Centerville schools’ state funding among strangest

First and second years of state budget plan would be direct opposites
Centerville High School students spend lunch time with Cline Elementary students as part of the “Lunch Buddies” program. Centerville City Schools’ state funding would follow an odd pattern if Gov. John Kasich’s budget plan became law. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Centerville High School students spend lunch time with Cline Elementary students as part of the “Lunch Buddies” program. Centerville City Schools’ state funding would follow an odd pattern if Gov. John Kasich’s budget plan became law. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Centerville City Schools was one of the strangest school funding cases in Gov. John Kasich’s new two-year state budget proposal.

Centerville’s core state aid increase for the first year of the budget is listed at 5.3 percent — the No. 1 highest increase among all 610 school districts in the state.

Almost all of the districts slated for large Year 1 increases (128 of 130) are also due for a funding increase in Year 2 of the proposal. One of the two exceptions? Centerville, which would see its core state aid drop 4.5 percent in the second year of the Kasich plan, almost back to where it is today.

Barbara Shaner, a leader of the Ohio Association of School Business Officials, said Centerville’s issue might be linked to a state change in transportation funding.

John Charlton, spokesman for the state Office of Budget and Management, said OBM was still checking, but their theory was a change in property values.

Centerville Superintendent Tom Henderson said Monday he had not yet checked the funding projections, and would look into the data in the coming days.

All schools care about changes to their core state funding, but that revenue stream is less crucial to Centerville than many others, making up less than 20 percent of overall revenue in the district.

It’s important to note these are not final school funding numbers for 2017-18 and 2018-19 – the state legislature is likely to tweak the details before voting the budget into law near the end of June.

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