Comments on: Media releases on Ohio House passing Budget…

By: LisaRenee

LisaRenee — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:01:43 +0000

The level of the funding cuts considering the additional requirements is something that has been focused on here. Initially Toledo was the only urban school district that received no increase from the State, now of course other urban districts are receiving cuts. There is however still a large disparity from what Toledo is receive in State and Federal dollars compared to it's urban counterparts. I reference this post in stating those concerns. The only urban district receiving less money than Toledo is Dayton and they have a much larger student enrollment drop than we do.

By: Aji Green

Aji Green — Fri, 01 May 2009 23:53:40 +0000

I must say that this is a historic moment for rural and urban schools districts all over the state of Ohio especially a lot of the rural schools in Southeastern Ohio. Under the new plan no longer will minority and impoverished children be at a disadvantage to children in wealthier school districts. Just six months ago I completed research on the unconstitutionality of Ohio’s educational funding model that revealed huge disparities between the haves and the have-nots.
The new budget doesn’t address all of the funding concerns present in public and rural schools, but the Governor and the Democratic Party made a valiant effort in attempting to put all schools on a level playing field. However, I strongly suspect that the budget will be reduced by two percent after the first year. I will just have to study the budget and the new funding model to see how it could affect Toledo Public Schools.

By: LisaRenee

LisaRenee — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:55:17 +0000

Media reporting on this yesterday state that the vote was down party lines:

COLUMBUS — House Democrats rammed through a $56 billion state budget Wednesday that leans heavily on federal stimulus funding and rainy-day funds to tie together a package that reshapes education funding, expands Medicaid and adds new tax credits designed to spur job growth.

In a party-line vote of 53-45, majority-party House Democrats approved the budget for the next two years over Republican howls that the blueprint was a shell game that relies on more than $6 billion in one-time money to pay the bills while leaving tough decisions for tomorrow.

The state budget battle now shifts to the 33-member, Republican-controlled Senate, where deeper cuts to state programs and more changes to a revamping of Ohio’s school-funding plan are expected. The budget doesn’t have any tax hikes, but does raise dozens of fees and hijacks the state’s $1 billion rainy-day fund.

It was also reported last night that numbers used for the budget in relation to the amount of money that would be generated by the tobacco tax appear to be inaccurate:

The latest headache for state lawmakers — a $129 million shortfall expected in future state tobacco revenues because of a federal 62-cents-a-pack tax, which is expected to have Ohioans puffing less. Because House Democrats leaned on a rosy tobacco tax projection from the Legislative Service Commission that didn’t factor in the expected loss, the plan they passed Wednesday was most likely out-of-whack upon arrival in the Senate this week.

And that’s only one of the problems facing bean counters, with House lawmakers in both parties now admitting that another shortfall seems inevitable at the end of the state budget trail.

Budget-watchers expect that revenue estimates for 2010 and 2011 — which were plugged in to “balance” the next state budget months ago — were too optimistic for Ohio’s falling income and sales tax revenue, acknowledged Rep. Michael Skindell, a Lakewood Democrat on the Finance Committee.

That will mean a sizable hole to plug — as much as a $600 million or $700 million shortfall isn’t crazy talk — when a conference committee meets to hash out differences between the Senate and House versions, the last step before the budget is handed to Gov. Ted Strickland in June.