Gov. Kasich’s proposed two-year budget would give a slight increase for K-12 schools in Ohio while freezing tuition for state universities.
The Ohio School Boards Association complains that while the budget represents an increase, education funding has not kept up with inflation over the past six years. But the conservative Buckeye Institute says that funding for education should be flat, arguing that districts should have planned for the phase out of some property tax revenues.
While unveiling his budget, Kasich repeated his call that local school boards should include three non-voting business people.
“It’s because business people from the outside who don’t have to stand for election or anything else can disrupt, in some sense, the type of curriculum that’s taught in the schools," Kasich said.
The budget gives higher education funding a 1 percent hike, but public universities would have to pay half the costs of textbooks for their students. Kasich has named a task force to visit each campus and look for ways to make spending cuts. Kasich said don’t be surprised "if we require the condensing of certain colleges with others so we can save money by consolidating school operations,” he said.
Kasich’s budget would also lower the state transportation subsidy for well-off schools in order to provide more funding to poor districts.
