7/22/09

 

Suburban News

 

Khalila Perrin

 

* Columbus will come out ahead by $1.5 million in additional state funding under the two-year budget.

 

In the wake of the newly approved $50.5 billion biennial state budget, Columbus City Schools might have more financially secure days ahead.

The portion of the state’s budget that incorporates Gov. Ted Strickland’s evidence-based approach to academic reforms and school funding is a positive for the state’s largest district, Superintendent Gene Harris said.

The district is “thankful to state legislators for maintaining basic funding on behalf of Ohio’s school children,” she said in a prepared statement.

With new tax dollars coming in from the operating levy and bond issue voters approved last November, plus the $1.5 million increase in state funding over the next two years, it would seem the district might even have some surplus coming in.

But that’s not necessarily accurate, Harris said.

“We are really doing a careful analysis of the (state) budget before we can say we have all of this ‘extra’ money,” Harris said in an interview Thursday, July 16.

In the first year of the new biennial budget, the district’s state funding actually will be reduced by 0.11 percent — or $250,000.

In the second year, state foundation funding will increase by 0.75 percent or $1.75 million.

The net increase over the two years equals $1.5 million. The district’s operating budget has been set at $720.5 million for the coming fiscal year.

Officials assumed “flat funding” from the state as they developed the district’s five-year forecast and the budget for the upcoming school year and flat funding is, essentially, what the district got, said Treasurer Penny Rucker.

“In our five-year forecast we just maintained our current level of funding in hopes we wouldn’t have any large cuts (in state funding),” Rucker said.

“We feel thankful to the lawmakers that they have held us harmless,” she said.

“We had done a lot of work in the levy efforts and the Columbus community was supportive of the district. So we felt we had done our part and we feel like the lawmakers did their part.”

Meanwhile, officials will sift through the state budget to gauge just how much district programs will receive, especially vocational and early childhood programs, Harris said.

Analyzing how much funding will be available some of Strickland’s education reforms is another concern, Harris said.

“We need to really get into the state budget because we also know some of the governor’s reforms are included in that, and we need to know if we have enough in the budget to cover the reforms,” she said.

Among Strickland’s reforms are plans to lower elementary level class sizes throughout the state, as well as phase out the use of the Ohio Graduation Test, replacing it with new graduation requirements like statewide end-of-course exams, service learning projects and senior projects.

Another major reform is mandating full-day kindergarten statewide. But Columbus won’t feel a pinch from that reform — because it already has full-day kindergarten in place.

Beyond state funding, millions in one-time federal stabilization funds are headed into district coffers, said Harris.

“The stimulus definitely provides some additional revenue. Overall in stimulus funds it looks like we’ll get over $50 million over the next two years,” Harris said.

About $15 million will be allocated as Title VI funds while about $37 million as been earmarked as Title I.

Another portion of the estimated $50 million will come in the form of smaller federal grants in technology, said Harris.