Schools Agency Plans Cuts: Money for New Buses, Teacher Development Fall in State Budget Crunch
By Catherine Candisky, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
Feb. 13–The Ohio Department of Education is slashing state aid for new school buses, professional development for teachers and educational service centers to meet the governor’s directive to cut more than $100 million from its budget.
The agency’s plan, sent late Monday afternoon to Ohio superintendents, includes $43 million in program and staffing cuts over the next 16 months. The rest of the reduction will be achieved by saving money that was budgeted but no longer is needed, said Jeannette Oxender, chief of staff for state Superintendent Susan T. Zelman.
Gov. Ted Strickland ordered more than $733 million in state spending cuts and other reductions about two weeks ago to plug a projected budget shortfall over the next 17 months.
The Education Department sustained the biggest hit, $101 million.
The administration said the cut would have been $174 million without expanding the Ohio Lottery to include Keno, which is expected to generate $73 million for primary and secondary education during the last year of the budget.
While Strickland ordered that per-pupil state aid to public schools be preserved, the cuts are certain to affect services to Ohio’s 1.8 million students.
“The priority is to protect children and districts from harm,” Zelman said, and she hopes to avoid layoffs by not filling vacant positions and through retirements. Of the department’s 667 full-time positions, up to 26 will be cut.
“While the state always tries not to touch foundation money, these other line items also have a direct effect on services and subsidies, so if a district wants to maintain these services, the money has to come from somewhere,” said David Varda, executive director of the Ohio Association of School Business Officials.
For instance, $6 million — or more than 10 percent — of state aid to districts for new school bus purchases is being eliminated.
“Once you get behind in your school bus purchasing, you tend not to catch up,” Varda said.
Education advocates noted that nearly half of Ohio’s 614 school districts received no increase in per-pupil state aid under the current two-year state budget, making it more difficult to come up with money to preserve services.
Varda said the school districts with the tightest budgets and those that rely the most on the state will be the ones hurt the worst.
Professional development funding is being cut by $4.2 million, and technical education for post-secondary adults is being reduced by $3.8 million. In addition, funding for developing and administering student assessments will be cut by $6 million.
State aid to Ohio’s 59 education service centers is being cut by $10 million, or nearly 10 percent. The centers provide school districts with professional development, technology support and other services.
“I can’t foresee any scenario where the cost is not passed on to the district, or they forgo the service,” said Craig Burford, executive director of the Ohio Educational Service Center Association.
School districts contract with service centers for the services they desire, so the cut in state funding will hit some harder than others.
“Here is a policy decision that they didn’t understand the full implications,” Burford said.
“We represent 2.6 percent of the (education) department’s budget and we end up being 9.6 percent of the cut.”
The department did not recommend cutting service centers; it was ordered by the Strickland administration.
The administration exempted from cuts public preschool, charter schools, pupil transportation, adult literacy, special education and gifted programs.
In addition to the $43 million in program and staff reductions, the agency no longer needs another $52 million that had been in its budget. That includes unused special education funds, money set aside to reimburse districts for property valuation errors, and funds not spent from the last two-year budget.
Because of lower-than-anticipated school enrollment, the department also expects not to spend another $30 million that had been budgeted for this year and next in per-pupil state aid. The administration, however, rejected the department’s effort to include those savings in its budget plan.
ccandisky@dispatch.com
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