Policy Matters Ohio

Ohio’s public school districts will lose more than $103 million in foundation formula funding over the next two years, including $95 million in cuts to special education funding, if the budget proposed by Gov. DeWine passes. A series of fact sheets from Policy Matters reveals how the Executive Budget manipulates cost estimates and property-tax data to shift responsibility for school funding onto local districts, reverting to a funding system that over-relies on local property taxes and levies, making a constitutionally guaranteed adequate education dependent on a child’s ZIP code. “We knew that schools would suffer if officials moved forward with the distorted math they’ve been using to calculate the state’s share of funding,” said co-author Ali Smith. “When we dug into the numbers, we were surprised at how much of the cuts come from special education.”