Ohio School Levies
If you’re from Ohio, you might think that yard signs that regularly encourage you to vote for or against the upcoming school levy is normal life. So you might be surprised to see this comment by Jamie Davies O’Leary at Flypaper:
Anyone who’s from Ohio or familiar with the state knows there are a ridiculous amount of schools levies put on local ballots and that the state is unique in this regard.
O’Leary takes a look at Democrat Governor Ted Strickland’s unrealized plan for fixing the school funding situation:
The other day the Columbus Dispatch ran an article assessing Gov. Strickland’s school funding plan and the extent to which he’s kept his 2006 campaign promise to fix school funding in Ohio. Overall it’s a fair article that places an appropriate amount of blame on the recession for Ohio’s “battered tax revenue.” It also calls the governor out for falsely attributing a five percent biennial increase in school funding as his own doing, when in reality this increase was due to a one-time shot of federal stimulus money that was as much to his credit as last week’s thunderstorms.
There are a variety of angles from which to assess the success of his funding overhaul promises. Did he try to install a constitutional system of school funding more comprehensive and equitable than his predecessors? Yes. But unfortunately for Ohio, good intentions can’t mask fiscal reality. Will it be fully funded this year? Nope. Will it be funded ten years in the future, as promised in the legislation (HB 1) enacting the change? Unless you’re a perennial optimist, not likely: “Analysis has shown that, as it stands now, it will take a string of unprecedented funding increases to hit the mark.” Did the plan diminish the need for districts to “march to the ballot for local levy requests or make new cuts?” Not yet, although I genuinely hope one day that Ohio’s school funding system – in whatever iteration it’s in – will.
