Ohio General Assembly Robs Money from Kids, hoping it Keeps Taxpayers off their Backs
Ohio House of Representatives wants to literally raid the treasuries of fiscally responsible school districts to give one-time money to property taxpayers
Ok. So the Ohio House Finance Committee did public school kids a solid. Now they’re only going to rob $4.3 billion from them, not the $4.6 they originally intended.
Heroes, all.
Needless to say, this property tax plan is nuts.
The problem is this: Ohio Republicans have so ignored the needs of public school children for so long (SEE chart below showing state-local share of public education funding), it’s forced school districts to do two things: Go for lots of bigger property tax levies and be extremely conservative with their spending because the state has essentially cut state aid to public school districts over the last 25 years in order to fund privately run charter schools and private school tuition subsides for mostly wealthy adults.
But those property tax hikes have been so significant — again, to make up for state lawmakers failing to properly fund public education — that property taxpayers are in open revolt.
What’s the Ohio General Assembly’s solution? Fix the property tax system to make it more fair and equitable? Maybe fully fund the Fair School Funding Plan, as they promised to do 4 years ago so districts can have future state funding certainty and don’t have to keep so much money in rainy day funds?
Nah.
The GA’s solution now is what it always has been: Rob public school kids.
The original plan was to require any school district with more than 25% of their revenue in a rainy day fund to pay that back as a one-time payment to property taxpayers. That, of course, would leave every school district in the state with about 3 months of rainy day money.
But, thanks to the Christian generosity of House Finance Chair Brian Stewart, that percentage will now be 30%. I’m sure public school kids throughout the realm celebrated this man’s extraordinary largesse yesterday as he will only rob $4.3 billion from them, not the $4.6 billion House Speaker Matt Huffman wanted.
Awesome job, Bri!
Now that school districts who had been carefully planning and utilizing conservative spending practices have been literally robbed of their decades of careful planning, what do you think they’re going to do?
If they raise any new property taxes, those will go immediately back to the taxpayers because it will raise their rainy day funds above the 30% threshold.
Could they start spending down their rainy day funds? Sure.
I’ve never been a huge fan of rainy day funds, to be honest. That’s because I have seen what happens when they are actually used for rainy days — users of these funds are branded fiscally irresponsible wasters of taxpayer money. Ask Ted Strickland — the only Governor who tapped Ohio’s rainy day fund to keep teachers employed during the Great Recession.
I’ve seen rainy day funds sit around with millions of dollars that could help the community, but are instead used to claim fiscal responsibility and are never tapped, even during the Great Recession or COVID (yes, I’m looking at you, City of Green).
Rainy Day funds, to me, are simply excuses to not provide services taxpayers are paying for and need.
But eliminating a school district’s rainy day fund without having any sort of off ramp allowing them to maybe start spending down some of these funds on stuff kids need is wholly insane.
And, of course, districts that serve our neediest students will be harmed the most.
In the meantime, the House Finance Committee continued the ongoing thievery of public school student resources by giving unjustified, massive boosts to failing charter schools and private school tuition subsidies that literally can’t be audited by taxpayers — both systems which perform far worse than the public schools whose treasuries Stewart is now robbing.
Great job, guys!
Back to what will public school districts do now.
With their rainy day funds gone, I wonder what’s going to happen when 75% of Ohio school districts are declared to be in fiscal emergency? Wonder if state lawmakers who robbed these kids’ money will call these districts “fiscally irresponsible”?
Actually, no I don’t. That’s exactly what they’re going to say.
Because these guys absolutely suck.