Charter schools lead to levy increases

An attorney for charter schools defends the reliance on property taxes.
AKRON (AP) -- The growth of charter schools is increasingly driving public schools to local property owners for funding, according to an analysis by the Akron Beacon Journal.
The newspaper's study, published Saturday, comes after Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer raised the issue in oral arguments two months ago in a case questioning the constitutionality of charter schools.
Charter schools were authorized by the Legislature in 1997. The schools are publicly funded but are governed by private groups, including some for-profit companies. This school year, more than 71,000 pupils are enrolled in them.
Public-school advocates argue that charter schools are unconstitutional, in part because of the way money is removed from public schools.
The Beacon Journal study found that Cincinnati residents are paying a larger portion of the formula cost of running their schools, up from 53.3 percent in the 2002-03 school year to 58.5 percent this year.
The formula amount is the total funding the state believes is necessary for an adequate education. It includes classroom aid, teacher training, special education, transportation and other services.
The formula takes into account a community's tax base. The more property wealth per pupil, the more money the district is expected to raise locally.
In high-wealth districts the shift is most evident.
Cincinnati loses about 30 percent of its state aid to charters, although those schools enroll only 17 percent of the city's children.
Justice Pfeifer said that if critics' contentions are right, then charter-school funding may violate a 1997 court decision that said the state's reliance on property taxes to fund education creates unconstitutional disparities between districts.
Defends practice
Chad Readler, a Columbus attorney who represented charter schools in the Supreme Court case, agreed there is an increased reliance on property taxes but said the practice can be defended.
Districts lose money whenever a pupil leaves for any reason, whether it be for a charter or private school or for another district, he said.
"So anytime a student leaves a district, it is probably true that district is going to be -- in terms of percentage -- more reliant on property taxes," Readler said.
Although state dollars are lost, per-pupil funding from local property taxes actually increases when a district has fewer pupils enrolled, he said.
State Rep. Mary Taylor, a Republican from Green in suburban Akron, questioned whether charter schools are to blame for the increased reliance on local taxes.
The Beacon Journal's analysis found that her home district, a rapidly growing suburb unable to pass a school levy for two years, now relies on real-estate taxes for 58.4 percent of its formula revenues, up from 53.6 percent four years ago.
"The way the formula works, it's not allowing school districts like Green to collect more money as the enrollment is growing," Taylor said.
As the tax base grows, the state share declines, forcing the district to go to voters to raise the money necessary to keep pace with enrollment, she said.
"The need for levies comes from a flaw in the formula and has nothing to do with charter schools," she said.