CONTINUING COVERAGE
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Ohio’s new budget will increase state funding for schools by more than $850 million over two years, but the promise that no district would see state funding decrease disappeared Tuesday night, because of a veto from Gov. John Kasich.
Taking a broad look at a nine-county area around the Dayton, Springfield, Middletown region, the budget will increase state funding for 52 school districts, decrease funding for 12 districts, and keep funding essentially flat in 10 others.
“This additional funding for schools puts Ohio’s per-student education spending above pre-recession levels,” said state school Superintendent Richard Ross. “Less than half of the states in our nation have achieved that.”
State Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, cautioned against using such year-over-year comparisons that don’t account for increased costs due to inflation. Lehner chairs the Senate Education Committee.
Small rural districts will see the biggest increases. Bradford and Newton in Miami County, and Tri-Village and Franklin-Monroe in Darke County, will see their state funding increase by more than 25 percent in 2015-16, and then go up another 7 to 9 percent in 2016-17, according to estimates from the Legislative Service Commission.
Some of those increases came in the form of transportation supplements to small rural districts whose buses drive many miles. The state also gave more funding to districts where each mill of local property tax raises comparatively little, according to Aaron Rausch, director of budget and school funding for the Ohio Department of Education.
Large, urban, low-income districts generally saw the next biggest increases, with Dayton, Springfield, Hamilton and Middletown schools all in line for a 6 to 8 percent state funding increase this year, followed by a another 6 to 8 percent rise on top of that in 2016-17.
But while the House and Senate budgets would have assured no school district saw a funding cut, Kasich’s veto of Tangible Personal Property tax reimbursements will lead to 4 to 10 percent state funding cuts in some local districts in 2016-17.
Lakota and Mason schools will lose more than $3 million each that year, Kettering will lose $844,000, and Vandalia-Butler, Tipp City and Urbana will each lose more than $500,000.
“This guarantee provision diverts resources that could be targeted to lower-capacity school districts,” Kasich’s office wrote in explaining the veto.
Vandalia-Butler Superintendent Brad Neavin said he is disappointed in the veto, after the House and Senate avoided such cuts. He said the move will cause his district to rethink efforts to bring student-teacher ratios back to where they once were.
“This whole premise of the ability to raise funds, clearly the governor has not been here and listened to the local stakeholders,” Neavin said. “They’re already saying we’re paying enough, doing more than our share. … We can’t go back on the ballot. We’re not going to pass it.”
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