ensure that each child receives a thorough education.

Coughlin said legislators have increased the state's sharein the basic aid amount -- defined as the dollars needed to provide a basic education for one child -- which is supported by a combination of state and local taxes.

According to the Beacon Journal analysis, the state's share of basic aid did increase in the years directly following the 1997 DeRolph Supreme Court decision, rising as high as 48.5 percent in the 2001-02 school year.

But the state share in basic aid followed the same pattern as overall school funding and began to drop once the court let go of the case in 2002, falling to 45 percent last year and again to 43.7 percent in this school year.

Kathy Jordan, Plain's treasurer, said the district understood that the state budget passed in 2003 meant it would get less state money, and the district quickly went to the ballot to ask voters for help. ``We were trying to be proactive,'' Jordan said.

After the Supreme Court vacated the order in 2002, and Taft and legislators passed the two-year budget in June 2003, districts asked voters to pass levies.

The number of levies in Ohio increased from 373 in 2002 to 617 in 2004, and it was 534 in 2005; those two years had the most since before the Perry County judge ruled the funding system unconstitutional.

John W. Halkias, a Plain board member, said his son,Alex, was at GlenOak in the period when the state increased funding to the district, and the education he received has helped him pursue a degree in medicine.

His daughter Sophia is a first-grader who, like other children in the district, faces teacher cuts, no field trips, busing issues, increased class sizes and other problems as the district struggles to deal with the loss in dollars from Columbus.

``In our community, we're fighting each other because the legislature and the state are not doing their part,'' Halkias said.

Dennis J. Willard can be reached at 614-224-1613 or dwillard@thebeaconjournal.com.