Ohio budget keeps taxes, cuts school and local government funding

Approved by Senate, spending plan now goes to House, then governor.

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By Laura A. Bischoff and Margo Rutledge Kissell
Staff Writers Updated 12:42 AM Wednesday, June 29, 2011

COLUMBUS — Ohio’s next two-year budget, which the House votes on today and Gov. John Kasich is expected to sign Thursday, holds the line on taxes, but cuts funding to schools and local governments, allows tuition hikes and sells off government assets.

The bill also requires Ohio’s roughly 120,000 K-12 teachers to receive annual performance evaluations to help determine who is promoted, retained and fired.

The governor is expected to use his line-item veto power only on a short list of items. The Senate approved the budget, 22-11, on Tuesday. All Dayton-area senators voted for it.

The state Board of Education must come up with a framework by Dec. 31 that bases annual teacher and principal evaluations on at least two 30-minute observations and student academic growth. Teachers will be given written evaluations and opportunities for professional development.

Seniority will no longer be the sole basis for retaining or re-hiring teachers unless it comes down to a choice between two teachers with comparable evaluations.

School districts will have until July 1, 2013, to adopt policies that comply with the statewide framework and take effect when collective bargaining agreements expire.

The budget bill calls for a new merit-pay system for teachers in the 482 districts and charter schools participating in the federal Race to the Top grant program.

Those districts will base pay on the level of licensure, whether the teacher is ranked highly qualified and evaluation ratings. Non-participating districts are allowed to base pay on performance or on experience and education levels.

About 35 Dayton-area school districts — including Kettering, Centerville, Northmont and Xenia — and a dozen charter schools have been awarded a combined $16 million in Race to the Top funding over four years.

Dayton Public Schools Treasurer Stan Lucas, whose district is getting $6.4 million in Race to the Top funding, supports the idea of merit pay because he believes it gives people goals to work toward. But he said the state will have to come up with funding to support the mandate.

“Without a funding stream that is set up in such a way that it’s sustainable over time, I don’t know how you make it work,” Lucas said.

David Romick, president of the Dayton Education Association teachers union, was troubled by lawmakers wanting to develop a system for teacher evaluations and merit pay at the state level when teachers union representatives and administrators involved in Race to the Top already have been working collaboratively on those issues in communities around Ohio.

“Rather than coming up with a package locally, we’ll be restricted to the guidelines of a state model,” he said. “That may run counter to some of the work we’ve already undertaken.”

Because Brookville Local Schools is not participating in Race to the Top, it would not be affected by the merit-pay system. But Superintendent Tim Hopkins voiced concern about how teacher-evaluation systems would affect his small district.

The district has three principals and an assistant principal who would have to evaluate 100 teachers. Under the district’s current system, some teachers are evaluated annually, while others are evaluated on a second- or third-year rotation.

“If every single teacher has to be evaluated, we don’t have enough administrators in this district to carry that out in a fair and proper form,” he said. “Logistically, it’s going to be a problem.”

The Ohio Education Association, the labor union that represents 105,000 teachers, opposes the evaluation and merit pay systems.

OEA President Patricia Frost-Brooks said, “Most Ohioans agree it is wrong to link high-stakes decisions to student performance on standardized tests, especially decisions about how teachers are paid.”

She also said that the budget includes provisions from the collective bargaining reform bill that voters are expected to vote up or down in November.

Senate Finance Chairman Chris Widener, R-Springfield, said if voters uphold Senate Bill 5, which includes teacher merit-pay rules, he isn’t sure whether the budget or collective bargaining law would take precedence.

“That would probably be up for more legal analysis,” he said.

Privatization, cuts also in the budget

The budget calls for spending $112 billion, including $55.7 billion in the general revenue fund.

It includes a new income tax credit for earnings on investments in Ohio-based companies and the elimination of the estate tax on estates worth more than $338,000 beginning Jan. 1, 2013.

Among other key provisions, the budget would:

• Allow the state to sell five prisons to a private company and then pay the new owner to house state inmates;

• Allow the sale or lease of the 241-mile Ohio Turnpike with legislative approval;

• Allow public colleges and universities as well as local governments to sell dormitories, parking decks or other non-core buildings and then lease them back from the new owner.

The biggest changes call for refocusing Medicaid and making cuts in funding for local governments and schools.

Senate Republicans say the budget is fiscally responsible and puts Ohio on track for economic stability.

“We stabilized the most dramatic financial shortfall in state history, while allowing Ohioans to keep more of their hard-earned money in this tough economy,” said Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond. “At the same time, we reduced overall spending and adopted long-overdue reforms to everything from high-cost Medicaid programs to prison operations.”

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Other budget highlights

• Keeps provision to pay schools rated “excellent” or better a subsidy of $17 per student.

• Allocates $500,000 to enforce Ohio’s smoking ban instead of eliminating the funding.

• Established a new $50 million capital fund that the administration could spend on emergency situations.

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