According to the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, a nonpartisan governmental bureau that analyzes the effects of legislation, the Senate version of the bill increases the estimated allocation of funding to traditional school districts by $1 million in 2025-2026, to $8.22 billion total. In 2026-2027, the allocation increases by $13.2 million to $8.31 billion, compared to the House.
Local impacts vary
Brookville Local Schools, which had about a 3.1% growth in student enrollment between the 2019-2020 school year and the 2024-2025 school year, could see its existing state funding drop by nearly $775,000 over the next two years if the Senate plan becomes law. In addition to enrollment growth, Brookville schools received 4.5 stars on the 2023-2024 state report cards.
Franklin City Schools, which has one of the lowest cash balances in the state and recently implemented $1.2 million in cuts for the next school year after a levy failed, would see an additional two-year state funding loss of nearly $1.7 million under the Senate budget. The district got 3.5 stars on the 2023-2024 state report cards.
Credit: Jen Balduf
Credit: Jen Balduf
Kevin Hawley, Franklin City Schools treasurer, said the changes could result in the district being in fiscal emergency in the 2026-2027 school year.
“This has the potential to impact the district significantly,” Hawley said. “Franklin City Schools has been proactively decreasing our expenses over the last three years and already have planned cuts for this upcoming school year due to the levy failure in May. Some of these changes have dramatically changed the services we are able to provide our community and students.”
The Senate plan would cut Northmont City Schools’ state funding by $1.76 million over two years. The district recently passed a levy generating $3.5 million per year over 10 years. Part of the district’s argument for needing that money was that the state does not provide Northmont enough money to run the district. Northmont received four stars on the 2023-2024 state report cards.
“We need policymakers to understand they are putting a bigger burden on property-owning constituents by not increasing state-level support,” said Tony Thomas, Northmont superintendent. “It is the reverse of tax reform. The state contribution percentage of school funding continues to decrease and is creating a property tax problem in Ohio.”
In Montgomery County, districts that would see the largest state funding increases under the Senate version of the bill included Centerville, Mad River, and Northridge. Seven districts would see foundation funding go up, while nine would go down.
Beavercreek and Sugarcreek schools would see notable state funding increases under the Senate Bill, while Greeneview and Yellow Springs would see cuts. In Miami County, only Milton-Schools would see state funding decrease.
In Clark County, Southeastern schools would see more than a 10% increase in state funding over the 2024-25 year, while the rest of the districts would be up or down no more than 2%.
In Butler County, Lakota, Middletown and Monroe schools would be up almost $20 million combined in state funding the next two years under the Senate plan, while Edgewood and Fairfield schools would lose millions compared to the school year that just ended.
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
In eight local counties — Montgomery, Miami, Greene, Warren, Butler, Preble, Champaign, and Clark — districts would see a combined increase of about $56 million, with 40 districts seeing an increase and 26 seeing a decrease.
Public school advocates have applauded the higher amount of money provided to local schools in the Senate budget but said it does not fund schools enough.
“Ohio taxpayers deserve to know that public money is being spent responsibly,” said Melissa Cropper, Ohio Federation of Teachers president. “By gutting essential components of the Fair School Funding Plan and using outdated cost inputs, the budget released by the Ohio Senate fails to deliver what our students, communities, and taxpayers need and deserve.”
Ohio Democrats also criticized the budget, saying high-performing schools are in the wealthiest districts and lowest-performing schools are dealing with poverty.
“The lowest performing schools are the schools that are also dealing with poverty and other challenges that will make them continue to be low performing,” said Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood. “Therefore, they will not have access fairly to funds available.”
Senate Finance Chair Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, defended the Senate budget, saying the budget was closest to following the original funding scheme.
“Look, we’ve added some components to take into account drops in enrollment or increases in enrollment, as well as performance,” Cirino said. “We did not go in and change the inputs to update them to current costs. That was never expected of us when this whole funding scheme was put together in the first place.”
Avery Kreemer contributed to this story.
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