001Can everybody turn the mic on? >> I call to order this work session of the Oberlin City Schools Board of Education. Please call the role. >> Miss Kadson, >> yes. >> Miss Garrett, >> yes. >> Miss Stagel, >> here. >> Um, I will entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. >> So moved. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded. Can you please call the role? Miss Gadson. Yes. Miss Garrett. Yes. Miss >> Dagel. Yes. So today's a work session, so we won't be voting on anything. We're going to have a wonderful presentation about school finance um from OSBA. Um before I turn it over, Dr. Hall, is there anything else? >> Um no additions. >> Thank you. >> Hi. >> Welcome. And you probably need to turn that on. >> I already did.
002>> Oh, never mind. It's already >> wonderful. Thank you. Well, good evening everyone. Thank you so much for having me. Uh, my name is Melena Bernie and I'm a legislative services consultant at the Ohio School Board Association. Each year, OSBA hosts a school finance 101 workshop. This is a all-day workshop on everything school funding that we provide for board members who have been serving terms for a long time, wanting some professional development or even as a crash course for newly elected boards of education. And so tonight I'm going to be doing a shortened version of that um for you all um just highlighting what every schoolboard member should know about school funding. Okay. So my agenda for tonight I I really want to highlight for you the main mechanisms in the main three funding sources
003for public schools. So this includes your local funding, state funding, and federal funding. Um there with the double asterisk I'm gonna try to highlight all of the recent changes to property tax law passed last year by the general assembly. This was a really big conversation and as a result we got a lot of changes especially impacting that local funding bucket. Um so again I've tried to highlight all of those new items with that double asterisk that you see there. So if you see those don't be too harsh on me. They're brand new and I might not know all of the answers. Um, but I'll I'll try to get you whatever you need to understand those. Okay. We always start our school funding presentations with this um very funny cartoon from the Columbus Dispatch um just
004highlighting how complex school funding can be. So, if you start to feel like uh this gentleman here in the chair, u please no worries. This is a constantly evolving space and it takes a lot of time to learn. So, if you have questions, I really encourage you to stop me at any point. I'll be pausing throughout just to check in on how I'm doing, gauging if I've lost you or if you're still with me, but again, feel free to interrupt me. Okay. So, when we're talking about school funding in Ohio, what and who are we talking about? Um, the big picture, Ohio has 611 public school districts. We have just under 50 JVSGs, joint vocational schools, 51 educational service centers. So these are your regional um centers that help pull services, substitute teachers, cost savings
005of the shared services nature. We have about 350 community or public charter schools, eight independent STEM schools, and 711 non-public or private schools. Thank you so much, In Ohio, we have just under 1.5 million public school students. Um, when we're talking about school funding, we're talking about all of those kiddos. We're also talking about nearly 3,000 public school buildings and 111,000 active public school teachers and staff members. One of these slides, I'm going to figure out this clicker. We're going to get over the learning curve here. Okay. General student ser student characteristics across Ohio about half just over um of our students are economically disadvantaged. This is a number that we've seen grow especially in the last five years since the pandemic. 13% are identified as gifted. 17% are students with learning disabilities. 4.6% are
006English learners or English as a second language students. And about 1.5 almost 2% are homeless or unhomed. When we're talking about Oberlin City, it looks like you have a average daily membership. ADM is the metric used by the Department of Education and Workforce to determine the average number of students you have every day. That's why we see a 0.9th of a student there. About 719 students. 70% of your students are economically disadvantaged. So, a bit higher than the state average. 33% of your students grades 9 through 12 are identified as gifted. 17% have disabilities and 1.8 again a little bit higher than the the state average are English learners. I give an overview of these different types of student demographics because they all require special resources and special funding pools. So, especially when we're talking
007about state funds, we'll come back to these categories later um and talk about specific weights of funding that they receive. All right, >> three steps to the right and I can make it work. Um, so generally the revenue sources we're talking about for public schools include your local do your local dollars. >> This is going really well, guys. Okay, here we go. >> Your local dollars, which are your uh all your different types of taxes. We'll go over those in a minute, as well as any student supply fees that your district may charge, any paytoplay, grants from the state or from local uh community foundations, as well as donations. Your state funding, um the majority of it is your foundation aid. This is a formula that every school district receives um based on certain calculations.
008Again, we'll get into that in a minute. Um as well as some other state funds. So, our casino and our sports betting revenue benefit public schools as well as our lottery profits. Again, we have some state grant programs. Um, we saw some school bus school bus purchase grants go out earlier this year or your student wellness and success funds. This is a DeWine administration funding pool um that is focused on your student mental health and well-being. And then your federal funds. We have various types of title funds um that we'll go over towards the end of our presentation as well as your idea funds. This is a a special federal funding pool for uh special education students. >> Yes. >> Is is that going to go away? >> What's that? >> The federal funds. >>
009Um we can talk about that a little bit um later on. There's been a lot of discussions, especially over the past couple of years, about um various federal departments, including the Department of Education where those funds are currently housed under. Um however, those funds are congressionally appropriated. So, we do know that in the instance that um a department was gone away with, that doesn't mean those funds are gone away with. What we believe we would see was would be those funds shifting to other departments. Um, and similar to the state, we'll we'll talk about this again a little bit later, Congress can appropriate dollars that go into those funds. So, we see them kind of rise and fall every few years, but our understanding is it would just shift to a different department instead of
010go away entirely. This graphic just kind of gives a a pretty basic overview from a statewide perspective over the last handful of years um where you're receiving those funds. So, um, blue is state funds, red there in the middle is your local tax dollars, green being that federal slice, um, and red being that miscellaneous non-t tax revenue um, sources we talked about. So, you can see, especially in the last year or so, um, blue and red are pretty even. So, we will talk about a little bit later how Ohio views education funding as a state and local partnership. So, you'll see that for the most part, we're we're kind of given 5050. Again, that varies by district and I'll dive into that in a second. >> And that you said that's statewide, not our specific
011district. >> Yes, this is not your specific district. However, this is your specific district. So, looking at those um general revenue sources that we talked about, about 65% of your funding comes from your local taxpayers. 19% comes from the state, about 7% um from the federal government, and then about 8% from other miscellaneous sources. So you can see kind of compared um on the left there is Oberlin city specifically and on the right is the the state chart we just viewed in a in a pigraph format. So okay uh local funding we're going to dive into our property taxes our income taxes and those local dollars that we just went over are a big portion of your per pupil funding. So types of local funds we have our property taxes various kinds under the umbrella
012of property taxes. So we have millagebased levies, fixed sum levies, what the name implies, they raise a fixed or a dedicated amount of funding. Increment incremental levies may start off collecting a smaller amount of revenue and grow over time as approved by your voters. When we're talking about property taxes, it's really important to keep in mind that we have two types or classes of tax rates. Um, so your class one taxes are your residential and agricultural properties. In Oberlin, this makes up about 70% um of your district's tax revenue. Class two is your commercial, business, industry properties. And in Oberlin, this is about 21%. Um, so a big difference there in who's paying for your local taxes. That last little chunk um of your full tax picture comes from a public utility property tax. Um
013tangible personal property really flows off the tongue. Um this is a type of property tax that we are actually phasing out as a state. Very few districts still receive those. Um and it looks like Oberlin receives about seven and a half a little bit over percent um from a public utility tax. Typically these are your again public utilities. I know the Nexus pipeline runs through your district, so I'm assuming that is where um you're seeing that revenue come from. And then income tax, different type of tax. Again, um there are two types of incomes, and I believe you levy a personal income tax. We'll get into kind of the differences between property and income um in a little bit. >> All right, testing me tonight. Um, so for various purposes of your district's finances, you'll
014use different types of levies. For general operations, we often see those current expense or millagebased levies, fix some levies, or an income tax. Sounds like you have a maybe a combination of all three working for Oberlin. Um, for the maintenance of your physical buildings, um, we often see districts use permanent improvement levies or funds. And then for site acquisition or building construction, that's typically a bond levy versus those other types of taxes. So I mentioned that last year we had a really big discussion as a state about property taxes and the um increased burden that is put being put on residents. So I wanted to provide just a little bit of background on where that is coming from and why we're continuing to hear um from our voters about this issue. So this is a
015snapshot um statewide snapshot from 1991. We talked about the different types of classes. You can see here the blue um in ' 91 made up about 48%. This is your class one, your residents and your agricultural properties. The other half of our property taxes were paid by that larger chunk of that public utility I mentioned we've since got rid of. And then your business um and industries are the yellow and red um your class two. So about a 50-50 split in your community of who would be paying for those taxes. This is uh an updated version of that chart from tax year 2024. You can see that changes in state tax policy have really shifted that burden on to your residents almost exclusively. So instead of 48% you're now seeing 75 a.5% of your local
016taxes being paid by your class one property and agricultural um folks and then the shrinking side of that being 17% on businesses and just 7% that public utility tax that we're um phasing out of. So this is really the root of why this has become such a big issue um for the everyday Ohioan. Okay. So determining property tax revenues. There are two really big misconceptions that I'm going to nip in the bud right from the top. The first is that your property's value is the number you see on Zillow.com. And the second is that you pay a 100% of you pay taxes on 100% of that value from Zillow.com. Neither of those are true. So, um, your property and your your community is based is evaluated by your county auditor on a countywide basis. So,
017every six years, your auditor will do an appraisal of your county, averaging out the actual sales on their books. Um, and then they do a statistical update to find that appraisal value every three years. Kind of evening out so you don't see massive spikes or dips every six years. Mellowing it out with a three-year kind of update is what it's called. To the other misconception, your taxable value is only 35% of your assessed value on your home. So, example on the screen there, for an $100,000 home, you're only paying taxes on 35% of that. Um, so you have a $35,000 taxable value to your home. In Ohio, our property taxes are expressed as mills. And I get asked all the time, what is a mill? A mill is a madeup unit of government of not
018government of measurement that we decided on um or our government decided on. So, we've just got to get on board. There's no innate definition to it. Um, we decided that a mill meant one10enth of a cent. So when we're talking about a millage rate of a property, um your property taxes due are your taxable value. So that 35% times your millage rate. So going back to our example of an $100,000 home, one mill being charged, you see the calculation there, 35% of 100,000, then 0.001% of that. $35 is the taxes you would pay for one mill in this community on a $100,000 home. Now, because this is based on your valuations, what a mill brings in is different in every county. Um, in Oberlin specifically, a mill brings in about $480 per pupil. So, $345,000
019roughly. That concept again is really confusing because there's not an innate definition from somewhere. It's just a word we decided to measure our values and again it changes county to county and every 3 to six years as those um valuations are updated. We still with me there after all that math. Okay, great. So there are various types of mills. Two main here I want to talk about. Um inside mills. This can get a little confusing so feel free to stop me. These are unvoted mills. Um, again, we decided uh about a hundred years ago, Ohio being the wei there, that we would levy 10 mills in every county. Um, we would just collect those every single year and they would be split amongst all of the taxing authorities in your county. So, your city um
020county governments and your school districts, your county budget commission, which is a commission made up of your county auditor, treasurer, and prosecutor, decide how many mills go to which of those entities. On average, schools receive about four to six of the 10 mills. Um, and in Oberlin City, it sounds like four or I'm sorry, 5.4 of your mills are those inside mills that you receive, again, unvoted, levied every single year on a county basis and divvied up. I'm going to talk in a little bit about various property tax reduction factors, including House Bill 920. Don't panic, we'll come back to this. I'm just planting a seed that um House Bill 920 factors do not apply to your inside mills. But a very recent change again that double star, this is something that came out of
021the end of last year's um general assembly property tax package is that your inside mills are now subject to an inflationary cap every three years. So um capping your growth with the GDP deflator um again every three years. And that's for all all inside mills. So, not just the ones going to school districts, those going to the other um types of political subdivisions as well. >> What does that actually mean? >> Um you cannot So, as your property taxes or your valuations may go up, um you aren't collecting a windfall from them going up on these 10 mills. It's is capped with inflation. >> That may was that a little bit of a clearer way to Yes. Great. >> Thank you. So, your outside mills is everything else. All of the the levies you put
022on the ballot, all the mills that are voted on are considered outside mills. Um, these are subject to property tax reduction factors. Again, planting that seed, and we'll come back to that concept in a little bit. The last term I want to throw out you when it comes to millage is the term effective millage. Um, this is just a a term that reflects the fact that the originally voted mills may be adjusted due to valuation. Um, our property tax reduction factors. Uh, similar to the concept of inflation, the Reese cup I ate on my way over here today, maybe a dollar today, um, or a$150 tomorrow. My dollar bill doesn't change in value, but what I can buy with it does. um the amount of mills that you may have put on the ballot as
023valuations rise and fall may not bring in the same amount in the future. So that's that effective mills concept. Okay. Before I move on from millagebased levies, any questions? All good. Okay. The other type of property tax levies I want to talk about are fixed sum levies. Um, this is a section of law that got totally reworked in that um, last uh, round of legislation on property taxes. So, if this gets a little confusing, again, feel free to stop me. Um, there used to be two types of fixed sum levies called emergency levies and substitute levies. As we know them, they can no longer be placed on the ballot. Um, if you have a current emergency or substitute levy, you can renew them under a new name, fix some levies, uh, limited to five years.
024Sounds like you all renewed your emergency levy for 10 years right before this went into effect. Um, so 10 years from now, if you want to continue to bring in that income, um, you can place your emergency levy back on the ballot, renew it at the um, dollar amount it currently brings in, but it would be capped at five years. So starting next tax year, any current emergency levies, so the one that you have, current substitute levies and any future fix levies will be included in your calculation uh your 20 mil floor calculation. Again, this is a seed I'm planting that I'll um come back to, but a change I wanted to highlight while we're here. So I said that we got rid of emergency and substitute levies as we know we used to know
025them. you can renew the ones that you currently have. Um, and then confusingly, we created a new type of levy that is also called an emergency levy. Um, that has some very narrow um, criteria for you to be able to put it on the ballot in the future. So, just to hit those with you really quickly. Um, you can put a new fix someum levy, emergency levy on the ballot in the future if your district finds yourself in fiscal watch, caution, or emergency as determined by the department of education and workforce or if the governor or president has declared a state of emergency in your geographical area. Um, these are again limited to five years and are non-renewable. So, that's the the very narrow um exceptions that you're allowed to put a new fixed sum
026levy on the ballot. That was a lot of the same terms repeated. Are you still with me? Good. Okay. So, the 20 mil floor, this is another um concept that we should flesh out a little bit when it comes to local funding and dollars. Essentially, this is the minimum level of local funding that we as a state of Ohio decided that school districts should collect. So, it's 20 mills for a traditional school district and two mills for a joint vocational school district. You can kind of see there over time uh how districts have fallen on and off of this minimum floor number um as property valuations rise and fall. From my understanding, Oberlin um currently collects 54 and a half mills approximately 54.7 mills. So, you're not a district that is considered on the 20
027mil floor. Um so whenever I highlight any >> that that's our um voted in mills. We are on the 20. >> Okay. Apologies. Okay. Scratch what I was about to say. So it's a concept to keep in mind um in talking about different reduction factors when they apply to your district or not. And so since you are considered to be on the 20 mil floor with your voted mills, um there are certain things that I'll go over in a couple of slides that don't apply to you because again we've considered 20 mills to be the very baseline of local funding is essentially what this slide means. Make sense? Okay. Another change um in the last round of legislation on property taxes um similar to what we talked about with inside mills being capped on inflation.
028This is also something that will um apply to districts on the 20 mil floor. So we talked about just now how you can't be taken below those 20 mills, but what we're seeing here is a new law that will cap any growth above those 20 mills you receive. So, starting uh in tax year 2025, um any districts that are on the floor and and has seen an inflationary uh growth over the last three years, your residents will be issued a property tax credit to kind of refund them on that inflationary growth. um for the next two years, tax year 25 and 26, the state has dedicated a certain amount of funding um to keep you whole essentially from this this tax credit. And when we go into the next state budget cycle, this will be
029something that um we anticipate will be talked about if they continue to provide some that backfill that funding so that you all don't um receive a loss from that credit or if um we'll see it kind of trickled or phased out. >> So people are going to get money back, but we don't have to give it to them. Uh, yes. And to kind of fine-tune that a little bit, they won't get money back as in a check in the mail, but they'll receive a credit on their property tax bill. So, a reduction in what they're paying overall. Um, and again, for the next two years at least, um, the state of Ohio is providing funding so that you don't take a loss on that. Whether that'll be continued um, is to be determined, but okay.
030Okay, so I mentioned some property tax reduction factors. Um, I mentioned that they don't apply to districts at the 20 mill floor, but what are they broadly speaking? The main one um that you'll hear a lot is called House Bill 920. So, as the name suggests, this measure started as a House bill in the General Assembly in 1976. This was the last time we saw large spikes in our property um taxes and valuations as a state. Um, and so it was put into law to control again the inflationary growth on taxes and then it was later adopted into our state constitution. So if we were to change this factor, it would take a ballot initiative, a statewide vote to alter our constitution. Essentially, again, this concept that's got brought up a couple times now, it
031prevents an unvoted tax increase from your valuation growth. Um, so essentially when you pass a levy, um, a property tax levy specifically, you're kind of frozen at that amount. If property valuations increase, you're not receiving a windfall as a school district from those um, increases. Uh, House Bill 920 also works in reverse. So, right now we're seeing growth in our our valuations, but if we went through a time where we seeing a a deflation in those, it would ensure that you don't see a sharp decrease in funding as well. So again, it holds you constant. This uh as I said, not all leveies are are or types of districts are subject to 920. So again, only property taxes, only districts that are not on the 20 mil floor. And then this factor also only applies
032to school districts. It does not apply to other forms of u political subdivisions or taxing local subdivisions. So again, we're talking about this kind of concept um of inflation and capping it. Uh in 2005, you might have passed a five mil levy that brought you in $100,000 and as evaluations rise maybe a three and a half mills as we see in that example brings in that $100,000. So instead of five mills, you're technically collecting three and a half. Again, that concept of voted 5 ms versus effective 3 and a half mills millillage, that difference in what was on the ballot versus what you're bringing in over time. >> Everyone still with me? >> Yes. And maybe you're going to get to this, but then when we renew something, >> does it go back to five
033or it stays at whatever the three and a half that we're collecting? >> Yeah, for the most part it would stay because your evaluations will be updated. Um, does that >> answer your question fully? Okay. >> Renewing an existing levy does not take it from where it currently like to the current amount. It still keeps it collecting the same dollar amount. >> Sure. Sure. And again, that is specific to property tax and millillage based levies. And as we talk about the different ones, that may not be true for all renewing all levies, but for the most part, yes. This is just a sample uh property tax bill. You can kind of see over on the right hand side your appraised value totals versus your taxable value. Again, showcasing the difference we talked about. You don't
034pay 100% um of your assessed uh values. You'll see there also adjustment factors. So, those are things like House Bill 920. Um and then under tax values, you see a couple other credits there. So those are um how you would see items like that uh inflationary tax credit we just talked about on the 20 mil floor. You'll see homestead owner occupied credit. Those are additional um factors that we'll touch on right now. So other types of property tax reduction factors. I said house bill 920 started out as a piece of legislation. So the state legislature can and has implemented various types of reduction factors over the years. So, um, one that is a a very common for all levies passed prior to November, uh, 2013. This was when we stopped doing this, and if you
035still have a levy that you, um, have had since then, this still applies to you. You receive for residential and agricultural, again, those class one taxpayers, a 10% roll back. So, the state government is paying 10% of your property taxes for you. U,, this is a a reduction factor. Not a lot of people realized that they they had. Again, we stopped doing that after 2013, but um few people still receive that across the state. Some other examples are uh credits like our homestead exemption. This is a credit given to seniors, folks with disabilities as well as veterans that hit certain criteria. Um was 2 and a half% a credit for the um owner occupied. a very similar concept. If you live in the residence you're filing your taxes for, you were used to get a
036two and a 2.5% tax credit. Um, in our property tax page from last year, the state chose to increase that to 15.38%. Um, and that increase will be phased in over the next four years. So, similar concept to the roll back. These are um credits that are provided, the state decided on, so they backfill local governments um and taxing authorities. So, you're not seeing a cut because of these credits. The state is kind of filling in the funding for that. A new type of credit that was created again with that property tax package coming out of the state house um were piggyback credits or the ability for your county government, your local government to decide if they wanted to double these credits and provide them as well at the the local level um in addition
037to the state. a difference here because your county is opting to provide these um or volunteering to provide these credits. The state is not backfilling any funds lost to you um as taxing authorities. And um when I talked to Mr. Reinhardt earlier this week, I do believe that Lorraine County has opted into providing um the piggyback or the doubling of these credits. So um this is something you'll see likely see a decrease in funding from. Any property tax questions before I move on to other types of local levies? Okay, great. Um, we had talked about a little bit at the beginning, income tax levies. They're another very popular local levy. Um, Oberlin city levies. The first one you see there are school district income tax. This is a tax on the income of all of
038your district's residents. So, this is regardless of where they work. The folks that live in your district pay this income tax. Um, income taxes can be limited to a certain number of years or continuing. Do you know which type you have? >> I have both. >> You have both. Okay, wonderful. You have both. Perfect. Um, and then um again, all of those reduction factors we just talked about are on property taxes exclusively. So, there are no reduction factors for income taxes since that's a different um system. The other type of income tax that districts can levy is an earned income tax. These are becoming increasingly popular especially as um Ohio as a state just becomes older. We have an older demographic. Um this is a tax on earned income only. So it excludes investments and
039retirement income. Again these can be termlimited or continuing. Um and I do not believe you levy an earned income tax. But between the two types about 210 districts levy these um types of taxes across the state. And as we see changes and alterations happen to the property tax structure, we're seeing these become increasingly popular as a a more stable form of funding. All right, last thing I want to touch on when it comes to your local funding. Um I talked about your county budget commissions a few moments ago when we um talked about inside millillage. They're the folks that determine how much of that you receive. And in this property tax package we saw come out of the state house um we saw some expanded um responsibilities of the county budget commission I want to
040make sure you're aware of. So um newly we require all taxing authorities um essentially to do a rundown of your finances and budget with your county budget commission. Um county budget commissions can now reduce property tax levies um at the local level if they deem them to be unnecessary or excessive. And those two terms are defined in the law. Um, excessive being that you're bringing more in on on levies than you have an expenditure for and unnecessary meaning you don't have an expenditure tied to that levy at all. Um, so those are we we have some criteria for those two terms. And again, it um the county budget commissions can reduce they don't have to reduce your um levies based on those two criteria. The law included some limits to this um newly uh established
041authority. So they cannot again we talked about 20 mil floor being truly a floor the lowest amount you can collect from your community. So they can't reduce your levies to pull you under those 20 mills. Um they can't also reduce you uh to receive less than you received in the prior funding year. Um, again, this is uh exclusive to your your property tax levy, so they can't reduce your bond levies. Um, and if you put a new one on the ballot and it is accepted by your community, they have to wait at least a year before tinkering with it um in any way. And then finally, if you want to move around the funds that your inside millage lives in, um, for example, you might pull your funds into your, uh, PI, uh, pool, your
042permanent improvement pool of funding. Um, sometimes this can adjusting your inside millillage can increase tax rates. So, if your district wanted to do something like that, you'd have to have the approval of your county budget commission before moving forward. So again, these are all uh there are some arguments in at the state house over if county budget commissions had this authority previously or not. And so this has all been recently codified um and changes you may see locally as you're having conversations with your county budget commission. That is my overview of the mechanics of local funding. Any questions before we move on to the state section? All right, you're hanging with me still. We're making decent time. Everyone looks really excited. I know it's a very light and exciting topic. So, I I appreciate you
043all. Um, so, state funding. Uh, the Ohio Constitution requires that any funds spent by the state of Ohio um be made via the general assembly and can only extend for a period of two years. This lines up with the fact that we have uh bianial general assemblies. So, our state legislators are in for two years at a time before going back to the ballot to be reelected. Uh, the constitution also requires that the state spend um our public dollars on a thorough and efficient system of public schools in Ohio. So, when we're talking about the Ohio budgeting process, it's again every two years. And it's important to know our state fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30. When we have our two-year general assemblies, the main operating budget, so the the budget that
044determines the formula and things we'll be talking about today, um are is typically decided in January through June of the odd number year. So, we saw the budget be signed um July 1st of last summer, 2025. And then our capital bill which includes uh the funding of state bonds uh including the OFCC which does our physical K- through2 building structures happens in the even number years. We're about to see that take off right now. And then the Ohio Constitution also requires um that we pass a balanced budget. So our legislators can't expend more money than we have in the bank. um which makes that budgeting process in January through June um very competitive on what's what programs the state is going to be funding with the funds they have available. So if we're looking at
045the general revenue fund of Ohio, so this is Ohio's just basic checking account. Primary and secondary education makes up about 27% of that budget. The other um biggest portion being Medicaid funding. But when we take into consideration all of the state's funding sources, so the checking account, the local government fund, um the public libraries fund, our lottery and casino profits, primary and secondary education becomes the biggest uh portion of that fund, 41%. So, uh, the budget process is always a really important one to stay in tune with, um, because we receive so much of it and it dictates, uh, a good portion, again, we saw that graph before, 5050 of, um, the state's public education funding. Like I mentioned, our last budget was signed July 1 of 2025. So, for fiscal years uh, 26 and
04627, this is kind of a big picture overview of where the state's dollars are going. um 11.2 billion the first year um fiscal year 2026 and 11.5 billion in 2027. 8.15 billion of that roughly is going to your traditional public districts, 500 million to your joint vocational schools, 1.3 billion um to community and STEM schools, and then just over um 1 billion to our five state voucher programs. So, this includes Ed Choice as well as some of our other programs like the John Peterson and autism scholarships. >> Yes. >> So, do you have any idea or maybe Bob knows how much we spend per pupil? >> Yeah, I looked up all of these things. So, um, per pupil, it looks like Oberlin spends just about 29.9,000. So, >> $29,926 per pupil. >> And so, if
047somebody goes to one of these voucher schools, how much money are they getting per pupil? >> Great question. Um, so how much money per pupil are are vouchers receiving? Right now, it's a sliding scale based on a student's income. Um there isn't a cap to the income eligibility, but as you bring in more income as a family, how much you receive from the state goes down. Does that make sense? The sliding scale gives more to to lower income students and less to higher income students. So it varies greatly. Um >> what would be the maximum amount? >> I think it's around 8,000 per student is the maximum. >> Yeah. >> For for one student. >> For one student. Yes. >> So that would pay for four students here. No. >> Well, comparable. So, you're spending
04829,000 for a student here. That includes all of your sources, though. Yes. Um, so your state revenue is about 5,000. So, a little bit less than that, 8,000 maximum per student. Um so I mentioned that the state budget changes every two years which means the amount of funding we have for education um changes every two years as well as the components um that go into that formula that calculation that determines how much you receive from the state. So um our current funding formula referred to as the fair school funding formula was implemented in 2021. um before 2021 we had a totally different um state funding formula and in the future there's the possibility that this could change as well but um right now I'm going to go through the basic elements of of the formula
049with you all and the easiest way we have found to describe it as as a layer cake and I am not a graphic designer so I'm going to encourage you all to look at this screen and use your imagination picture all your favorite flavors stacking up in a cake um and and it it'll all make sense eventually I I promise So the base layer to our cake is um referred to as the base cost. So this is unique for every single district. Um and it is determined on a per pupil basis. Um so the base cost is basically an equation that takes into consideration your expenses as a district. How many teachers you have, what you pay them, what it takes to keep the lights on, food to be stocked in your cafeteria, to heat
050and cool your buildings, all of your expenses. And then they compare that with your ability to raise those funds locally. So looking at um your local property tax and income um tax uh possibilities. It's not receipt based. So it's not what you actually bring in, but what you have the ability to bring in with your community. The difference between those two um expenses versus income um is then divided by your average daily membership. So 719 students um to get a per pupil base cost in a um in Oberlin your base cost per pupil is um $8,241. I mentioned that you receive 5,000 and some change from the state government. We'll talk about the difference between those two here in a minute, but $8,241 per pupil is your base cost. The next layer to our cake
051is our categorical funding. So at the top of this um presentation, we had talked about the different demographics of students you have and their different needs. Um so you'll receive categorical funds um or special funds dedicated to your disadvantaged um your economically disadvantaged students, gifted, special education, career tech, and English learners. They each have their own weights, but essentially you have a separate funding pool um for each of those types of students based on how many you have in the district. Your next layer um is for transportation services. In Ohio, the uh Department of Education looks at either your per rider or your per mile and they give you whichever is greater. So, Oberllin City, you receive a per per rider supplement um because you have a higher density of students that you're dropping off
052and picking up for school each day. Um in our more rural communities in Ohio, you'll see a per mile being given because they're driving longer distances with a smaller student population. So, again, you're receiving the greater of those two factors. The next layer, and this is where the cake starts maybe getting a little bit narrower. Not all districts receive these top two layers. Um, but there's the option for guarantees, what we've called guarantees. Um, Oberlin, I believe, receives a guarantee that keeps best way to describe this is it guarantees you do not receive less funding than you did in fiscal year 2020. And there are various years um that different schools receive a guaranteed amount for um but yours is based on what you received in fiscal year 2020. Narrow still the last layer to
053our cake is targeted assistance funds. Um the two main reasons that districts across the state receive targeted assistance is either um because you have a big mismatch between um your property valuations and your income. So maybe you um live in a district with a lot of farmland that is valuated very high um but your income per resident is low. It target assistance can equalize those two factors. Um or there is target assistance given out to districts that have experienced declining enrollment especially to schools of choice. I believe you receive targeted assistance but I don't know which one for. >> So I'm not sure which reason but you do receive some targeted assistance from the state. So, these are all of the basic components of the the current funding formula. Um, and you can kind of
054see on this graph based on your district's wealth, um, how much you're receiving from the state. So, if um, your district is a little bit richer on the local tax side, like you see in quintile number five, you're receiving less funding overall from the state um, versus if you're unable to raise that locally, you're receiving more of your revenue from the state. When we're talking about cakes, it is very rare in life you get to eat the whole thing. Um, and so we have to consider a state share. So you're only receiving a slice of that cake. You're not getting the whole thing. So we talked about um your per your base cost per pupil being just over $8,000. Your state share, which again is unique for each district, is about 19%. Um so that's
055why you're receiving $5,736 per pupil. instead of that full amount. The state share can range anywhere from um 10% is the lowest amount to 95% is the highest amount that the state in law can give to a district. Again, emphasizing that it's a a partnership. Uh maybe just one is side is picking up a little bit more than the other. and they base that off of again a mix of your property values about 60% of that calculation and your district's income makes up 40% of that calculation. So just to reiterate, when it comes to state funding, you calculate the total of all of your components, all the layers of your cake. Then you the state will apply their share to determine how big your slice is. And then it is expected that your local and
056federal funds supplement the rest of your pie to kind of complete that that full circle. Does that make sense? Okay. So that is just um on the screen here uh showing you again that as your red is your local tax revenue as it is um going up or down um your state funding is kind of working in reverse supplementing either more or less of your your total picture there. So that is the basic calculation all the elements that are computed to um the dollar amount that you receive each year from the state. Um outside of that foundational funding formula though the legislature can add on different um funding components. So there's a couple that are new this bienium on top of the formula that I wanted to hit on really quickly. Um one is an
057enrollment growth supplement. So they wanted to acknowledge districts kind of the opposite of that targeted assistance fund I talked about who were growing instead of declining in enrollment. So a per student supplement if you grew by at least 5% or 3% over the next two years. And then they also included a performance supplement to reward academic achievement. Um so this is provided to districts again new this bienium that received at least one of those metrics. Um, if you hit multiple of those performance metrics, it takes the highest number of stars times $13 per student. So, taking a peek at your report card, um, I believe the highest that you hit is that number two, your progress component rating was five stars this last year. So, you should receive $13 times five per pupil >> for
058the whole year. >> Yes. Yeah. Like a one-time supplement for your academic performance. some other features. Again, I mentioned that every two years the state uh funding portion has the opportunity to change. So, these are some things that have changed over time, and I just wanted to kind of hit where we are now in the in the current uh state of things. So, previous to this funding formula, pre2021, the payments for non-public schools or STEM and public charter schools, they all came to the main public school in that area and then you saw them as a deduction um out to those those various uh school choice options in your community. Um when we enacted the fair school funding formula, we got rid of this. So um vouchers are funded directly to families or STEM and
059public community schools directly receive their funding from the state and you all as the public district are no longer the middleman in that equation. Your educational service centers also receive a smaller portion of this fair school funding formula again directly and then you all can agree on contracts to pay for services above and beyond that amount. Open enrollment. This was a a conversation state policy that kind of went back and forth for a little bit. Um, but in essence, how open enrollment works right now is that any student in your building has the same base cost um and same foundation formula funding um as each other. So, if you have someone coming in from a different district open and rolling into Oberlin, um they're not bringing their base cost or their transportation uh supplements with
060them. everyone in your buildings are getting the same counted as the same under your foundation formula. And then college credit plus. This is a program um very common. I'm sure you all utilize it that provides free college credits to high school students. In order to be free for those families, the um public school and the college that you work with split the cost for that um with some relief from the state. So your district is paying your local college a very discounted rate for those credits. Um, and then the college is paying for the rest of those credits, but they also receive a kickback from the state. Um, so you're both getting a little bit of relief there, but working together to make that free for your your district. So, that's another thing that you'll
061see um on your state foundational aid. So, recapping everything we've talked about on state foundation aid for Oberlin City, again, $8,241 per pupil, but after you apply that 19% state share, you're receiving $5,736. You're receiving the per rider transportation supplement, receiving both that um fiscal year 2020 uh guarantee as well as some targeted assistance dollars. And then that performance supplement, that new um academic achievement piece we talked about, five stars times $13 per student. Any questions about the state piece? Again, this is the one that changes the most frequently, so I know it can be a little bit of a doozy sometimes. >> So, the 5,736 is the actual dollar amount that we get per student including all of those different things. >> Uh, it doesn't include the performance supplement. >> Okay, >> that's again
062out outside of the formula. That's what I mean by that is um that 5,700 is the dollar that's kind of when you beep bop boop all the formula components. It spits out that last number and that's what you're getting per pupil. Um and then the outside of that calculation are those additional um items such as that performance supplement. >> All right. Um I'm just going to wrap up with a couple more slides on federal funding. This is always a really big conversation nationwide as we're all impacted by it. But um if you recall back to some of those starting graphs, it's actually a pretty small sliver of your per pupil dollar amount that is coming from the federal government just because they're very targeted types of funds. So um you'll see here this pie chart
063is given uh to the state government by the feds every two fiscal years. So um this is from fiscal year 2024. Um and you'll see the biggest portion of it is a a one-time um your Corona virus relief or esser dollars that you had received. So that's always an option. The federal government can appropriate kind of one-time funds. Um and as we get an updated uh pie chart from them in January of next year, that portion will be pretty much entirely gone. Um so the other main types of funds I mentioned at the start your different title funds. um similar to kind of the categorical funding thinking. These are federal funds dedicated to specific um types of students or staff. So, title one is your economically disadvantaged students funding. Title two is for staff and
064professional development, so on and so forth. They all have different purposes. Um IDAIDA, uh Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This is your funding um put into law about 50 years ago for um specialized federal dollars for students requiring special education. And then McKenna Vento funding, this is another um pretty common pot that you'll receive from the federal government. It's for um your homeless or unhoused students. So again, looking at the federal funding in your total picture, about $2,114 of federal revenue per pupil, and that's about 7% of your overall funding. If we think back to that starting pie chart, this was one of um your smaller portions. So, I wanted to cite some of my sources and helpful resources for y'all to refer to. Um, the Department of Education and Workforce has a school finance
065payment report they put out bimonthly um twice a month and I have a link to it in this presentation. I'll make sure that you all have access to. Um, the department calls this how they show their work for your state aid calculation. So all of those parts and pieces are broken down um like an invoice for you all to view. Again, released and updated twice a month. Um the department also every year releases what is uh called the cup report. This is a very large uh Excel file of every school district's um categorical data, your types of students, your ADM. Um there's also some helpful information in there on um your valuations, your local tax valuations, where they get that state share percentage. again kind of showing their work for that calculation as well. And
066then as always, your state report card, especially as I mentioned those performance supplements. Uh that's where I got the uh first graph showing your different types of sources. That's a great kind of quick snapshot to share with your community for them to see overall where you're getting types of funds per student and how you're doing. Um and as always, you have an excellent treasurer who lives in this world every single day. So, um, he's able to kind of review these with you and kind of get into maybe a little bit more of the nitty-gritty of your local story, um, than I provided in this larger overview of school funding tonight. So, I monologued for about an hour now. What questions do you all have for me? >> I guess I have one for Bob. We
067don't use the incremental levies, right? >> No, we have the we have the regular a regular mill levy that were passed long before and then we have the emergency levy that we just passed. Then we have a um income tax that is continuous and then we have the one that we pass every five years and then we have a continuous PI levy and then we have another PI levy that we pass every five years >> and then we have the technology levy that we pass every five years. which is another special levy that we're the only ones in the state with the technology. >> Oh, really? I didn't realize that >> there might be two. >> Okay. Okay. >> Yeah, I tried to keep it up here a little bit. Left off some of those
068really granular options, but that's interesting to know. >> So, >> and I know I guess it says like when the the local funding goes down, the state funding goes up, but like all of our local funing that we have is really because there was not state funding available. Like if we didn't have a technology level, the state wouldn't give us money for technology. >> Yeah. >> No, we're on the guarantee. >> Yeah. >> And we have been on the guarantee since before I got here. >> So, couple reasons for that. Um, from a statewide perspective, on average, the state will provide more if your local government or your local taxes provide less for you. Um again that varies district to district. Um one reason for that is that our current state funding formula I mentioned
069that the very base cost um it looks at your expenses versus what you could raise locally. It isn't receipts based. So that's that's where there's a little bit of a a pocket between those two items because it doesn't um look at what you do bring in. It's what you could based on your valuations. Um, so there's a difference there. And then again, as there are property tax reduction factors and increased numbers of inflationary caps that we're putting on there, that's again not accounted for in that base cost. So another area where you're kind of seeing those two things separate out a little bit. Um, so that's something again as we go into the next budget cycle early next year, always something that could change. Um, another reason for that, which I'm kind of getting a
070little bit granular now, but um, our funding formula, that base cost, um, only one of those components is codified into law. So, um, your taxes autom your taxes automatically update what you could bring up bring in locally automatically updates under the formula. legislators have to go in manually and update the year from which they're pulling your um expense data. So right now that's data from a few years back. I believe it's fiscal year 2022. >> Yes. >> One or two. Um so >> it's one it's >> Yeah. So when we're thinking about um the the past few years as we've seen prices and things just inflationarily increase, I think we'd all love to pay our bills based on um our expenses from 2021 or two. um and that's where they're they're kind of looking at.
071So again, a disconnect again between those two items. So the formula isn't perfect and that's where we're seeing a little bit of that tension on top of that shifted tax burden to more and more of our residents instead of our business owners um and inflated property values. So you kind of have both there working against each other. I hope I didn't lose you. started going down a rabbit hole there, but there are some reasons for that. Okay. Well, I won't force you all. I love uh waiting around for questions, but um I have my contact information in here and again, I'll make sure that you all receive this um presentation. Feel free to call us anytime or email us if you have a question. Um as schoolboard members, you receive facts in a flash, which
072is our weekly publication of what's been going on at the state house. Um, I don't foresee that we'll see any additional changes to property tax law as we finish out this general assembly, but if we did, they would be included in that weekly update. Um, and then as we head into next year, we'll have um a new round of legislators as they'll be elected this November and a new governor. So, again, a important budget year to pay attention to. We might see some um shifts in that that state portion of funding as well. Okay, that was all I had for you. Thank you. Unless there's questions. Yeah. >> Uh well, this is kind of unrelated. >> Okay. Sure. >> But um you said that you're the legislative. >> Yes. Yes, I legislative services. >> Okay.
073So, I I read the facts in the flash. I'm sure my other school boards members do too. But, um it gets a little overwhelming. Yeah. especially since there are 200 bills being tracked through the and I am so grateful to OSBA for tracking those 200 bills but >> when I try to do my legislative uh >> you know report out >> uh I try to keep it short so >> is there any way to like prioritize you know get the facts in a flash sometimes >> it is lengthy sometimes I know I know because I write it and sometimes like holy moly we're still going. I I totally So you're you're a liazison for your district. Yes. Um so when we send out the link every month that's a publication specifically for your liaison. That's
074exactly what we try to do. What's in there is what has moved, what's been signed into law or kind of what the top lines from the month before were. So we send that out the last Friday of every month. I know that might be a little bit wonky with your board schedule maybe. and if so, reach out to me and we can work out getting you a a draft copy of that a little bit sooner if you need. Um, but that's that is kind of the document where we really highlight the top line um from we just sent it out for February what really happened. And um if you aren't reading that publication specifically, you can look to see what hearings what bills are getting third hearings, fourth hearings. Kind of the more hearings a
075bill receives, the more work it's getting, the more it's getting massaged in the state house. And that's how you can tell if it's going to move on from its committee or um if it just receives they're all required at least one >> danger, right? >> Yeah. That's kind of that's a good barometer, too, is to kind of see where the where how many hearings it's had, where it's at in the process that way. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Of course, I know it's a lot, trust me. So, we don't want to decide what's important for you all because all of our school boards have different interests and pieces of legislation that would impact them differently. So, we include it all there. And then I know you kind of have to filter through a lot of stuff.
076So I apologize for that. But again, the link is kind of the best place to see topline what's going on. >> Janet, you do a good job distilling that for us. So >> I feel less overwhelmed and I appreciate you. >> Well, and >> uh it usually comes out the day before our board meeting, which is really helpful, but >> sometimes there's a dis. Yeah. >> So I might call you. >> Yeah, call me anytime. I'm happy to. It is quite literally my job. So, I would love to to be of assistance. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? It doesn't have to be funding related. I'm happy to answer any questions I can for y'all. >> All right. >> Then I'll let you digest and again reach out if you ever need anything. >> Thank
077you so much. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Okay. So we are going to move on our future meetings. We have March 31st which is our regular meeting this month. Um which is not on our regular meeting day date because of spring break. So that is on March Tuesday March 31st. That's going to be at the JVS and it will start at 5:30 instead of six o'clock so that we can go on our tour of JVS um before starting the meeting. That meeting is usually not um >> videotaped. So come on out to the JVS if you're interested in that meeting. Um after that, our next meeting will be our regular meeting on April 28th. So right now we have no special meetings scheduled in April. We have a a whole month in between meetings, which
078is irregular for us lately. Um and that one will be back to here at six o'clock. It's a good thing because I'm going on vacation. >> Excellent. Um, and that is everything on the agenda. So, I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So, moved. >> Second. >> Please call the It has been moved and seconded. Please call the role. >> Miss Gatson? >> Yes. >> Miss George? >> Yes. >> Miss Garrett? >> Yes. >> Miss Stagel? Yes.