Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Amendment for school funding too extreme




The Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding began gathering signatures last week to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot.

The initiative, if passed, would replace about $2.5 billion in local property taxes now collected by school districts with general state tax money.

Constitutional amendments should be considered carefully and used only as a last resort.

While school funding in Ohio is certainly a mess and while we believe state lawmakers have not done their part to fix the problem, a constitutional amendment is too drastic a step to make.

Our systems of government are self-correcting. It takes time, but we believe the answer is constant pressure, energized opposition to the status quo and local involvement in local schools.

Moving a large sum of money from one set of taxpayers to another doesn't add up to a solution.

Putting a cap on property taxes, which this amendment would require, sounds like a good idea but also sounds a lot like one of the laws that got us here in the first place.

We're not saying that nothing needs to be done. Clearly, changes are needed.

We're not even saying that we are totally against the idea of the amendment. It's an extreme step that might cause as many problems as it solves and must to be studied carefully.

We are saying that it is likely that every time you step up to the ballot box for the next several years you will be facing some sort of decision on schools.

We need to elect state officials who are going to take the problem seriously.

We need to elect school board members who are going to actively seek solutions and we need to remember state tax dollars are our tax dollars, too.

-The Marion Star


Originally published May 26, 2005

Good Luck!!! PLSD

I say good luck school in trying to get another levy passed this November. If these guys are successful in placing this Constitutional amendment on the ballot how many people will vote against a Pickerington school levy?

If the area voters think this will solve the school funding problems I believe they are very wrong. It will only move the burden to educate our kids to the State House. You and I lose control over the our own destiny and school system. The state will set a standard and it will be take it or leave it. Their will be no choice and it will be cookie cutter education in our future. If this makes it to the ballot it will further deteriorate the state's schools.

State vs. Local Funding

The question of whether we should increase the amount of state income tax in our public school funding mix is a complex one.

You are correct about one thing: although state income tax is a different pocket, it's still the same pants. Ohio taxpayers pay either way.

Property tax, however, is more regressive. It also favors school districts with a solid commercial tax base, with high residential real estate values or with a static or declining population. Thus, from a public education standpoint, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.

School districts such as our own, with explosive residential growth, weak commercial tax bases and moderate residential property values, are among those that suffer the most from current school funding practices. We can afford good schools only with high property tax rates. Since voters, understandably, are reluctant to approve such high tax rates, our schools lurch from one funding crisis to the next. This has been compounded, in our case, by the school board's unwillingness to impose fiscal control and discipline on the administration.

On the other hand, Ohio's heavy reliance on local revenue sources to fund public schools, in theory at least, enhances local control of public schools. The problem with this argument, however, is that our schools are now being swamped by unfunded state mandates. To an alarming degree, state proficiency tests and teacher certification requirements now drive public school curricula and staffing.

As a result, at least during my years on the board, our local school board exercised little or no control over our schools' curriculum. Admittedly this was due in part to the unwillingness of some board members to exercise any oversight at all over our schools -- an unwillingness for which our schools are still paying. But it was due, I think, in equal measure, to state mandates -- i.e., to state control of our local schools.

State control can be a good thing, if used in the right way. We do need to assure that all public schools in the state meet minimum educational standards. We need to work to pull up those that fall short.

But our current funding system has resulted in the imposition of state standards and requirements that many local school districts cannot afford to meet. It also has resulted, I have to say, in state standards that strike me as mindless and primarily politically inspired.

So what's the answer? I am afraid that I don't have it. But I would be very interested in all of your thoughts on the subject.

Collective Barganing

I would like to expand on a couple of points that Mr. Rigelman made in his comments on school funding sources. First there is the point of, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I know Bruce meant that for Ohio schools districts but that holds true for our communities in general around Ohio.

Then there is the point of control over our local schools from the state. It is one thing to appoint a competent director or administrator to run our school system and hold them responsible and it is quite a different issue to have 50 or more members of the State General Assembly trying to place their mark on education proposing these unfunded mandates.

If we look back in the recent History of Ohio you will see at one time our state was able to provide the state services with a 3% sales tax. In the 50s and 60s we were operating all of the states services with no income tax and a sales tax at half of today?’s rate. When I left Ohio in the 1960s our infrastructure in roads and education was superior to many other states in this nation. We also had a state system of mental hospitals and those poor souls that needed treatment were provided for by the state.

Today we have a 5.2 % state income tax and over 7% in sales tax and we still can?’t keep up with the services in education and other services like our roads and Medicaid.

What happened?


Despite the efforts of some in our General Assembly we have allowed ourselves to strangle on our own success.

I believe while the private corporations in our state have needed to down size and cut expenses our public agencies including the schools have been allowed to grow at an alarming rate. The Pickerington School System has about 85% of their operating budget going to staff salaries and benefits. This holds true for most state agencies including what we are seeing in Franklin County in the last week or two.

I can?’t understand the philosophy of allowing state and public employees the right to have public collective bargaining with the taxpayers money and at the same time we protect them with job security and subsidize their retirement and now we see in Franklin county that is not enough they are on all STRIKE including the Columbus Public Schools.

Who was the idiot that gave these public employees that right? Should we repeal the Collective Bargaining? Should Ohio be a State where you have a right to work and not join a union? I think the teachers in this state need to decide on whether they want a secure job with benefits or the right to collective bargaining? Last year Reynoldsburg Teachers were about to strike because the were ONLY offered a 20% raise over the three year contract period. Folks we are talking about a CPI of less than 3% over the last ten years. How many people in the private world has their employer pay 16.5% of your pay into a retirement system and the employee pays 7.5% and when you retire from a protected job after thirty years you get 75% of your ending salary? Then these same teachers bitch about now getting social security. We will never satisfy this greed.

If you want to solve the state school funding issues change the public collective bargaining laws tomorrow.




By Scab