GOP plan spares Mason, Lakota, other schools

COLUMBUS – Mason, Lakota and Princeton schools wouldn't lose money under the latest plan proposed by Ohio House Republicans, who said protests from Southwest Ohio schools had helped change their minds.

Statewide, 93 school districts would have lost money under a proposal GOP lawmakers unveiled last week, with Mason and Lakota losing the most. That was many fewer than the 307 schools that would have seen cuts under Gov. John Kasich's original proposal. Still, parents and educators protested that no school should see cuts in money from the state.

House Republicans conceded, proposing a plan Monday that would keep state money at current levels for those 93 districts, so none of Ohio's 610 schools would sustain cuts.

The 93 districts would have lost money because of a proposal by Kasich to phase out money districts have received as a reimbursement for the discontinued "tangible personal property tax," or TPP.

That would have hurt schools such as Princeton, which receives the most TPP-related money of any local school -- $16.1 million, about 24 percent of the district's overall budget.

This past week, a group of educators and community members traveled to Columbus to protest the cuts during state budget hearings. Rep. Ryan Smith, R-Bidwell, said testimony from Princeton leaders motivated lawmakers to reverse their plan to cut money from schools, especially in an economy that's generally improving.

"They have a high-poverty issue in their area, and in those types of situations, we were trying to help a little bit," Smith said of Princeton. Nearly two-thirds of Princeton's students receive free or reduced-price lunches, he said.

To keep from cutting money from the 93 districts, lawmakers had to come up with an extra $101.7 million. They took it from a pot of money reserved for unexpected Medicaid spending, from a proposed student-debt-relief program and from a grant program intended to help people out of poverty.

And that's the problem, school leaders said: To keep from losing millions of dollars of TPP-related money, lawmakers have to provide an extra pot of money.

Princeton interim Superintendent Edward Theroux said he expects to be back in Columbus in two years, when lawmakers are working on the next budget.

"And that's time away from our core business, which is education," he said. "Yes, I'm happy that it's not as bad (as initially projected). But, I'd like it to just be done and fixed."

Mason parents and community members wrote more than 1,000 postcards to legislators, urging them to keep TPP reimbursement. That made a huge difference, said district spokeswoman Tracey Carson. But, like Theroux, she wishes lawmakers would craft a permanent solution.

It "puts us at risk for the long term," Carson said. "This is our fifth school-funding formula in nine years, so you know, we're kind of hesitant to trust our future, our financial stability, to a future funding formula that doesn't keep the TPP reimbursement."

The revised budget would establish a commission that would analyze the TPP-money problem and make a recommendation on how to deal with it in future education plans, said Rep. Jonathan Dever, R-Madeira. Dever's district includes Princeton and Sycamore Community Schools, which both would have lost money before the latest revision to the funding plan.

The plan, part of the state's two-year budget, passed a House committee Monday before heading to the full House this week. Then it heads to the Senate for revisions. The two chambers must reconcile their two versions and send a final budget to Kasich for his signature before July 1.