Funding Public Education in the State Budget – HB 96

Background:

The Ohio Constitution requires that resources needed to provide a high quality public education are equally available in every community.  Public school funding is a joint venture of the Legislature and local boards of education. The Legislature uses state resources and local communities contribute proceeds from local taxes to fund public schools operated by Ohio’s 610 public school districts.

The state contribution is essential to ensuring that all children and communities are treated fairly. That regardless of the local community’s capacity to fund its schools, there will be sufficient funds.

When local communities are unable to fully meet the basic costs, the state makes up the difference.

Despite the 1997 decision and three subsequent decisions by the Ohio Supreme Court in the DeRolph case, lawmakers have consistently failed to make the investment needed to satisfy the Constitution. It continues to rely too heavily on local property taxes.

In 2020 the Cupp-Patterson plan, a bi-partisan proposal to overhaul school funding received overwhelming support in the Ohio House, but died lacking senate action. It was introduced as part of the next state budget. The formula used to establish costs and distribute funds won support but only partial funding.  Legislators made a verbal commitment to a three-step six year phase in of full funding. The second step survived the FY24-25 budget adopted in 2023.

HB 96 is the budget bill for FY 26 and FY27 which passed the House on April 9, 2025. It is now in the Senate.

The House plan combines the governor’s inadequate proposal with its own budget math that appears to work backward, starting not with the cost of educating students — or the legislature’s constitutional duty to adequately fund public schools — but with House leadership’s notion of acceptable state spending to calculate a district’s “temporary foundation funding.” It includes four elements:

1. Eliminating “supplemental targeted assistance” from districts’ FY 2025 funding totals. Supplemental targeted assistance is funding provided under the FSFP to districts with low wealth and high shares of students attending schools outside of their home district. This supplement primarily helps equalize school funding in poor urban districts.[3] The House scraps this crucial support when calculating a district’s funding.

2. Reducing by half any increases districts would receive under Gov. DeWine’s already inadequate proposal. (Policy Matters Calculations showing the comparison of what would be allotted per district under the final phase in of the FSFP with what has been included in the House Budget.)

3. Guaranteeing that no district receives less in FY 2026 and FY 2027 than it received in FY 2025.

4. Including an enrollment growth supplement and an additional per-pupil base funding supplement.

Basically, the Fair School Funding Plan has been stripped from the House Budget. Now, we need to advocate for it to be put back by the Senate.

House Members Contact Info                        Senate Members Contact Info

House Committees Information                        Senate Committees Information

Where We Stand

• LWVO supports adequate and equitable funding of Ohio’s public schools.

• LWVO calls on the Ohio Legislature to achieve adequate and equitable funding of Ohio’s public schools in HB 96, the budget bill for FY 26 and FY 27.   No more delays.

• For the Fair School Funding plan to achieve its goals, lawmakers must use up-to-data input costs and accurate measures of local capacity and make the financial investment to make the plan whole.  It also involves additional spending on categoricals including students with disabilities, and children who are English Language Learners or live in poverty. Without these changes Policy Matters Ohio’s review of Legislative Service Commission analysis of full funding, the state budget as it stands will underfund the public system by more than $2.75 billion.

• LWVO calls on Ohio lawmakers to make public education their priority.  This includes adopting tax policies that will provide adequate revenue and limiting spending for K-12 students outside the public education system.  

Why LWVO Supports Fair School Funding

The Fair School Funding plan is a solid funding strategy that when fully funded, achieves equity and adequacy. The formula is a constitutional solution to the vexing problem of meeting the needs of our extremely diverse school districts and communities, and the students they serve.

Public education has to be Ohio’s K-12 funding priority. Ohio’s public education system belongs to the public and serves the common good. It is available everywhere and includes everyone; it is accountable to the public and locally elected school boards; it is regulated to ensure quality teaching and learning; and it respects the separation of church and state. Education choices outside the public system do not benefit everyone, are not accountable, are not required to be honest or true, and divert funds from the schools that are the cornerstone institutions in communities and our democracy.

Public school funding is a joint responsibility of the state and local communities.  Local taxpayers have carried too much of the burden for too long, perpetuating inequality. The state needs to do its fair share and stop shifting that responsibility to local property taxes.  

The state budget expresses what we care about as a state. It affects the quality of life for all of Ohio, and our national reputation. A constitutional system of funding public education has to be a priority – not tax cuts for the wealthy or subsidizing an unaccountable collection of private school operators.

What you can do now

As HB 96 ( and by June, the Senate Sub Bill) moves through the Senate and to final negotiations before June 30, express your expectations and concerns to YOUR elected representatives, and to lawmakers on each committee as it s reviews the funding plan. Speak up at every step. Right now, we need to speak up in the House.

Respond to action alerts from LWVO.

Do more. Share your concerns, how it affects you and why it matters.  And make clear:

• You support public education
• Meeting the funding needs of the public system has to be their top priority.
• The Fair School Funding plan must be based on accurate measures of cost and capacity, and fully paid for NOW.

Submit testimony as an individual. Click here for a template and pointers.  See below for some tips and talking points. Watch our legislative tracker for when there is a chance for public testimony.

Call, email or meet with your representative and senator, Governor DeWine, and the members of the committees reviewing the bill in the House, the Senate, and Conference Committee.

Don’t go away.

Ask your local school board members, superintendent and treasurer, educators, PTA members, civic leaders and organizations, and friends to join you. Help them navigate the system.

Resources

Slides from the Ohio League of Women Voters February 12, 2025 webinar explaining the details and background of the Fair School Funding Plan. (link to slides) Here is a recording of the webinar (link to recording)

Helpful Blog from Jan Ressenger: FSFP, Vouchers and More in the Budget