Opinion
In
order to balance the state budget, the state government is throwing
the public school baby out with the budget bathwater. As if cutting
long term return of tax payers to the local districts were not
enough, state political leaders are encouraging the anti tax crowd by
suggesting that funding at the local level also be cut.
“If
you want to know what my message is from the property-tax adjustment,
it’s to local colleagues: Don’t pass new property-tax levies….For
those who say, ‘Oh no, you’re making it more difficult to raise
property-tax levies,’ the response is: Are you for property-tax
levies? Do you think that’s a good thing? I’m not.”
The
legislature's recent action to increase school levy costs to property
owners by 12.5% is another blow to local support.
Paul Hunter paulhunter45177@gmail.com
The
attached letter published in a local [Akron area] paper provides more
insight to the issue.
School
districts losing money under state budget
7/4/2013
- South Side Leader
To
the editor:
What
the Ohio General Assembly did last week to education is extremely
troubling. While legislators are trying to fool the public into
thinking that somehow they
increased money for education, in fact,
school districts are receiving $515 million less than they received
from the state three years ago.
Three
out of four Ohio school districts have less state revenue than they
did then, including Green ($1.4 million), Manchester ($1.3 million),
Mogadore ($389,000),
Springfield ($1.1 million), Copley-Fairlawn
($2.8 million), Coventry ($760,000) and Revere ($3.5 million).
And
these cuts don't include the additional money districts will be
losing to charter schools, 70 percent of which will rate an F on the
new report card. Currently,
every kid not in a charter school
loses 6.5 percent of their state money because charters remove so
much from districts. Nearly every dollar sent to a charter from
a
South Side News Leader-area district goes to one that performs
far worse than the district.
Finally,
every district will be subject to losing money to private school
vouchers, even if the school is highly rated.
In
short, this budget represents an attack on public education. In the
2010-11 school year, 50 percent of the revenue for education came
from the state - the first
time that's happened in three decades.
Today, that number is back down to about 47 percent.
The
Ohio Supreme Court has ruled four times that the state's duty is to
reduce the need for property taxes to pay for schools. This budget
will continue to increase
the need. Since 2011, a record $1.3
billion in new levy money to fund operations have been before Ohio
voters as property taxpayers continued to foot the bill for
our
legislators' constitutional failure.
To
add insult to injury, since the state decided to eliminate state
support of property tax cuts in this budget, anyone who voted for it
will have voted for what could
be the largest property tax
increase in state history.
Stephen
Dyer, Green
(Stephen
Dyer is the
current education policy fellow at Innovation Ohio, a Columbus-based
think tank.)
