THE SUN MESSENGER
Thursday, April 30, 1998

Issue opponents square off as decision day nears
By Linda Hoy Socha
Assistant Editor

While State Issue 2 isn’t the final solution to Ohio schools’ funding problems, it’s a place to start that preserves local control of the system, according to Mark Real, director of the Children’s Defense Fund.

Ohio Roundtable President David Zanotti, who debated Real on the merits of the   proposed l-cent state sales tax increase for education Friday at the Cleveland City Club, said the funding plan should be completely scrapped for a new one.

“Issue 2 is a diluted political compromise artificially sweetened by a little property tax relief,” Zanotti said.

The sales tax hike on Tuesday’s primary election ballot will raise about $1.1 billion, with half ear-marked for school funding and half for property tax relief. The state legislature has approved a 15-percent property tax reduction, with a $275 cap, for each homeowner, but the form it would take has not been determined.

The legislature’s plan is a “necessary and rational” response to the Ohio Supreme Court’s order last year to revamp the state school funding system, Real said.

Real praised the legislature for approving the toughest accountability measures Ohio has ever had for administration and students, including a school-system report card for each district in the state.

“This provides accountability for taxpayers so that we know what the money’s being used for,” he said.

He also pointed out that the school reform package will increase all-day, every day kindergarten in Cuyahoga County, including funds for Euclid and Cleveland Heights-University Heights schools. Real said Lakewood and Maple Heights would benefit from reduced class sizes, and Warrensville Heights would benefit from both.

Zanotti said the school funding debate would not be resolved “by throwing $500 million more into public education.” He said the issues in the school funding formula need to be resolved “through the consensus of the people who are going to have to pay for it.”

Furthermore, because the sales tax hike was passed as a statute and not a Constitutional amendment, the legislature can amend it without voter approval, Zanotti said. “At any time in the future, they can change this bill without your vote,” he said, noting that it could  become “Lottery 2.”

Real said the improvements passed by the legislature “are going to become law regardless of what happens to Issue 2 on May 5.”

He said that the revenue could be raised at the expense of existing programs, and that “failing to take action invites action by the Ohio Supreme Court.”

Responding to Zanotti’s charges that Issue 2 would become Lottery 2, Real said the money will be put into the School Trust Fund.

Real also acknowledged that the majority of Cuyahoga County superintendents are unhappy with the funding plan, but he said they “interpret the Supreme Court decision as a blank check.”

Zanotti said the court ordered a “complete reconstruction of all school funding laws.”

“Then the court went toward the bizarre and placed ultimate veto power over the new funding laws in the hands of a single Perry County judge," he said. He called Issue 2 "a denial of the seriousness of the courts attempt to take over school funding.”

“Bad public policy is seldom good for children,” he said.

Brecksville-Broadview Heights superintendent Steve Farnsworth, president of the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, spoke on behalf of superintendents present and disputed Real’s “blank check” charge.

“We simply ask for a plan that’s complete,” he said. “Until a complete solution is enacted, local schools will be forced to put issues on the ballot in their respective communities.”

Real pointed out that Brecksville-Broadview Heights will receive a 10 percent increase in state funding from the plan.

“What this plan shows is what you get and who pays for it,” he said, adding that 56 percent of Ohio students attend a district that will get at least a 10 percent increase in funds and 75 percent attend a system that receives a 6 percent or greater increase.

Real said Issue 2’s critics have failed to come up with a better, alternate plan. Zanotti pointed out that the funding plan does not address House Bill 920, which keeps property taxes from increasing with inflation.