Education News for 09-14-2012

State Education News

• Teachers to pay more for pensions (Canton Repository)

By 2016, local teachers will have to contribute an additional four percent of their pay toward their pensions with the State Teachers…Read more...

• BMI record-keeping no longer weighs on schools (Columbus Dispatch)

Ohio schools no longer have to gather students’ body-mass-index measurements — just two years after a state law required them to do…Read more...

• State School Board candidate holds discussion in Lima (Lima News)

State School Board candidate and former Ohio State quarterback Stanley Jackson spoke and listened…Read more...

• Hundreds of northeast Ohio school buses (WEWS)

Hundreds of school buses in the top ten largest school districts…Read more...

Local Education News

• Erlanger after-school program may become model (Cincinnati Enquirer)

Principal Bryant Gillis pointed across the Tichenor Middle School cafeteria on Monday to a table of teens enjoying an after-school snack…Read more...

• Administrators, others to pay toward health care benefits (Newark Advocate)

Starting at the end of the month, the Lakewood Local School District no longer will pay 100 percent of the health…Read more...

• Area schools not playing with safety (Willoughby News Herald)

Playground safety is something that local schools take seriously…Read more...

• School districts add handling of cyberbullying to their policies (Willoughby News Herald)

While Mentor Schools has been addressing the issue of cyber-bullying for some time, the district is just now in the process of updating its policy on paper…Read more...

Editorial

• Saving by design (Akron Beacon Journal)

Ohio has seen a building boom in school facilities the past 15 years. Together, the state, school districts and local governments…Read more...

• Cleveland avoided Chicago's school impasse (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Four days into a politically charged strike that has sent thousands of teachers to the picket lines and 350,000 students…Read more...

• Student cheating (Columbus Dispatch)

The definition of cheating on a test was pretty clear-cut to most people who grew up in the old days…Read more...

A balanced approach to the budget

The Republican controlled legislature and the Governor have determined that the state budget will be balanced on the back of public education and the middle class. Much of the solution will pass the buck to local government and school districts, by eliminating the tangible personal property tax (TPP) replacement money, leaving many school districts in dire straits. Further costs are passed onto working Ohioans with a 2% pension shift, directly extracting hundreds of millions from paychecks over the next 2 years alone. A significant portion of the money that is left over for public education is diverted to expand charter schools and vouchers. A plan even conservative charter proponents oppose. Much of the rest of the budget gap is filled with one time money from the privatization of Ohio's assets, from roads and prisons, to the lottery and alcohol.

Clearly a more balanced approach would be welcome.

A short while ago we discussed and demonstrated that the income tax cuts made through HB66 in 2004 has had a negligible effect on a typical teachers tax burden. For those tax cuts to make a real tangible difference one would have to earn significantly more than any Ohio teacher - hundreds of thousands of dollars more in fact.

A recent study by the Education Tax Policy Institute (ETPI), found

that Ohio ranks as the 17th lowest state in taxes levied at the state level. Increases in local taxes place Ohio with a total state and local tax burden at about the national average. Ohio's ranking among states is higher when local taxes are included in the comparison because state policies have shifted the responsibility for funding public services, including education, down to the local level.

While the study determined that the reform of Ohio's business tax structure in 2005 improved both the fairness and the competitiveness of the state's revenue system, the authors also determined that the combination of the recent recession and the changes in the state’s tax system in House Bill (HB) 66 lowered state revenue by $3 billion below the levels anticipated in 2005 when the state revamped its business tax structure.

The summary can be read here, with the full report is below. The report demonstrates that Ohio does not have the crushing tax burden that some would have us believe, but instead has areas where improvements could be made that would raise revenue without causing any economic harm.

The following two charts from the report show the sources of tax revenue, the first for the state, the second for local taxes.

State Sources of Tax Revenue

Local Sources of Tax Revenue

As you can see, business pays very little, with the vast majority of taxes being paid by individuals through income tax, property tax and sales taxes. One would hardly have to be draconian to realize significant tax revenues from simply closing outdated loopholes

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio's cash-strapped government could generate an additional $300 million a year by closing tax loopholes that are outdated, benefit a few or do little to spur economic growth, a trio of policy think tanks spanning the political spectrum told state leaders Monday.

You can see some of the crazy tax loopholes in this document

The Tax Expenditure Report Ohio

In total those tax exemptions add to over $7 billion.

The evidence is overwhelming that an alternative, more balanced approach to the budget is available to law makers should they choose. They do not have to continue on this path that seriously harms public education and the middle class. They can solve the budget problems without passing the buck down to local government. The question is, will they chose a new path?

REVENUE OPTIONS FOR OHIO’S FUTURE

Chamber of Commerce risks massive backlash

Attacking your neighbors, friends and family is hard, attacking your customers is just plain dumb

Tea party members are squarely in its corner, and it's widely assumed that conservative corporate entities from inside and outside Ohio will pony up at the appropriate time.

But will the real leader of the pro-Senate Bill 5 movement please stand up?

Those opposed to Senate Bill 5 - the new law that limits collective bargaining for Ohio's public employees - have a political action committee, are gathering signatures and are identifying multimillion-dollar revenue streams to fund a referendum campaign this fall.
[...]
Kasich has said he will campaign in favor of the bill, and he used a campaign fundraising email last week to talk about his support of the bill. But he and his staff are deflecting questions about who will lead Senate Bill 5's defense.

Tea party officials and business people say they simply don't know, and Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine said preliminary discussions to answer some of these questions are under way.

Many businesses simply do not support S.B.5, and those that do may find themselves on the wrong end of a public relations backlash. Hundreds of thousands of people adversely affected by this extreme legislation are also their customers and neighbors. We see this playing out in microcosm in Youngstown

Three more companies have left the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber as a result of the chamber board’s endorsement of Senate Bill 5

As OhioDaily notes

What will it take for this Chamber to realize that they ought to be helping to strengthen businesses in this challenged area and not endorsing partisan bills that weaken its workforce?

Local businesses that threaten their customers are going to come under intense scrutiny, and for what gain?