One of the best sources of information on tax policy as it relates to education and local property taxes is the Education Tax Policy Institute (ETPI). Their analysis is an excellent way to understand why Ohio voters are rejecting school levies, at a 50% or higher rate. The answers they provide show that it's not because voters hate education that levies are failing. In fact, it's just the opposite. Voters have taxed themselves locally to one of the highest rates in the nation. So it's no wonder that voters are tired of shouldering so much of the burder through local property taxes.
If you google "property tax burden" or any other combination of "tax" and "burden", you're likely to come up with a list of links to the Tax Foundation (or one of the ubiquitous news reports that rely on the Tax Foundation to push the theme that darnit Ohio's taxes are just too high). One of those unfortunate news pieces is here, at the PD site from just last December.
But the ETPI debunks the methodology used by the Tax Foundation pretty thoroughly, and shows that the ranking the Tax Foundation annually uses and which show Ohio's "tax burden" as being one of the top ten in the country are misleading to say the least. As ETPI explains, the TF rankings lump a lot of taxes together and weight them. But what interests me, and probably a lot of other voters, is how much of our taxes for schools come not from corporate and personal income taxes or sales taxes, but instead from local property taxes. As the ETPI shows, Ohio's statewide income tax is fairly low, or at least average, while our property tax rates, which are voted on directly and locally by the people who pay them, are actually very high. Interestingly, Ohio’s state-levied taxes (i.e., those enacted by the state legislature) amount to $1,733 per capita and rank 34th, lower than all but 16 states. Conversely, Ohio’s local taxes are $1,283 per capita, 9th highest in the nation. (It might also be observed here that,under Ohio law, much of this local burden has been imposed directly by local voters rather than elected officials.) Combining these state and local burdens yields the figure of $3,016 in per capita state and local taxes, and the ranking of 20th, explained earlier. (my emphasis)
Go to the ETPI site and click on "Ohio's tax ranking: setting the record straight" for the full PDF that the above came from.
So, as I've said before, it's up to the governor and legislature to change the system. Voters have taxed themselves at a high rate. But they can't take anymore. The system has to change.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Why Levies are Failing: Not Because Voters Hate Schools
Monday, March 12, 2007
A few thoughts on vouchers, for Chris
This is for Chris, and anyone else who is interested.
Chris asked my thoughts on vouchers. I am opposed to them on basic ideological grounds. I don't believe public money should go to private schools. Simple. In fact, I don't even think public money should go to buy textbooks, pay for counseling services, or busing.
But, a larger point for me is practical. There just isn't enough money to go around to start spending money on vouchers. Let me explain.
According to the 2003-04 NCES report, Characteristics of the 100 largest school districts, Cleveland had about 71,000 students. (If you open the PDF, I'm looking at table A-14). They spent around 10,000 per student, of which about half comes from the state. Let's say 5,000 students are given vouchers in Cleveland. Ohio doesn't give the state funding to Cleveland for each of those 5,000 students. That adds up to about $2.5 million in lost revenue for Cleveland.
Now, you say, the other half of the 10,000 that is local revenue is freed up to spend on the remaining students, to do whatever the district wants. (There is federal money in there also, but I'm not dealing with that right now. That money depends on which students transfer out, so it's not as clean a discussion.)
But school funding comes in per pupil from the state, but it isn't really spent that way. Money is spent on teachers, support staff, and facilities. If three students transfer out of School A in Cleveland, for example, it loses $15,000 in funding from the state. But it still has to employ the same number of teachers, support staff, etc. Three students isn't enough to close the school or cut a teacher. But in reality, $15,000 will have to come from somewhere in the school's site budget. Computers? Supplies? If the number is a little higher than 3, then the cuts are a little deeper. Cut a teacher, cut a class, cut supplies more deeply, cut a counselor.
In a district as large as Cleveland, eventually resources have to be moved around, maybe schools closed, maybe extracurriculars are cut, and so on. But the end result is a loss of investment in public education in Cleveland. Supporters of vouchers say that's a good thing, and that those 5,000 students who transfer out are doing much better and have a better future. Maybe so. But the private school system certainly can't support the other 66,000 students in Cleveland public. (And, I would argue, if the private system did absorb those students, they would have the same problems the public district had before.) We end up sacrificing them and their education so that 5,000 kids--the best kids, because the private schools can be selective--can go to private schools. It's a very elitist agenda.
Long term, we need to figure out what it is about private schools that make them successful--is it discipline? High standards? Parental support? And try to model that in public schools.
I know this much: expensive private schools don't produce high quality graduates by beating their brains in with standardized tests.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Blackwell's Unfunded Mandate
I couldn't find the debate on last night but I read some wrap ups on and I will have more to say about it later. But one thing that needs to be discussed in more detail is Blackwell's plan to mandate 65% of a school district's budget be spent on instruction.
Anyone can go to the ODE's website and look up for themselves the financial data on school districts and see what their total spending per pupil and the amount the state counts as spending on "instruction." Here is the link.You can click on "per pupil" next to total, then next to "expenditures," to get the numbers you need.
Based on those data, Cincinnati Public currently spends about 55% of its total spending on instruction. They would have to spend about 10% more on instruction. Ken Blackwell hasn't told us how he would pay for that. That's called an unfunded mandate. Generally those are bad for education. Furthermore they take local control away from elected school boards who generally are empowered to make decisions about spending in their district. At one time, I thought Republicans were in favor of local control of schools. I guess those days are gone.
Incidentally, I wonder how Mr. Blackwell's wife, the superintendent of Cincinnati Public Schools, would add 10% to the budget for instuction, and if it's such a great idea, why she hasn't done so already.
In Dayton, where 48% of expenditures go toward instruction, there would need to be an increase of 17%. How would Mr. Blackwell pay for that increase?
Even in the relatively affluent Centerville, instruction only accounts for 61% or per pupil expenditures. Four percent may not seem like much, but try taking 4% out of your household budget and see how you feel. It's not easy. Where do you cut? And is it really fair to tell Centerville, generally regarded as one of the very best public school districts in the area if not the state, that they aren't spending enough on instruction?
I hope Strickland responds to this forcefully in the next debate.
