Cafaro: Finding state funds for Youngstown Early College difficult

By Harold Gwin

There’s no promise of funding even if the state budget shortfall gets resolved.

YOUNGSTOWN — State Sen. Capri Cafaro of Liberty, D-32nd, said she realizes the value of Ohio’s early-college programs, but finding state funding to help support them will be a difficult task.

The state has been providing aid to the nine early-college programs now in existence, but that funding got cut in the biennial budget adopted earlier this year.

Youngstown Early College, a joint program of the Youngstown city schools and Youngstown State University, had been getting about $600,000 a year in state aid to cover the tuition costs for its students taking YSU classes.

The program, now in its sixth year, allows selected high school students to earn college credit while completing their high school education in facilities on the YSU campus.

That sudden loss of funds left the school district and the university scrambling to make up the shortfall.

They put together funding for the current fiscal year that began July 1, but there’s no money in place to cover tuition costs for fiscal 2010-11.

Cafaro was on campus Friday, touring YEC facilities and meeting with university and school-district officials.

It was an opportunity, she said, to learn more about the program and hear suggestions on how the state might fund educational needs.

Programs such as Youngstown Early College are critically important to their communities and the long-term economic development of the state, Cafaro said, but there is a key issue the state must deal with before it can look at restoring any specific program funding to the budget.

That’s getting House Bill 318 enacted into law by the end of this year, she said, referring to Gov. Ted Strickland’s plan to cover an $850 million education-budget shortfall by delaying the fifth-year implementation of an ongoing income tax decrease for Ohioans.

Delaying that tax cut will cover most of the shortfall, the governor has said.

However, even if HB 318 becomes law, there is no guarantee early-college funding will be restored, Cafaro said. There are a lot of worthy programs that need funding, and tough decisions have to be made, she said.

Its not a lot of money in the overall budget picture, she said, noting that the nine early-college programs operating in Ohio need a total of about $4 million in annual state funding.

“This is a long-term investment for the community,” she said, pointing out that it is a highly efficient program, from both cost and academic standpoints.

Early-college groups need to build a strong collaborative of advocates to press their case once the state budget shortfall is resolved, Cafaro said. At that point, the state can also start looking for alternative sources of financial help that might be found in the budget, she said.