Governor’s Proposed Budget Slashes School Funding For Some Districts, Increases For Others

Under the Governor’s pro­posed 2016–17 bud­get, less wealthy school dis­tricts could see increases in state fund­ing, and edu­ca­tional ser­vice cen­ters through­out Ohio could likely see a sub­stan­tial cut in state fund­ing. The governor’s pro­posed bud­get reduces the amount of fund­ing for ESCs from $40 mil­lion in fis­cal year 2015 to $37.7 mil­lion in fis­cal year 2016 and $30.2 mil­lion in fis­cal year 2017, rep­re­sent­ing reduc­tions of 6 per­cent in fis­cal year 2016 and 20 per­cent in fis­cal year 2017. The governor’s pro­posal of a 26 per­cent fund­ing cut will, accord­ing to many school offi­cials, neg­a­tively impact their abil­ity to reduce costs by shar­ing ser­vices. Among those shared ser­vice per­son­nel that will likely be affected, are psy­chol­o­gists, gifted staff, grant writ­ers, cur­ricu­lum direc­tors and spe­cial edu­ca­tion direc­tors, as well as speech, occu­pa­tional and phys­i­cal therapists.