3 days ago
Ohio leaders at odds about property tax relief in budget
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — State lawmakers will be passing a multi-billion-dollar state budget in just a few weeks, but more changes are coming to the spending bill on Tuesday.
Public school teachers said they hope some of the changes are in school funding.
'We're just asking for things to be made fair,' Ironton City Schools physical education teacher Daniel Murphy said.
Murphy said he grew up in a low-income house, went to public school and is now a teacher and president of his local union. Without his public school, he said none of it would have been possible.
'It's a stamp on what public education can truly do when it's given a fair, equal cut of the budget,' Murphy said.
Murphy said that's why budget talks worry him right now, and said it risks cutting programs for students.
'How does that effect funding for meals? How does that directly affect us on how we do our after-school activities,' Murphy said.
Under the proposal, schools do see an increase in funding compared to the past two years, but the 'fair school funding plan' that was created several budget cycles ago is no longer in play.
'If we had done what some call the 'third phase,' it would've been a $1.8 billion increase in school funding, which pretty much would've wiped out other funding we did for daycare, a whole number of other things,' Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said.
Instead, schools now see $550 million in the house version of the budget; Huffman called it substantial.
Property tax relief plays into all of this too. Right now, the state budget has a relief plan that works like this: if you live in a school district that carried over more than 30% of its budget from the previous year, your property tax bill will go down. But Republican leadership between chambers is at odds about the proposal.
'The 30% number was based on the fact that prior to this conversation, the school standard was 25% carryover,' Huffman said.
'I think 30% is too low. I think it fails to account for some of the unforeseen circumstances that schools that may have to deal with from a capital perspective,' Ohio Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) said.
The proposal would impact 486 of the state's 600-some school districts. Huffman touts this as likely the largest property tax relief in the state's history, estimated to help Ohioans save $4.2 billion dollars. But will he compromise on the 30%?
'It's not a matter of sort of, 'well how about 70%, how about 50%,' or whatever,' he said. 'It's 'what is the reason that some other number is appropriate,' so I guess I'd have to have that argument as to what would be appropriate.'
McColley said schools need enough money to be ready for unforeseen circumstances, like replacing a boiler or a getting a new roof. But he said he can see that too much stored money is not ideal.
'Acknowledging that if a school is carrying over very large amounts of money, is that really a good thing either? So, we'll see where we end up,' McColley said. 'I don't know that we've reached a final idea as to what we're going to do.'
The Senate is planning to amend the state budget on Tuesday. Once the Senate passes its version of the state budget, the House and Senate will need to come to an agreement by July 1.
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