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Mr Siegel: I have very much enjoyed reading the series, and your stories, published by The Columbus Dispatch regarding school funding in Ohio. The issue is complex – made so by decades of manipulation by politicians and special interest groups at many levels of government. As a thirty-year resident of the Hilliard community and the parent of two children who attended Hilliard Schools from kindergarten through high school graduation, I have had the advantage of watching our district evolve from a small, mostly rural, community to an affluent suburb of Columbus. But even though I have lived here for all this time, what has happened makes sense only in retrospect. The timeline goes something like this: In 1977 Federal Judge Robert Duncan orders busing as the remedy to illegal racial segregation in the Columbus City Schools, beginning the wave of “white flight” to the suburban school districts. The mass migration to the suburbs created a demand for housing which could not be met with existing homes. The wholesale transformation of the farmland around I-270 to single family housing began, and the residential developers geared up to take advantage of the opportunity. However, the school systems in general were not prepared, and thus began the struggle to deal with unprecedented levels of growth, including the expansion and construction of the suburban school buildings. Columbus Public Schools made the argument to the state Board of Education that it was foolish for suburban districts to be furiously building school buildings at the same time Columbus Public Schools was closing buildings (notably, Central High School, within view of state officials). At this point, one needs to acknowledge the role of the residential housing developers (e.g. Dominion, Homewood, Virginia Homes, etc) in local politics. Residential developers are in the business of buying raw farmland, building houses, and selling them to the public. The school districts are treated as part of the feature/benefit list for developer (“buy a house here, and you kids will go to Dublin/Worthington/Hilliard/etc schools”). For many families, the school district was the primary criterion for selecting a particular development. So the developers need a well-regarded suburban school district to be in place to get the best price for their newly constructed developments. But developers can’t simply go out and buy land and start building houses. They have to get the land rezoned from agricultural use to single family housing. That approval comes from the suburban government. The developer also needs water/sewer service. In central Ohio, with few exceptions, the only place to get water/sewer service is from the City of Columbus. Ever since the time when James Rhodes was the Mayor of Columbus, the City of Columbus has used their control of the regional water/sewer system to dictate the terms in which suburban development takes place. Each suburb has a contract with the City of Columbus which describes, among other things, the exact area the suburb is allowed to serve. In all cases, the suburb is required to annex any land into which it intends to extend water/sewer service under its agreement with Columbus. Through this mechanism, Columbus has been able to preserve growth corridors around the perimeter of the City of Columbus. This is important because Ohio law permits municipality to annex only adjacent land. A surrounded city (e.g. Upper Arlington or Bexley) cannot grow. But in fact, many of the new I-270 neighborhoods were built on land annexed into the City of Columbus. Rather than dealing with all the suburban governments, developers could build homes all around I-270 while dealing with only one government – the City of Columbus. The consequence was the creation of many neighborhoods with a patchwork of alignments. For example, the first developments north of I-270 at Sawmill Rd were annexed into the City of Columbus, and so were served by the Columbus Police Department and Fire Department. However, the kids attended Worthington schools, and the mailing address was Dublin. This is when Columbus Public Schools is making its loudest arguments to the State Board of Education for realigning municipal and school district boundaries. Suddenly, the folks in all those brand new I-270 neighborhoods were put in fear of being shifted back to Columbus City Schools. Perhaps more importantly, the residential developers saw their businesses being threatened by the prospects that Columbus Public Schools will prevail in their argument, and the motivation for people to move to the suburbs would evaporate. The solution was the creation of the Win-Win agreement in 1986. The core element of this agreement is a policy which stated: a) already-developed neighborhoods in the City of Columbus but a suburban school district would remain the suburban school district; b) any undeveloped township land which is annexed into a suburb under the limits of the water/sewer agreement would remain in the suburban school district; and, c) any undeveloped township land which is annexed into Columbus would be shifted to Columbus Public Schools. This was a major victory for the developers, and I doubt that it was cheap. The outcome was to grant them tens of thousands of acres of land to develop in the suburban school districts. How do the suburban districts fare in all this? In the beginning, it seemed like a good thing. The folks who moved into the suburbs were enthusiastic supporters of their schools, and happily passed levies to construct new buildings and hire staff. Each suburb has its own profile of funding sources. In places like Upper Arlington and Bexley, the money comes from the so-called State Aid and residential property taxes. Neither of those suburbs allow industrial development, and strictly limit commercial activity. The per-student spending is high, but so are property values and tax rates. Because Bexley and UA are encircled by Columbus, they have little concern with growth. However, folks move to UA and Bexley because of these things, and pay the high taxes to keep the community profile the way they like it. Dublin, Hilliard and Grove City have long had a mix of residential, commercial and industrial entities within their school districts. Commercial and industrial properties can contribute substantially to the funding for schools (as long as the suburban government doesn’t abate the property taxes). Some suburbs are better than others at building a healthy commercial/industrial base – Dublin is probably the best. Pickerington may be in the worst position, with a rapidly growing population and little commercial/industrial development. In Hilliard, the funding mix has been, for many years, one-third from the State of Ohio, one-third from commercial/industrial sources, and one-third from residential property taxes. Our situation today is this: over the past decade, developers have been building houses faster than the city governments have been bringing in commercial/industrial businesses. The math is simple: each new house brings at least one new kid. That kid generates $10,000 in cost for the school district, but the school district collects only $3,500 in property taxes on average from each new home. The State of Ohio has, in the past, kicked in another $3,500, but for the past couple of years, the State has given no new dollars to Hilliard Schools. So the State is contributing no new money for new kids who move it. At best, the commercial/industrial base of Hilliard is just beginning to recover back to where it was a decade ago. The community has lost CompuServe (acquired), Gates-McDonald (moved to Columbus), and Dana Axles (shut down and factory demolished), while gaining BMW Financial and a number of big-box retailers. So in reality, there is been little in the way of new commercial/industrial tax revenue to match up with the residential growth. So when a new house gets built, the community gets $10,000 in cost and maybe $3,500 in new revenue. How do we make up the difference? The School Board keeps asking us to pass new levies. In a very direct way, the existing residents of our community are subsidizing the cost of new residents. But almost no one understands this. I was hoping the Dispatch series would help make this clear, but I think the opportunity was missed. One more angle on all this. In Hilliard, over half the developed area of the school district lies in the City of Columbus (as a result of Win-Win). A substantial quantity of apartment housing has been built in the part of the school district which is in Columbus. In the past, this was not an issue because apartment dwellers are typically young singles or couples, or empty nesters – neither group of which is likely to have kids at home. Today, those apartment complexes are filled with immigrant families and huge numbers of kids. These apartment complexes pay little in the way of property taxes (on a per-child basis), yet send hundreds of expensive-to-educate kids to our schools. I have become passionate in my effort to educate the folks in my community about all these currents that flow through the school funding environment. I, like Jim Underwood, feel our school and city leaders have failed miserably in their duty to educate the members of our community how school funding works. I have stood before the school board on a number of occasions asking them to develop a community education program, and have been dismissed. I have come to the conclusion that our community leaders actually want our residents to be kept in the dark. As a result, I have build a website – www.savehilliardschools.org – to help get the word out. You are welcome to stop by. The Dispatch is an important and respected source of information in our community. You’ve made a great start, but the onion needs to be peeled back a couple more layers. I fear that what we’ll find at the center is corrupt politicians and developers supplying the money. Sincerely, Paul Lambert |
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