Statewide education groups put casino proceeds for schools in perspective

Ohio pub­lic school lead­ers say the casino tax rev­enue dis­tricts are set to receive is a drop in the bucket com­pared to major school-funding reduc­tions in recent years. A sur­vey released today by three statewide edu­ca­tion groups rep­re­sent­ing Ohio pub­lic schools puts the casino pro­ceeds for schools in perspective.

The Ohio School Boards Asso­ci­a­tion (OSBA), the Buck­eye Asso­ci­a­tion of School Admin­is­tra­tors (BASA) and the Ohio Asso­ci­a­tion of School Busi­ness Offi­cials (OASBO) said they want to make sure the pub­lic under­stands exactly what the casino rev­enue will mean for schools.

“We have seen reports from across the state about this sup­posed rev­enue wind­fall from the casi­nos that will be going to school dis­tricts at the end of the month,” said OSBA Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Richard Lewis. “While we are appre­cia­tive of the $38 mil­lion that will be dis­trib­uted to school dis­tricts statewide, we cau­tion that it be kept in per­spec­tive. We fear the pub­lic will see these funds as the Ohio Lot­tery all over again — a solu­tion to our school-funding problems.”

“The level of casino rev­enue fund­ing for this first fis­cal year is con­sid­er­ably less than the losses school dis­tricts have expe­ri­enced in the cur­rent edu­ca­tion bud­get,” said Kirk Hamil­ton, BASA exec­u­tive direc­tor. “Ohio school dis­tricts have lost sig­nif­i­cant fund­ing with the elim­i­na­tion of fed­eral stim­u­lus funds and the reduc­tion in replace­ment funds for local tan­gi­ble per­sonal prop­erty taxes no longer col­lected. Total edu­ca­tion fund­ing for Ohio schools was reduced by $1.6 bil­lion over the past two years in spite of slight increases in allo­ca­tions from Ohio’s Gen­eral Rev­enue Fund.”

OASBO Exec­u­tive Direc­tor David Varda pointed to a sur­vey the groups recently con­ducted to find out how school dis­tricts are affected by the casino rev­enues, espe­cially in light of recent fund­ing losses. More than 345 school dis­trict treasurers/CFOs responded to the survey.

“When asked what per­cent­age of their dis­trict oper­at­ing bud­gets the casino rev­enues would rep­re­sent, no one reported more than 2 per­cent,” Varda said. “More than 76 per­cent of respon­dents reported the casino rev­enues make up less than 1 per­cent of their school district’s oper­at­ing budget.”

The sur­vey also showed that approx­i­mately half of the dis­tricts respond­ing lost more than $500,000 in each of the past two years. Many dis­tricts reported losses as much as $1 mil­lion to $2.5 million.

“When you divide $38 mil­lion among all school dis­tricts statewide, the casino rev­enues should not be assumed to make up for the losses they’ve just expe­ri­enced,” Varda said. “This new rev­enue stream for schools is not a solu­tion to school funding.”

In addi­tion, Gov. John Kasich is prepar­ing to release his new pro­posal for school fund­ing in the com­ing weeks. In light of the voter-approved casino amend­ment lan­guage that set up the dis­tri­b­u­tion pay­ments for schools, which states, “… dis­tri­b­u­tions to school dis­tricts and local gov­ern­ments, under this amend­ment, are intended to sup­ple­ment, not sup­plant, any fund­ing oblig­a­tions of the state,” the groups want to make sure the casino rev­enues are put in the proper per­spec­tive going into the upcom­ing bud­get discussions.

The Ohio School Boards Asso­ci­a­tion leads the way to edu­ca­tional excel­lence by serv­ing Ohio’s pub­lic school board mem­bers and the diverse dis­tricts they rep­re­sent through supe­rior ser­vice, unwa­ver­ing advo­cacy and cre­ative solutions.

The Buck­eye Asso­ci­a­tion of School Admin­is­tra­tors is a non­profit pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tion of school sys­tem lead­ers, specif­i­cally, super­in­ten­dents, cen­tral office admin­is­tra­tors, building-level admin­is­tra­tors, higher edu­ca­tion admin­is­tra­tors and fac­ulty, grad­u­ate stu­dents and other edu­ca­tional personnel.

The Ohio Asso­ci­a­tion of School Busi­ness Offi­cials is a not-for-profit, pro­fes­sional asso­ci­a­tion serv­ing the con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion and leg­isla­tive needs of pub­lic school dis­trict treasurers/CFOs, busi­ness man­agers, trans­porta­tion direc­tors, food and nutri­tion direc­tors, and dis­trict sup­port staff.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jan 23 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.