COLUMBUS, Ohio — Following our deep dive into an effort by Republican leadership in Ohio to cut public school spending, which resulted in the lawmakers facing backlash, half a dozen GOP legislators personally reached out, vowing to protect K-12 education.
Those six, and at least 15 others I have spoken to in recent weeks, say that one of their main priorities is supporting public schools.
This comes as Gov. Mike DeWine would not commit to supporting the current bipartisan funding formula, telling me that "difficult choices" will need to be made.
Recap
Ohio's history with school funding isn't the brightest. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the way the state funds schools is unconstitutional, relying too much on property taxes.
Throughout the next three decades, lawmakers went back and forth on policy in an attempt to fix the unconstitutionality. The Ohio Education Association, as well as lawmakers on each side of the aisle, have deemed that it has been unconstitutional since then. However, some Republicans argue that because they are no longer using the struck-down policy, and since nothing else has been deemed "unconstitutional" in court, they argue that, by definition, it can't be considered unconstitutional.
Either way, there has been a bipartisan effort for years to fix the funding system.
House Bill 1, introduced by State Reps. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) and Jamie Callender (R-Concord), in 2021, required $333 million additional dollars a year for K-12 education funding — or about $2 billion overall. It is called the Cupp-Paterson Fair School Funding Plan.
Their bill mirrored the policy that passed the House but not the Senate in the General Assembly prior, which was created by former Speaker Bob Cupp (R-Lima) and former state Rep. John Patterson (D-Jefferson). House Bill 1 was finally passed and signed into law.
The rollout was supposed to take six years and is meant to change how public dollars are provided to K-12 schools. It would give additional support to local districts so they can rely less on property taxes.
The first two years were partially fully funded, the second two years were fully funded, and there are just two years left to go.
But that may not happen.
Tuesday's story
It was comments made by new House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) that angered viewers, readers, parents and education leaders across the state.
"I don't think there is a third phase to Cupp-Patterson," Huffman told reporters Monday evening. "As to the expectation that those things are gonna go in... I guess the clear statement I can say is I think those increases in spending are unsustainable."
The G.A. from four years ago shouldn't be able to "bind" what the future lawmakers can do, he said.
Huffman explained that this year's budget is going to have significantly less money due to the federal COVID dollars drying up. And for him, public education is on the chopping block.
"That's often how a lot of projects go — early on it doesn't cost very [much] money — but some other governor or General Assembly will have to figure out how to pay for it," he continued. "As it turns out, I am the other General Assembly years in the future, or possibly am, and I don't think the spending is sustainable."
In short, Huffman proposed cutting at least $650 million in public education spending in this G.A.'s budget.
RELATED: Ohio GOP threatens to cut school funding, calling spending 'unsustainable'
After we aired his comments — and Parma City Schools Superintendent Charles Smialek's frustration — Ohioans started calling their lawmakers.
The next day, half a dozen Republicans reached out to me to share they would fight for school funding — and they didn't want to be lumped in with leadership "trying to take it down."
"They're hearing from their constituents, they're hearing from their residents that 'Hey, listen, we don't want our teachers taking pay cuts; we don't want class sizes of 32, 33; we don't want to go back to pay for play of $700 and $800 for extracurricular opportunities,'" Smialek said.
Apparently, residents have been leaving angry messages, posting on social media and calling offices.
"I think the more that you can spotlight this issue and the importance of funding public education... It shows that the people understand that we have to have a thorough and efficient means of educating all of our students," the superintendent said to me. "I'm very heartened to hear that people have had the reaction that they have."
However, the legislators who reached out to me had or said they would have supported H.B. 1 if they had been in the legislature at that time.
Within the Statehouse, there seem to be three types of lawmakers. Some prioritize public school funding, others prioritize private school vouchers or "school choice" and then there is a mix of the two.
One of the only Republicans to go on the record and speak out against Huffman's comments was, unsurprisingly, Callender.
"Fully funding the Fair School Funding Plan — it is a rising tide that will lift all ships," Callender said.
In the FSFP, the formula supports not just public traditional education but all sectors, whether it's vouchers, charters or districts.
To not fully fund the plan could cause the schools to rely heavily on property taxes, which will then lead to more levies, which will then be shut down due to already having high enough property taxes, I explained Tuesday. Callender said this would be detrimental to families and schools.
Former House Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) may have been termed out this Jan., but when he saw me at the Statehouse Wednesday, he said not following the funding plan was a bad idea.
In an interview Thursday, he said he wasn't sure how Huffman didn't know that the FSFP had three tranches, considering that was the whole point and that it was so "widely advertised," plus there is "abundant evidence" to prove that.
Seitz, who is credited for being the most efficient lawmaker at getting each chamber to agree or for bringing two parties together, explained that the House had already done its due diligence.
As I reported in 2023, the House passed its budget with a fully-funded public education system. The Senate refused, instead being "adamant that they wanted universal school vouchers," Seitz continued.
"We were equally adamant that we thought we had a moral obligation, not a legal obligation — a moral obligation — to follow through on the second tranche of funding," he said.
To get a bill passed, the House and Senate collaborated and both wishes were granted.
Seitz continued that the best way to preserve or even expand the speaker's voucher program would be to implement the third phase of the FSFP.
"You would have achieved what people did not think was possible — namely, for once and for all, a school funding formula that whether you are on the left or on the right, you have agreed that that is fair and constitutional," he said. "So if you do that and if you pass that, then you can smile very sweetly at the public school advocates and say, 'Okay, you got yours, so please do not bother us because we believe in school choice.'"
I even called Cupp, of the Cupp-Patterson plan, and asked if he had remembered me (he did and laughed). He declined to comment at this point but did say that he would speak with his Lima neighbor Huffman.
Budgeting
It's not just the lawmakers who have a say in the budget.
During a press conference Wednesday, I questioned DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted on if they wanted to fully fund education.
"Sometimes these are very, very difficult, difficult choices," the governor responded, noting that the state's budget isn't as plentiful this time around.
There are many factors he has to take into consideration, including two very expensive issues: "mental health" and "drug problems."
He added that education, including colleges, is important and that those discussions will take place. He said something has to give, but he doesn't know what.
"It would be unfair of me at this point to come out here and say we need to do this, this, this and this," the governor responded.
Husted jumped in, giving a more straightforward answer.
"Funding for the education of children will continue to be a huge budget priority going forward as... He's made sure of in the past," the LG said.
Superintendent Smialek sighed with relief at the Husted's response.
"To hear, especially the lieutenant governor's comments is absolutely encouraging to us," he said, noting that the LG has previously visited Parma's schools.
He also understands what DeWine was saying about mental health and drug addiction.
"If we think about brain development and when the brain develops, we're talking about early childhood education," Smialek said. "We want to be the preventative antidote to those issues and to those societal plagues that we all deal with."
But Richmond Heights School District Treasurer Cooper Martin doesn't believe the lawmakers. He criticized Huffman for his championing of the private school voucher system, with the state spending roughly $1 billion in public money to send kids to nonpublic schools.
"You can't say that public education is unsustainable when you're spending that money," Martin said.
More in-depth about Ohio vouchers can be found in our previous article.
Huffman and many GOP politicians believe spending that much on EdChoice is necessary in order to have the money "follow the child" or have the students avoid poor-performing public schools.
"There's no educational system where one size fits all works for everyone," Husted said, addressing different types of schools.
But for public schools, the EdChoice program is siphoning money from them.
"Every dollar that goes to a voucher, it's a dollar that's taken from public education," Martin said.
Smialek said this sets districts up for failure.
"It absolutely becomes sort of that downward spiral where you defund us, and then somehow expect us to meet expectations and parameters that only continue to increase," the superintendent said, adding that public schools are graded much harsher than nonpublic.
Several GOP lawmakers, such as Callender, all said they would look at other institutions to cut funds from before directly going to education.
For the Northeast Ohio Republican, he thinks that legalized marijuana may solve the problem.
"Why don't we look at all the folks that are in our state prisons and jails that are there solely or primarily because of marijuana offenses — which are no longer illegal," Callender, the marijuana enthusiast lawmaker who helped lead the charge of recreational use, said. "We could have a 20% savings."
Callender wants to work together with Huffman to find a way to support public education while making sure the budget is balanced. And Smialek hopes that Ohioans will continue to share their voices with state representatives and senators.
"This is really resonating with the population," the superintendent said.
