Proposed ballot issue tries to fix funding systemThe Columbus Dispatch

1/17/2007

Catherine Candisky and Jim Siegel

Even before its official unveiling today, a proposed statewide school-funding issue is drawing heavy fire for removing legislative control and lacking specifics on costs that likely would total hundreds of millions of dollars.

Undeterred after nearly a year of closeddoor meetings, a consortium of education advocates say they have come up with the long-awaited fix for Ohio’s unconstitutional school-funding system.

The proposed constitutional amendment aims to guarantee students a high-quality education based on what is needed in the classroom, not what is available in the state budget. It would shift much of the tax burden for schools from local property owners to the state but does not specify how those dollars would be raised.

Critics, including business leaders and state and local officials, have a laundry list of concerns.

How much would it cost? Would taxes have to be increased or other areas of the state budget slashed to finance education? Would it invite more litigation? Does it divert too much money to wealthy districts? Is there enough accountability?

“This proposal is a dagger aimed at the heart of the poor, elderly and most needy of Ohioans,” Sen. Jeff Jacobson, R-Vandalia, said, referring to potential budget cuts needed to fund the plan.

Jacobson, the No. 2 Senate leader who has played a key role in drafting recent schoolfunding formulas, said the plan offers no relief for taxpayers and would funnel the bulk of new money to wealthy school districts impacted by “phantom revenue,” in which the state funding formula assumes a district collects more local money than it actually does.

“It leaves others to take the brunt of the massive funding increase this calls for,” Jacobson said, adding that if education groups did not assume this would trigger budget cuts, they would not have singled out higher education and cities for protection.

Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman, who along with other big-city mayors contributed to the plan, said yesterday that he asked sponsors to delay it.

“If this is an all-or-none proposal, the current version is one that would be hard for me to support at this time,” he said. “It just needs further debate.”

Although supporting the elevation of education to a “fundamental right” for Ohio schoolchildren, Coleman said backers of the amendment must provide Ohioans with more information before beginning a petition drive to put the measure on the November ballot.

“The public has the right to know the cost associated with it,” Coleman said. “They need to make a proposal obviously that can be paid for. We can’t really have a situation that could be perceived as a blank check.

“What this does is say the State Board of Education establishes criteria for a quality education in the state of Ohio and then sends it to the legislature and say, ‘You fund it.’ Well, how much is that? What’s the public voting on? ”

Supporters of the proposal yesterday declined to comment, saying they would wait until a news conference scheduled for this morning in Columbus. They plan to submit the proposed constitutional amendment to the attorney general today for a required review of petition language before gathering the 400,000-plus valid signatures of registered Ohio voters necessary to get it on the ballot.

Defending legislative schoolfunding efforts, House Speaker Jon A. Husted, R-Kettering, said he is withholding judgment on the plan until he sees what Gov. Ted Strickland proposes.

“In this long-running discussion about school funding, I have always asked the school groups to put together their proposal,” he said. “I give them credit for proposing a plan. As soon as we have Gov. Strickland’s plan, we can look at what’s best for Ohio.”

Strickland, who has vowed to fix the state’s school-funding system, said yesterday he is concerned that the ballot proposal delegates too much authority to the State Board of Education.

“I don’t want to criticize the folks who are putting forth this (amendment) because I think it reflects concern and hopefully a good-faith effort to do something positive with education in Ohio, but at this point, I’m not willing to sign on as a supporter,” he said.

Likewise, business leaders commended education advocates for putting forth a “unified and concrete proposal” but said they could not support it.

The plan says too little about student performance and student outcomes and “focuses almost entirely on inputs to schools,” said Richard A. Stoff, president of the Ohio Business Roundtable.

“The proposed amendment appears to abrogate legislative authority and effectively creates a new quasi-legislative body (the state board and an advisory commission) to decide on educational funding.”

Education advocates have long complained that legislators have not done enough to fix the school-funding system despite four rulings by the Ohio Supreme Court over the past decade that it is unconstitutional.

Most local school district officials said they knew little about the proposed amendment and were eager to hear how it would impact them.

Bexley Treasurer Chris Essman said he hoped the concept that “nothing should restrict schools from going above the minimum” is protected.

Likewise, Jonathan Boyd, treasurer and chief financial officer of Worthington schools, said he is concerned that lowering the local tax contribution to 20 mills could adversely impact programs voters have supported.

Dispatch Senior Editor Joe Hallett and reporters Mark Niquette and Jennifer Smith Richards contributed to this story. ccandisky@dispatch.com jsiegel@dispatch.com

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