If there was any doubt that the Ohio House’s version of the new two-year budget might fully fund the Fair School Funding Plan, that notion was laid to rest Tuesday.
House leaders unveiled their version of the operating budget. While they promoted that it increases money for K-12 schools over Gov. Mike DeWine's budget, it doesn't fully fund the implementation of the final two years of the Fair School Funding Plan. That's the bipartisan six-year proposal that state lawmakers passed in 2021. DeWine's budget didn't fully fund the implementation either, since it used salary and other financial data from 2022.
And although House leaders said that the funding formula is the "bedrock" for the figures in its version, the budget decreases the amount those schools would be getting from the numbers proposed in DeWine’s budget earlier this year.
House Finance Chair Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) said a total of $226 million more would be spent on Ohio’s K-12 public school districts over DeWine's proposal. And he said the House budget increases per-pupil funding when compared with their funding level for this year. Stewart said $79.3 million would be allotted in fiscal year 2026 and $143.3 million in fiscal year 2027.
“We're essentially putting in a 'bridge' formula that will, for the next two years, take into account what has really driven these kind of fluctuations in funding,” Stewart said. ”It takes into account the fact that we have had pretty historic property tax valuation increases, which have otherwise decreased the state share of funding that it goes to districts. And it also seeks to provide more aid to districts that have increasing enrollment.”
But the House version contains a provision that caps how much school districts can carryover in their operating budgets. Stewart said local school districts have a total of $10.5 billion dollars left over in their accounts—carryovers that he said have been growing steadily over time. He said 528 school districts have an overage in reserve above 25%.
Stewart said the House Republicans' budget includes a new measure that allows school districts to carry over 25% of their budgets but if they go over that, the budget requires each county tax office to refund that overage to taxpayers.
“We're not going to shift the tax burden from one set of taxpayers to another, Stewart said. “We believe that those monies are better in the taxpayer’s pocket than in the school districts bank account just accumulating, just sitting over time.”
On taxpayer-paid vouchers, Stewart said the House budget keeps the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship from $32,455 to $34,000. And there's a new option for parents whose children attend a non-chartered, nonpublic school district—an education savings account that would amount to 75% of the cost of the current voucher program that is available to parents who send their children to K-12 private schools. There is also an increase in the homeschool tax credit, which is meant to provide for expenses related to home education supplies, taking it from $250 per household to $250 for each student.
Education union leaders react
Scott DiMauro, executive director of the Ohio Education Association, said he's still looking at the details of the budget but already has one takeaway: "This is a dark day for Ohio."
DiMauro said lawmakers have a basic constitutional responsibility to fund Ohio's schools fairly and efficiently.
"Clearly we have legislators who don't care about the future of education in our state, uh, who are disregarding the needs of the nearly 90% of Ohio's kids who attend public schools and I expect them to do better."
DiMauro said the House budget is evidence of lawmakers having misplaced priorities.
"It's a struggle for me to understand how legislators can underfund our public schools but still at the same time commit to funding significant money to the Cleveland Browns for a new stadium that's not even needed," DiMauro said. The House GOP budget includes $600 million in state-backed bonds for a new domed stadium and development for the Browns in Brook Park.
DiMauro likened changing the funding for schools in the House plan to "changing the rules in the middle of the game."
Melissa Cropper, executive director of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, said she’s also still sifting through details in the plan, but, like DiMauro, she doesn't like a lot of what she sees.
“Our biggest concern throughout this has been that they would throw away a formula and just go back to residual budgeting, which is kind of what this sounds like,” Cropper said. “And without that formula, it just leaves everything very up in the air moving into the future.”
As far as the new provision that would cap a school district’s carryover to 25%, Cropper said that sounds good to taxpayers on the surface. But she said schools might need to carryover more.
“The reason that schools might have access is because they don't have any stability of funding,” Cropper said. Without a fully funded formula that remains consistent over time, she said school districts don’t know what to expect in the future and might be saving for unexpected expenses that might come their way.
House leaders say budget will help with property taxes
Around 90% of the students in Ohio go to their local public schools. When asked whether he was concerned about backlash from parents and teachers who might be concerned over the new funding provisions in this budget, Stewart said he thinks House lawmakers are doing what taxpayers want.
“I think Ohioans at this point in 2025 are much more concerned about their property tax bill than their income tax bill. We've done a lot of great work in the legislature over a decade or more reducing the income tax and getting it to a place where we're lower than states around us, where we're competitive and we're really not hearing as much concern from businesses and individuals about their income tax burden,” Stewart said. “So, we really want to focus on property tax. And I think the reforms that are in this budget that the speaker has been really involved in spearheading, I think are going to be very immediate, very real, and not shift the burden just to one group of taxpayers versus the other.”
The House is expected to vote on this version of the budget in the next few weeks.
