Valley voters send loud message to state: Reform school funding

In the aftermath of last week’s primary elections, the Ohio School Boards Association can celebrate the second highest rate of passage of tax levies for public education over the past decade.

Sixty-nine percent, or 102 of the 148 school issues statewide, won voter approval in Tuesday’s balloting.

But you won’t find anything remotely resembling celebration in the six school districts in Mahoning and Trumbull counties where voters rejected impassioned pleas for passage.

Surprisingly, not one single Mahoning Valley district that sought additional taxation had its issue approved last week. Compare that with the 42 percent of additional school-tax levies that passed statewide.

“It is still an uphill battle to secure voter approval for new or additional money requests,” said Damon Asbury, director of legislative services for the Ohio School Boards Association.

That’s putting it mildly. School districts can no longer count on voters to even OK renewal levies that result in no new taxes. While voters in Boardman, Poland, Liberty and Lakeview approved six renewal issues, voters in the Springfield Local District weren’t so generous.

A renewal of a 1-percent income tax in place for 22 years to support schools there lost by 47 votes out 1,447 cast.

Springfield Superintendent of Schools Debra Mettee attributes the loss to low voter turnout. “We think the impact was very, very low turnout. In the [2012] presidential election, there were 4,400 ballots cast, and in this election there were 1,447 cast,” she told the Associated Press.

Though low turnout may have been one factor in Springfield, we suspect it was not the biggest factor for the unanimous thumbs-down on the Valley’s additional school levies. In some cases, such as the Austintown district’s attempt to pass a 37-year bond issue to construct a new $77 million high school campus, local concerns may have spawned opposition. Some residents likely questioned the necessity for such a massive overhaul to a building that is only 41/2 decades old when a school built in 1916 in the district remained open until 2007 and remains standing to this day.

In the Howland, Mathews, Southington and West Branch districts, issues of internal discontent within the district also may well have foiled passage.

BULL’S-EYE OF FUNDING CRISIS IN COLUMBUS

But in many cases, the financial crisis facing public schools has its epicenter clearly positioned in Columbus.

The ongoing high rate of rejection of school levies should serve as a wake-up call to Ohio education leaders and legislators to once and for all repair Ohio’s dysfunctional and unconstitutional system of financing public education.

Overreliance on the property tax has created unequal schools with unequal educational results. Rich school districts with high property values provide better education than poor districts with low values.

Last week’s primary results reinforced the failures of that system.

In short, the Statehouse continues to distance itself from supporting public schools. Local school district residents fund 50 percent of school operations in Ohio through their local property and income taxes. Compare that percentage with that of other states, such as a 3.5 percent local share in Hawaii or 7.8 percent in Vermont.

Clearly the crisis in Ohio school funding first exposed in the landmark 1997 DeRolph v. Ohio case has not eased. To avoid a total implosion in school budgets and academic quality, it is incumbent upon state leaders to commit themselves to meaningful and tangible reforms.

How many more local school levies must go down to defeat before Ohio leaders get the message to get down to the serious business of repairing and reshaping its shamefully archaic education-funding system?