Republican Ohio House speaker Larry Householder says the state may need to come up with a new school funding formula to reach a level of fairness, which could involve redistribution of wealth to poorer school districts.
Ohio Public Radio's Jo Ingles reports.
Householder says wealthier districts have high family incomes and business properties, like Olentangy Local Schools in Delaware County, while poorer districts, like Trimble in Athens County, cannot generate the same money with the same effort. So he’s suggesting the state could pool all of those funds.
“If we had a fund where the money would flow into, and everyone had the same amount of local effort, those dollars would be, I would say, an adequate level of funding clear across the state of Ohio and of course, you’ve got those situations like an Olentangy where it’s possible they could do even more.”
Householder says he’s not talking about raising taxes but rather an adjustment. (He says this idea, which he admits takes away some local control, is only an idea, and that lawmakers might have to come up with something to put on the ballot.)
