OHIO Top court ends case of school funding

Area lawmakers are unanimous in their displeasure with the outcome.
STAFF/WIRE REPORT
COLUMBUS -- The Ohio Supreme Court ended the 12-year-old school funding case that led to three rulings over five years declaring the state's educational system unconstitutional.
Ohio has spent billions of additional dollars on schools as a result of the rulings.
"The DeRolph case is over," Kim Norris, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jim Petro, said Friday. The case is named for southeast Ohio schoolboy Nathan DeRolph.
"We still have a funding system that's inequitable," said state Rep. John A. Boccieri, a New Middletown Democrat.
"The state is not even nearly where it needs to be," added state Rep. Sylvester Patton, a Youngstown Democrat.
"The children of this state have been hurt; education has fallen behind," said state Sen. Robert F. Hagan, also a Youngstown Democrat. "We're closing in on third-world education standards."
Patton thinks the GOP-controlled Legislature has not focused on the true problem. "We're missing the key point and that is there's still a reliance on property tax," Patton said.
Hagan said improvements in paying for schools have not been enough. "I'm not happy and there's no reason to celebrate," he said. "We haven't made great strides."
State Rep. Charles Blasdel, an East Liverpool Republican, also isn't happy.
"All we did over the last few years was throw more money into the system," he said.
Background
The court ruled 5-2 to end any further litigation in the case first filed in Perry County in 1991 in part because the DeRolph boy once sat on the floor to take an American history test because his high school in rural Perry County lacked enough chairs.
The court had taken itself out of the case five months ago. Friday's decision eliminates jurisdiction "by this or any other court," Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton wrote for the majority.
"The duty now lies with the General Assembly to remedy an educational system that has been found ... still to be unconstitutional."
Justices Alice Robie Resnick and Francis Sweeney dissented without comment.
"The big question is will the Ohio Legislature and will the governor of this state put together a funding system that's constitutional?" said William Phillis, executive director of the group that filed the suit, the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding.
The ruling does not prevent future lawsuits over school funding, but they would have to involve new issues not addressed during a dozen years of litigation.
DeRolph, 27, a vice president for Priamerica Financial Services in suburban Worthington, said the decision is frustrating.
"I really thought each step along the way that the system is going to change," he said. "Now that there's this ruling, they can just go back to the way it was."
DeRolph's father, Dale, said Friday he was disappointed but not surprised.
"I just hope it's not a major step backwards and hope the kids from Ohio don't suffer as a result of this final ruling," said Dale DeRolph, 53, a Perry County banker.
Gov. Bob Taft pledged to continue working on education funding. He previously appointed a committee to study changes to the way Ohio pays for schools.
Senate President Doug White said the state has been mired in litigation for too long and it's up to lawmakers, parents, educators and community leaders to decide how best to fund schools.
The Supreme Court ruled in December that Ohio's school-funding system remains unconstitutional because it relies too much on local property taxes.
The coalition then asked the Perry County court to have Judge Linton Lewis supervise compliance with the high court decision. In turn, Petro asked the Supreme Court to rule that Lewis no longer has jurisdiction.
The court agreed with Petro.
The December ruling was the third time the court said the system creates disparities between rich and poor districts. For example, Federal Hocking schools in southeast Ohio spent $7,492 on each student last year, while Upper Arlington schools in suburban Columbus spent $10,750 on each student.
and raised 82 percent of the money from local residents.
After the Supreme Court's first ruling, lawmakers created the Ohio School Facilities Commission to rebuild and renovate Ohio schools.
From 1998 through the end of this year, Ohio lawmakers will have made more than $3.5 billion available for school construction.
Of that, the facilities commission estimates it has spent $2.3 billion, or about $2.5 million a day, with new buildings rising in many rural and poor communities.
Taft and lawmakers included an additional $1.4 billion in spending on education in the current state budget.