COURT VOIDS SYSTEM
OHIO SCHOOL FUNDING UNCONSTITUTIONAL

NEWS

"The state has an obligation to operate a thorough and efficient educational system that is adequately funded," said Judge Linton Lewis of the Perry County Common Pleas Court. "It is not doing so."

The ruling is a victory for 500 of the state's 612 school districts that banded together to form the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding.

It also is the first step in what's expected to be a long legal battle. State officials say they will appeal.

The coalition, which includes Dayton and most other area school districts, filed its lawsuit against the state in Perry County, which has some of the poorest elementary and high schools in Ohio.

The coalition argued that funding schools primarily through local property taxes mixed with state and federal aid produces disparities in spending that violate every child's "fundamental right" to a "thorough and efficient education."

Lewis agreed. He ordered state School Superintendent Ted Sanders and the state Board of Education to prepare a plan and present it to the legislature eliminating disparities among districts based upon local property wealth.

He also ordered Sanders and the board to prepare a report this year and next, after sessions of the Ohio General Assembly, detailing steps being taken to resolve the problem.

Gov. George Voinovich and other state officials said they anticipated losing in Perry County and will move immediately to take the case to the appeals court.

The lawsuit, filed in 1991 and tried last December, will likely work its way to the Ohio Supreme Court, a process that could take several more years.

"The Perry County decision was as predictable as the sun rising," said state Senate President Stan Aronoff, R-Cincinnati. "Almost every player knew that this was the first act in a three-act drama that will not conclude until the Ohio Supreme Court rules."

Richard Fisher, Perry County schools superintendent, is confident the decision will be upheld.

"The evidence was overwhelming in our favor. Let's start with the solutions now," he said.

Statistics showed that some school districts spend as little as $3,700 per year per child, while wealthy districts spend nearly $13,000 per year. Some property-poor districts would have to tax themselves at 10 times the rate of wealthier districts to achieve the same tax income, the evidence showed.

"This court saw grown men and women cry as they explained the conditions and situations in which some of the youth of this state are educated," Lewis wrote. "They deserve better, and the state as their bridge builders to the future, is duty bound to provide them with better tools for a successful life."

Lewis dismissed arguments by Voinovich and others that the legislature is addressing the problem by creating a special fund for the poorest districts and supplying other types of aid. Indeed, he said such additional aid bolsters the coalition's case.

"It would appear that an equitable funding formula would not require the infusion of these additional funds," he wrote.

He also disputed the argument that locally elected school boards have the ability to determine local funding.

"The fact that school districts have the 'ability' to determine how dollars are spent in some circumstances is a hollow argument when there are not sufficient funds to provide for the educational and facility needs of their particular district," the judge wrote.

Mike Dawson, Voinovich's press secretary, restated Voinovich's comments that current funding may be unequal, but not unconstitutional. "The governor believes that inequities exist and working with the legislature, they will be addressed," he said.

But simply allocating equal dollars now to all districts would require "either a massive tax increase of a billion dollars or a redistribution of current dollars, neither of which is desirable to most Ohioans," Dawson said.

Still, there were bipartisan calls to avoid an appeal and to start working on a new funding method.

Democrat Rob Burch, Voinovich's opponent in the November election, said the state should not appeal the decision.

"Let's get this issue out of the courts, stop wasting time and money, and take real action to solve our education funding problem," he said.

Republican state Rep. Jeff Jacobson of Butler Twp. said, "There are no more excuses for not acting now. . . . It's time to fix the system."

Jacobson said he believes there is "strong support" in the Ohio House for a plan to earmark portions of the state income tax and the corporate franchise tax for education. That, he said, would provide stability and potential growth for school funding.

Dawson noted that in 1976 the state lost a similar case in Hamilton County but eventually won in the Supreme Court.

But Lewis wrote that growing problems, including buildings containing asbestos, classrooms without textbooks, a lack of standard educational equipment and other items are more "than simply differences" in the amount of money provided to students.

"They are a deprivation of a fundamental right guaranteed to them by the framers of our state constitution," he wrote.