COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio public schools are asking Gov. Mike DeWine to veto provisions in the GOP-passed state budget that they say would "destroy" them. Amid cuts to their expected funding, levies are being restricted from making the ballot.
School districts are scrambling to fight against the $60 billion operating bill.
"All signs lead one to believe that the real plan is to destroy public education in Ohio in this budget," Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District Board Member Dan Heintz said.
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Public schools are facing hundreds of millions of cuts to expected school funding. Plus, the state wants to take away some of their savings, capping the carryover revenue at 40% and refunding to taxpayers anything above that.
Districts will be left with two bad choices to make up the lost funds, Heints said.
"It will either come, again, from local taxpayers in the form of more and — let's be honest — constant levies or it will not come," he added. "Public school districts will be required to cut and cut and cut and cut until there is nothing left."
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House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said these changes are necessary since homeowners are struggling with property taxes skyrocketing.
"Not only do we have immediate tax relief, we have a new system that eliminates the ability for levies that go on, an emergency levy that never [goes] away," Huffman said.
Also under the budget, access to the ballot will be even more difficult. Districts will no longer be able to put emergency levies on the ballot or request an increase to a current levy.
The bill eliminates levy replacements on property taxes for all political subdivisions. For schools, it prohibits them from imposing a fixed-sum emergency levy, a substitute emergency levy and a combined school district income tax and fixed-sum property tax levy.
It also prohibits a school district from submitting any current expense levy to voters if it has a general fund carry-over balance of more than 100% of general fund expenditures in the preceding fiscal year. It excludes renewal levies, though.
Even if voters pass a new school levy, the bill allows county budget commissions to unilaterally take money away if they find it "reasonably necessary."
"When it comes to the new, additional restrictions to getting some types of levies on the ballot, what would you say to the schools who say they desperately need help now that the expected funding is going to be reduced?" I asked Huffman.
"If their state of desperation, if that's what you would call it, can be properly conveyed to the voters in their district, and if it is desperate, I think voters will get that," the speaker said, adding that some schools won't see a reduction in funding compared to last year.
Schools need to prove they need the money, which Heintz said he understands — but that levy fatigue is real.
"He's forcing us into a situation where we will have to go to voters every 2 years and that's just too much to ask," the board member said. "It's too much of a burden."
Instead of focusing on the mission of the schools, the district and families have to spend time considering a levy campaign, or the superintendent needs to worry about cutting extracurriculars or teachers, he said.
Huffman argued that voters should have all the choices possible since it is their money.
"The best economic decisions get made in a household," he said.
Heintz and the public school districts are left with one final plea.
"Governor, you have an opportunity to secure your place as one of Ohio's greatest governors, and the place to begin to be remembered is with the youngest Ohioans," he said, speaking directly to the governor through our interview. "With a stroke of a pen, you can make it right."
It's expected Gov. Mike DeWine will sign the budget and issue his line-item vetoes ahead of the deadline Tuesday.
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