February 29, 2000
School board members say legislators need to be educated about funding formula shortfalls
By Cathy Willoughby
Staff Writer
Trying to fathom how to inform the state legislature of the effects of their actions on school districts, especially rural ones, was the question with which members of the Tiffin City Board of Education struggled Monday night.
"Chris English and I attended the chamber's legislative luncheon last month with our representative, Rex Damschroder,'' member Pat Hillmer said. "And we talked to him on behalf of the Tiffin City Schools and the tax situation. And that the recent reappraisal is doing no good at all, that we need something to be done for all schools and their funding.''
English agreed that is was a tough issue to explain to friends and other community members. Yet he had a suggestion.
"It's almost as though we need a new tax revolt,'' he said. "We are trying to get the state representatives in rural Ohio, Seneca County and other counties like ours, to understand that the current method of funding is unfair and inadequate.
"Hopefully, we will hear from the state Supreme Court and they will agree with us,'' he added. "Now the boards of education end up being the bad guys when the local board has to go back to the local tax payers asking for additional millage.''
He stressed the need to educate not only the voters, but those that seek to represent them in Columbus.
"They have moved funds away from us so that they can do other things with those funds,'' said board member John Bolte. "We will have a net loss of $900,000, so it will be up to us to raise that, which will be approximately 4 mills to get back even again. It looks to me like this is how they find the funds to line their coffers.''
Talk then turned to the lottery receipts, which 25 years ago were touted as the means to help the state's 611 school districts. This year's report cited gross receipts of $21 billion, with a total of $600 million going to the schools after administrative costs and winnings. Hillmer stated that the amount was simply a "drop in the bucket'' for many schools, particularly the large, urban districts.
"The federal and state governments are the big winners here,'' Bolte said of the lottery. "It's just another tax that finds the state and federal government taking from our pockets.''