As the academic year comes to a close, school is one of the last things on most students’ minds. The 2025-2026 school year is far, far away; but the decisions that will define it are not. One decision has been made in the Ohio legislature that will greatly affect what is arguably the most important and influential factor for a school district: state funding.
Beginning in the 1980s, the Supreme Court ruled a slew of states’ public school funding systems unconstitutional. These states include Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Wyoming, Delaware and Ohio.
Systems of school funding in these states were not reliant upon government money, but rather, were primarily outsourced from property tax and supplemented by residual budgeting. In short, ‘residual budgeting’ is a simpler way to say “whatever’s left over.”
From this issue was born Ohio HB 1, better known as the Fair School Funding Plan.
This bipartisan piece of legislation was introduced to the Ohio House of Representatives in 2021 by 16th District Democrat Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney and 57th District Republican Rep. Jamie Callender.
“A group of lawmakers (in a bipartisan fashion) alongside treasurers, superintendents, teachers and parents across the state said ‘We’re actually once and for all going to do this right and do it right the first time,’” Sweeney said.
This was not the first time that a legislative body, including the Ohio House, had attempted to tackle the behemoth that is public school funding. Those who spearheaded HB 1 approached the creation of this legislation much differently than those before them.
“The fundamental difference between what the fair school funding plan did compared to the other attempts was that we actually studied what it costs to educate a child in Ohio,” Sweeney said.
Through the Education Policy Institute, studies were conducted to see not only how much it costs to educate a student with no accommodations, but also English learners, special education and gifted students.
Studies took into consideration teacher salaries, student-to-teacher ratios, reading mandates and state standards, administration, staff benefits, location of the school district, local cost of living and more.
“The fair school funding plan provides transparent, concise funding formulas that actually meet the realities of students for the first time in our state’s history,” Sweeney said.
HB 1 was to be implemented in a six-year phase-in plan. Years one through four have been accomplished as planned, but the final phase-in of years five and six that are set for the next congressional budget cycle have not gone as smoothly.
HB 96, primarily sponsored and introduced by 12th District Republican Rep. Brian Stewart, does away almost entirely with the Fair School Funding Plan. While it increases the amount currently allocated to public schooling, it still shorts Ohio Public Schools by nearly $2.75 billion.
This bill has been passed in the House and was recently introduced in the Senate. If Ohio Senators approve this piece of legislation, it will reach the desk of Governor Mike Dewine.
“What was passed takes us off of a rational funding formula that is actually based in the reality of what it costs to educate children,” Sweeney said.
HB 96 will increase budgets by $20 per student for unchanging school districts and $30 per student if the district is growing.
“If you ask anyone who voted for that bill or put those provisions in where the dollars amount from 20 or 30 came from, they can’t tell you because they made it up,” Sweeney said.
Looking at the data determined from the Fair School Funding Formula, for Ohio Legislature to effectively fund public education in the state of Ohio, a minimum of $1.7 billion is required. New legislation only provides $200 million.
Sweeney fears this negligence from the General Assembly will not only hurt students, teachers and parents, but every Ohio taxpayer.
“Someone has to make up the money that the state doesn’t provide and that is local property owners who are already paying too much,” Sweeney said. “In the DeRolph case when this was ruled unconstitutional and they said we have an over-reliance on local property taxes, the state share was around 43%, meaning 57% was picked up by local property owners.”
New legislation provides a considerably low amount of state funding. Many fear this could cause school districts to require more operating levies, putting additional and unfair stress on property owners.
“At the end of the day, it is up to whether or not the general assembly is going to do the hard work of finding the money to meet the real need or are we going to continue to burden local taxpayers who are literally being taxed out of their houses because of the legislature,” Sweeney said. “We’re going to have an explosion of property taxes and likely massive cuts to education that will hurt the quality of our schools that are already underfunded.”
HB 96 has just been introduced into the Ohio Senate. The Senate hopes to have a bill finalized by mid to late June.
