Senator Cates,

I will not be able toattend your initial meeting this week in Monroe, due to state limits preventinga board quorum gathering outside of a regular meeting. However, Mr. Leeds and Mr.Snyder will be representing Monroe schools. But please note that I am writingnot just a Monroe school board member, but also as Board President ofButler Tech, and as a community member and taxpayer.

I think justabout everyone in Ohio will agree we have a school funding problem, alarge one. Today's system just does not work effectively. There is great debateover how much school funding should come from local vs. state sources. I leavethat discussion to others for now. The issue I feel must be immediatelyaddressed is the inherent instability of our state's school fundingsystem. This instability has two key sources, House Bill 920, itsrollbacks and consequent ballot issues just to restore our school'stax rates, and the quirks of our state aid funding calculations, popularlyknown as "phantom revenue". I seek your help in correcting thesetwo problems.

To fully understand anddocument our school's funding situation, all of the school districts of ButlerCounty came together to investigate the effects of House Bill 920, its tax raterollbacks, and to better understand the perception of the voting public. Ihave attached the executive summary of that study. As the report makesclear, our school operating tax rates today remain virtually equal tothat of 1989. For Butler County in total, the analysis showed that, thetotal collected school operations revenue, including the HB920 rollbacks andALL of the operations levys passed since, are within one half percent of whatwould have been collected had HB920 never been passed, and if none ofthe levys to offset tax rollbacks had occurred. Some may argue thatthis proves all is well, that we continue to fund our schools. But if so,they miss the reality districts face, the inherent problems of fiscal uncertainty, andthe magnitude of the effort required to insure fiscal survivability of ourschool districts.  Levy after levy after levy... applying suchhuge effort just to remain where we were to begin with, makes nosense whatsoever. 

Compounding the problemsof HB920 rollbacks, and the matching levys to restore tax rates,is the state's district funding calculation method. I am sure you arefamiliar with the phrase "phantom revenue" with respectto state aid calculations. But if not, literally, when our schooldistricts exceed twenty mills revenue in permanent local funding, state aid iscorrespondingly reduced, dollar for dollar, for any permanent localtaxes collected between twenty and twenty three mills. This quirk of lawliterally all but forc]]> Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:24:24 +0000 http://www.middletownusa.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=359&PID=952&title=hb-920-needs-to-be-discussed#952