In Defense of Governor Kasich’s Proposed School Funding Formula

Using Montgomery County Districts

Steve Clark, Treasurer/CFOKettering City School District

• When Governor Kasich introduced his proposed funding formula to Ohio School Superintendents, he stated:

• If you’re poor, you’ll get money, if you’re wealthy you will not.

• When the Governor’s Office released their Preliminary Estimates they indicated that

– A number of “poor” districts would receive no increase• Those districts would be “guarantee” districts• Meaning their state funding would not be cut, instead• They will receive the same amount of state funding they received

in the prior year.

– A number of “wealthy” districts would receive significant increases.

Almost all Ohio basic school funding formulas have been based on the following formula:

Number of students times a per pupil minimum

Minus (the district’s contribution):

The total taxable property (assessed value) times the charge-off (a set millage rate)

• In defense of the Governor’s proposed funding formula, the Governor’s staff, said

– Over time, a number of “poor districts” have lost students or gained property value, since fiscal year 2009, the last time we had a school funding formula.

– The result of those actions would be lower state funding for those districts.

– A measure of those changes would be a district’s valuation per pupil (District Assessed Value divided by the number of students in the district).

• Jerry Ellender, Treasurer, Mad River Locals (Montgomery County) compared – The state’s valuation/per pupil rankings for each

Montgomery County school districts (ranked lowest to highest) and

– Montgomery County School districts’ proposed fiscal year 2014 total per pupil funding (ranked highest to lowest).

Mont. Co.Mont. Co. Funding

Wealth Funding per PupilRanking per Pupil Ranking

Dayton CSD 3 $6,188 1Trotwood-Madison CSD 2 $6,092 2Mad River LSD 1 $5,864 3Jefferson Township LSD 10 $5,397 4New Lebanon LSD 4 $5,346 5Northridge LSD 5 $5,237 6West Carrollton CSD 7 $4,351 7Huber Heights CSD 6 $4,218 8Valley View LSD 8 $3,673 9Northmont CSD 9 $3,543 10Brookville LSD 11 $3,263 11Oakwood CSD 12 $2,479 12Miamisburg CSD 13 $2,192 13Kettering CSD 14 $1,669 14Vandalia-Butler CSD 15 $1,456 15Centerville CSD 16 $1,122 16

Montgomery County SchoolsNew Funding Analysis (summary)

• Jerry’s chart seems to indicate that total proposed funding per pupil in Montgomery County closely follows the state’s wealth rankings.

– The only exception would be Jefferson Township which is ranked 10th in wealth in the county,

– But is ranked 4th in proposed FY14 total per pupil funding in Montgomery County.

• To examine whether “poor” district valuation per pupil increased, I divided the Montgomery County school districts into two groups, based on their FY 14 projected increases in Governor Kasich’s proposed funding formula

Group A consisted of the districts projected to receive little or no increase in state funding

• All of the districts were projected to be guarantee districts (no funding increase)

• With the exception of Trotwood Madison who had a projected increase of 0.38%

Group B consisted of those school districts slated to receive increases of about 10% or higher.

Districts with zero (or near zero) proposed increases under the Governor's proposed 2013 budget:

Group A DistrictsProposed FY14

increasePROPOSED FY14

guarantee FY09 guarantee*Brookville 0.00% $274,789 $9,908Jefferson 0.00% $1,717,662 $340,173New Lebanon 0.00% $872,900 $623,173Northmont 0.00% $882,605 $353,439Oakwood 0.00% $235,813 $0Trotwood Madison 0.38% $0 $958,113Valley View 0.00% $49,372 $195,477

Group B DistrictsDayton 9.85% $0 $0Huber Heights 15.72% $0 $0Kettering 25.00% $0 $0Miamisburg 25.00% $0 $0Northridge 12.66% $0 $0Vandalia-Butler 57.99% $0 $0West Carrollton 25.00% $0 $0

*Line 19 of FY09 State Funding report

• Districts in Group A that were projected to be on the guarantee in fiscal year 2014 were also on the guarantee in fiscal year 2009.

• The only exception was Oakwood which was a formula district in fiscal year 2009.

• Trotwood Madison was on the guarantee in fiscal year 2009, but is projected to receive a 0.38% increase in fiscal year 2014.

• Using the earliest year which state funding reports are available on the Ohio Department of Education’s website (fiscal year 1999, SF final version 5), I compared each district’s:

– Fiscal year 1999 valuation per pupil (line 4-valuation divided by line 3A-formula ADM)

– The governor’s fiscal year 2014 projected 3-year average valuation per pupil.

Valuation per pupil Valuation per pupil percentGroup A Districts FY 99 FY 14 (PROJ.) increase

Brookville $87,004 $128,568 32%Jefferson* $86,793 $149,233 42%New Lebanon $53,335 $96,602 45%Northmont $82,781 $120,251 31%Oakwood $127,096 $147,175 14%Trotwood Madison $65,066 $72,916 11%Valley View $73,511 $110,040 33%AVERAGE GROUP A $82,227 $117,826 30%

Group B DistrictsDayton $71,437 $74,566 4%Huber Heights $74,182 $106,621 30%Kettering $153,958 $178,778 14%Miamisburg $145,228 $158,663 8%Northridge $111,990 $99,146 -13%Vandalia-Butler* $158,122 $177,198 11%West Carrollton $104,236 $104,750 0%AVERAGE-GROUP B $117,022 $128,532 9%

* guarantee district in FY99

FY 99 FY 14 (PROJ.)$75,000

$85,000

$95,000

$105,000

$115,000

$125,000

$135,000

AVERAGE GROUP A AVERAGE-GROUP B

• The chart and related graph indicate:– The valuation per pupil of all of the districts in the study

have increased over this period • With the exception of Northridge, which lost value

– The average increase in valuation per pupil for Group A (the districts that received little or no increase in state funding) was 30%

– The average increase in valuation per pupil for Group B (the districts that would receive little or no increase in state funding) was only 9%.

• Huber Heights seems to be an anomaly, in that their valuation per pupil increased 30% during that period but they’re projected to receive a 15.72% increase in state funding in fiscal year 2014.

• I believe this is caused by the total dollars they’re projected to receive in Target Resources, Students with Disabilities, English Language Learners, Economically Disadvantaged Students, and Early Childhood Access under the Governor’s proposed funding formula.

• In actual dollar funds (projected) among Montgomery County districts Huber Heights is ranked 4th, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, and 3rd, respectively, in those funding categories.

• Projected funding for Huber Heights in these categories total almost $9 million dollars (30%) of their projected $28 million for fiscal year 2014.

• In conclusion,

– Governor Kasich’s statement that poor districts would receive more funding than wealthy districts seems to be the case in Montgomery County.

– The Governor’s staff’s claim that a number of “poor districts” have lost students or gained property value seems to be true for Montgomery County.