CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio – Ohio’s voucher confusion is making the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district’s March 17 levy request a guessing game.
The inner-ring district of about 5,000 students is likely the hardest hit district in Ohio by the massive expansion of the state’s EdChoice vouchers – tax funded tuition aid toward private schools. The district’s voucher bill more than doubled from $3.2 million to $7.1 million in the last two years.
The district has a tax increase on the March ballot mainly to cover voucher costs. That vote comes two weeks before the state legislature is scheduled to make major changes to EdChoice, including which students are eligible and who foots the bill.
Unless the state legislature reaches agreement quickly, voters will have to decide on an $8 million tax increase, without knowing if the district’s $7.1 million voucher bill will rise, or if it will vanish if the state starts paying for vouchers. At stake is a $277 tax increase for every $100,000 in property values.
That bothers some voters, who say the district should delay seeking a tax until vouchers are resolved, or seek a short-term temporary tax while vouchers and a new state funding formula for schools are debated.
“They absolutely should not have the levy,” said Maureen Lynn, treasurer of Tiger Nation 4 Lower Taxes. “They should have been more responsible and put in an interval amount just to get by for a year, but these are permanent levies that never expire. Never.”
Resident Susan Jhirad said she’s confused that the school board says it needs the tax to pay for vouchers, but continues to seek the tax even though the state may cover the costs.
“How do you reconcile that they need a levy if there’s direct funding?” she asked. “Why do we need a levy if what they’re claiming is the cause of the levy is going to be funded?”
Opponents point to district claims at a Jan. 9 presentation about vouchers and the levy that if Ohio’s voucher funding was different, it would not need a levy until 2023, and possibly at a lower amount.
A slide from the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Jan. 9 presentation on vouchers and its levy, stating that a levy would not be needed until 2023 if voucher costs went away.
District Treasurer Scott Gainer said that’s still true.
“If the…EdChoice deduction went away this year and forever more then we could delay a levy until 2023,” he said.
If voucher use and costs hadn’t jumped this year, but old voucher rules had continued, the district would be seeking a 5.9-mill tax and not 7.9 mills, he said.
But Gainer and board members said they need a tax now to avoid cutting services to students when there is no guarantee the state will cover voucher costs, or how much.
He estimated it could cost as much as $150 million a year for the state to pay for EdChoice vouchers statewide.
“I’m not quite sure where they’re going to get $150 million to do that.” He said. “And that’s just for this year.”
While Gainer said the likelihood of the state paying all of the district’s $7.1 million EdChoice bill is “slim to none,” he, Board President Jodi Sourini and Vice President James Posch said if there is any extra money from the March levy, they would use it to delay or lower the next levy.
They said they had not considered collecting less than the full 7.9 mills if the state covers a large part of the voucher costs. They said they would check with lawyers to see if that’s legal.
It is, according to the Ohio Department of Taxation. The ballot language for the levy states that it is “not to exceed 7.9 mills,” so the district could apply to the county budget commission to collect at a lower rate.
Posch said the district will not spend money it does not need.
“If we don’t need the money, we will find a way to give it back or put it in the bank,” he said.
The use and cost of tuition vouchers in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district has risen dramatically in recent years as changes to state eligibility rules took effect. Here's how those have changed.
Though Cleveland Heights has the most immediate crisis, vouchers are a controversy across the state. More than two thirds of the school districts in Ohio could face costs for vouchers next school year for students who leave for private schools.
Though the state legislature is trying to avoid having so many districts pay for vouchers, it could not reach agreement last week and delayed making a decision until April 1, too late to provide clarity before the election.
Other Northeast Ohio districts with high voucher usage are not facing the same deadline as Cleveland Heights-University Heights. Some, like Parma, have tax renewals on the March ballot and have time to see what legislators decide before seeking any tax increase. Euclid is seeking a tax increase in March, but just to make up for a tax that expired when voters would not renew it last fall. And Richmond Heights, whose voucher use tripled this year, will likely seek a tax next year if the state doesn’t make the changes.
Exactly what the vouchers are truly costing the district is not clear, which adds to the local controversy over the voucher. The Plain Dealer is seeking clarification from state officials and will be tracking changes between now and election day.
But here’s why it can be confusing:
The state is billing Cleveland Heights-University Heights $7.1 million this school year for about 1,400 students to attend private school. But the district receives state aid for some of these students, which lowers the net cost.
But many of the students don’t bring any aid to the district to offset voucher costs, thanks to complicated state law.
Then there’s another wrinkle. State aid to districts this year and next is frozen at last year’s level and not dependent on a districts’ enrollment, so the exact amount of aid for kids who leave to use a voucher is even more unclear.
Gainer said on the district’s website that if you use the average aid per student to offset voucher expenses, that lowers the net hit to about $24 million over five years, or $4.8 million a year.
Then there are competing plans in Columbus, one of which would reimburse the district for current costs. A state Senate plan last week, which the House rejected, would have given $30 million to districts to cover increased voucher costs for this ongoing school year. That could have given the district a little more than $2 million, but it may not be part of any final resolution.
The latest proposals do not include that money. The two houses voted to set aside $10 million toward vouchers for next fall, but House Speaker Larry Householder said that was just a “down payment” toward a likely larger amount that is still to be determined.
A plan from the House on Wednesday would phase out standard EdChoice vouchers over the next few years, in favor of income-based ones that the state pays for, not local districts. That could eventually wipe out the $7.1 million bill, along with the state aid voucher students bring to the district. But the transition, how many current voucher recipients would still be the responsibility of the district, and for how long, is still to be determined. The Senate will start debate on that proposal soon.