Plan seeks $929M increase in Ohio school funds

By Catherine Candisky

Columbus Dispatch

Ohio public schools would get a $929 million increase in the next two-year state budget under a new state Department of Education recommendation.

But unless the state gets another influx of federal stimulus money, such a jump in funding actually would cost more than $1.7 billion. That’s because the current education budget contains $845 million in stimulus cash that would have to be replaced before any increase could be made.

The school-funding plan is the first spending proposal for the 2012-13 budget period, which begins in July 2011. Balancing that budget, which may have a shortfall of $8 billion, represents one of state officials’ biggest challenges in recent memory.

The department’s plan amounts to a 4.5 percent increase in state spending on schools in the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2011, and another 3.4 percent increase the following year.

Increases in state aid to Ohio’s 614 school districts, however, would be capped at no more than 1.5 percent each year. Certain programs such as transportation are exempt from the limit.

The rest would help pay for the first part of Gov. Ted Strickland’s evidence-based funding model, which he says would be phased in over the next eight years to give Ohio a constitutional school-funding system.

The Education Department unveiled its plan to the Ohio Board of Education at the board’s monthly meeting this week in Columbus. The 19-member panel will review the proposal during the next few months before approving its own recommendation for Strickland in October.

State Superintendent Deborah S. Delisle stressed that the department’s proposal “serves as a starting point” for the board. It proposes total state education spending of $7.78 billion the first year of the budget and $8.04 billion the next.

She said the cap was necessary because the poor economy will not allow for full funding of the governor’s evidence-based model.

The 1.5 percent figure was calculated using the April 2010 Employment Cost Index calculated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for wages and salaries of civilian workers, Delisle said.

The department is seeking additional state money for a teacher-residency program, gifted education, the development of new-student assessments and support for first-generation college students from low-income families.

Requests include:

A 72 percent increase in state aid for gifted education next year, to $119.4 million.

A jump of more than 27 percent in state spending on curriculum and assessments for development of new tests to go with new state academic guidelines required in the current budget.

$3.1 million both years to support about 2,200 first-generation college students each year.

$11.5 million total to create the teacher-residency program to train mentors to develop and evaluate a new assessment for determining whether resident teachers can advance to professional educators.

Ohio’s voucher and charter-school programs would get a 1.1 percent bump in each year.