The Ohio House Finance Committee passed its version of the state budget Tuesday afternoon but not before making a few tweaks to it. And one of those changes involved a controversial provision that would allow local taxpayers to get a refund if their school districts carry over more money in their operating budgets than lawmakers deem necessary.
Rep. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) said the decision was to allow the school districts to carry over 30% of their operating budget before being penalized. The earlier plan capped that amount at 25%. Stewart said even at 30%, local property taxpayers in more than 400 school district will get a refund because of high carryover.
"Our determination is this. If this bill has been in effect already, this would constitute a $4.2 billion
of, property tax relief. Cumulatively, the same about half all of our residents," Stewart said.
In recent days, education leaders have lobbied hard to get the House to go back to funding the final two-year phase in of the bipartisan Fair School Funding Plan that was passed back in 2021. But the outright funding for districts is still not based on that formula. House leaders note school districts will receive more in their budget than they have in the past. But advocates for schools point out that they will receive less than they would have in Governor DeWine's proposed budget, which did fund the final two years of the Fair School Funding Plan, albiet a lower levels than school districts wanted due to 2022 data being used in the calculations instead of numbers that are more current.
The budget proposal passed out of committee without a single Democrat voting for it. Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney said the House should have stuck to funding the Fair School Funding Plan because, without it, Ohio's funding model is unconstitutional.
"We started the journey to finally get this an
unconstitutional formula we had. This was the year to finally we could have been on the floor tomorrow saying we have a constitutional fund,
not we're going to actually do our duty, but what we are doing is arbitrarily walking away from that. So next year, we don't have one anymore," Sweeney said.
Sweeney called the cap on the carryover is "fake property tax relief."
"If we put this, this bill today into law, we're going to have an explosion of property taxes. And how they are claiming to do property tax relief is to rob opportunity of students for one time, injuring every single school district's, bank account meeting. They're going to have to go to the ballot to do that. I am very concerned," Sweeney said.
All of the Republicans on the finance committee voted to pass the budget, with its new changes. It will go up for a vote in the full House on Wednesday where it will likely pass along party lines.
"You know, this is a budget that is, you know, increases funding for public schools, increases public funding for public education, higher education increases funding for libraries, the
largest tax relief property tax in Ohio's history," Stewart said.
Republican Governor Mike DeWine has said even after the House version passes, it will still have to go to the Senate and a conference committee.
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