Following our reporting on a proposal by Republican leadership in Ohio to cut public school spending, which resulted in the lawmakers facing backlash, half a dozen GOP legislators personally reached out, vowing to protect K-12 education.

Those six, and at least 15 others we have spoken to in recent weeks, say that one of their main priorities is supporting public schools.

This comes as Gov. Mike DeWine would not commit to supporting the current bipartisan funding formula, telling us that “difficult choices” will need to be made.

Recap

Ohio’s history with school funding isn’t the brightest. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the way the state funds schools is unconstitutional, relying too much on property taxes.

Throughout the next three decades, lawmakers went back and forth on policy in an attempt to fix the unconstitutionality. The Ohio Education Association, as well as lawmakers on each side of the aisle, have deemed that it has been unconstitutional since then. However, some Republicans argue that because they are no longer using the struck-down policy, and since nothing else has been deemed “unconstitutional” in court, they argue that, by definition, it can’t be considered unconstitutional.

Either way, there has been a bipartisan effort for years to fix the funding system.

House Bill 1, introduced by state Reps. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) and Jamie Callender (R-Concord), in 2021, required $333 million additional dollars a year for K-12 education funding — or about $2 billion overall. It is called the Cupp-Paterson Fair School Funding Plan.

Their bill mirrored the policy that passed the House but not the Senate in the General Assembly prior, which was created by former Speaker Bob Cupp (R-Lima) and former state Rep. John Patterson (D-Jefferson). House Bill 1 was finally passed and signed into law.

The rollout was supposed to take six years and is meant to change how public dollars are provided to K-12 schools. It would give additional support to local districts so they can rely less on property taxes.

The first two years were partially fully funded, the second two years were fully funded, and there are just two years left to go.

But that may not happen.

Tuesday’s story

It was comments made by new House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) that angered viewers, readers, parents and education leaders across the state.

“I don’t think there is a third phase to Cupp-Patterson,” Huffman told reporters Monday evening. “As to the expectation that those things are gonna go in… I guess the clear statement I can say is I think those increases in spending are unsustainable.”

The G.A. from four years ago shouldn’t be able to “bind” what the future lawmakers can do, he said.

Huffman explained that this year’s budget is going to have significantly less money due to the federal COVID dollars drying up. And for him, public education is on the chopping block.

“That’s often how a lot of projects go — early on it doesn’t cost very [much] money — but some other governor or General Assembly will have to figure out how to pay for it,” he continued. “As it turns out, I am the other General Assembly years in the future, or possibly am, and I don’t think the spending is sustainable.”

In short, Huffman proposed cutting at least $650 million in public education spending in this G.A.’s budget.

After we aired his comments — and Parma City Schools Superintendent Charles Smialek’s frustration — Ohioans started calling their lawmakers.

The next day, half a dozen Republicans reached out to us to share they would fight for school funding — and they didn’t want to be lumped in with leadership “trying to take it down.”

“They’re hearing from their constituents, they’re hearing from their residents that ‘Hey, listen, we don’t want our teachers taking pay cuts; we don’t want class sizes of 32, 33; we don’t want to go back to pay for play of $700 and $800 for extracurricular opportunities,'” Smialek said.

Apparently, residents have been leaving angry messages, posting on social media, and calling offices.

“I think the more that you can spotlight this issue and the importance of funding public education… It shows that the people understand that we have to have a thorough and efficient means of educating all of our students,” the superintendent said. “I’m very heartened to hear that people have had the reaction that they have.”

However, the legislators who reached out had or said they would have supported H.B. 1 if they had been in the legislature at that time.

Within the Statehouse, there seem to be three types of lawmakers. Some prioritize public school funding, others prioritize private school vouchers or “school choice,” and then there is a mix of the two.

One of the only Republicans to go on the record and speak out against Huffman’s comments was, unsurprisingly, Callender.

“Fully funding the Fair School Funding Plan — it is a rising tide that will lift all ships,” Callender said.

In the FSFP, the formula supports not just public traditional education but all sectors, whether it’s vouchers, charters or districts.

To not fully fund the plan could cause the schools to rely heavily on property taxes, which will then lead to more levies, which will then be shut down due to already having high enough property taxes. Callender said this would be detrimental to families and schools.

Former House Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) may have been termed out this January, but at the Statehouse Wednesday, he said not following the funding plan was a bad idea.

In an interview Thursday, he said he wasn’t sure how Huffman didn’t know that the FSFP had three tranches, considering that was the whole point and that it was so “widely advertised,” plus there is “abundant evidence” to prove that.

Seitz, who is credited for being the most efficient lawmaker at getting each chamber to agree or for bringing two parties together, explained that the House had already done its due diligence.

As we reported in 2023, the House passed its budget with a fully-funded public education system. The Senate refused, instead being “adamant that they wanted universal school vouchers,” Seitz continued.

“We were equally adamant that we thought we had a moral obligation, not a legal obligation — a moral obligation — to follow through on the second tranche of funding,” he said.

To get a bill passed, the House and Senate collaborated and both wishes were granted.

Seitz continued that the best way to preserve or even expand the speaker’s voucher program would be to implement the third phase of the FSFP.

“You would have achieved what people did not think was possible — namely, for once and for all, a school funding formula that whether you are on the left or on the right, you have agreed that that is fair and constitutional,” he said. “So if you do that and if you pass that, then you can smile very sweetly at the public school advocates and say, ‘Okay, you got yours, so please do not bother us because we believe in school choice.'”

We called Cupp, of the Cupp-Patterson plan. He declined to comment at this point but did say that he would speak with his Lima neighbor Huffman.

Budgeting

It’s not just the lawmakers who have a say in the budget.

During a press conference Wednesday, we questioned DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted on if they wanted to fully fund education.

“Sometimes these are very, very difficult, difficult choices,” the governor responded, noting that the state’s budget isn’t as plentiful this time around.

There are many factors he has to take into consideration, including two very expensive issues: “mental health” and “drug problems.”

He added that education, including colleges, is important and that those discussions will take place. He said something has to give, but he doesn’t know what.

“It would be unfair of me at this point to come out here and say we need to do this, this, this and this,” the governor responded.

Husted jumped in, giving a more straightforward answer.

“Funding for the education of children will continue to be a huge budget priority going forward as… He’s made sure of in the past,” the LG said.

Superintendent Smialek sighed with relief at the Husted’s response.

“To hear, especially the lieutenant governor’s comments is absolutely encouraging to us,” he said, noting that the LG has previously visited Parma’s schools.

He also understands what DeWine was saying about mental health and drug addiction.

“If we think about brain development and when the brain develops, we’re talking about early childhood education,” Smialek said. “We want to be the preventative antidote to those issues and to those societal plagues that we all deal with.”

But Richmond Heights School District Treasurer Cooper Martin doesn’t believe the lawmakers. He criticized Huffman for his championing of the private school voucher system, with the state spending nearly $1 billion in public money to send kids to nonpublic schools.

“You can’t say that public education is unsustainable when you’re spending that money,” Martin said.

Huffman and many GOP politicians believe spending that much on private school vouchers is necessary in order to have the money “follow the child” or have the students avoid poor-performing public schools.

“There’s no educational system where one size fits all works for everyone,” Husted said, addressing different types of schools.

But for public schools, the voucher program is siphoning money from them.

“Every dollar that goes to a voucher, it’s a dollar that’s taken from public education,” Martin said.

Smialek said this sets districts up for failure.

“It absolutely becomes sort of that downward spiral where you defund us, and then somehow expect us to meet expectations and parameters that only continue to increase,” the superintendent said, adding that public schools are graded much harsher than nonpublic.

Several GOP lawmakers, such as Callender, all said they would look at other institutions to cut funds from before directly going to education.

For the Northeast Ohio Republican, he thinks that legalized marijuana may solve the problem.

“Why don’t we look at all the folks that are in our state prisons and jails that are there solely or primarily because of marijuana offenses — which are no longer illegal,” Callender, the marijuana enthusiast lawmaker who helped lead the charge of recreational use, said. “We could have a 20% savings.”

Callender wants to work together with Huffman to find a way to support public education while making sure the budget is balanced. And Smialek hopes that Ohioans will continue to share their voices with state representatives and senators.

“This is really resonating with the population,” the superintendent said.

This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.

Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on X and Facebook.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.

Democratic and nonpartisan voters in Ohio are winning the vote-by-mail fight in the November election on abortion and marijuana, an OCJ/WEWS analysis found.

Despite being an off-year, elections workers say early voting numbers are exceeding expectations.

“It’s very critical to us to vote early,” Cuyahoga County voter Linda Frey said.

This is especially true with such large issues on the ballot, which is why Frey cast her ballot ahead of time.

In this election, voters will decide on local issues and candidates, like city council members, and statewide Issue 1 and Issue 2. Issue 1 is the amendment to protect access to abortion and contraception, while Issue 2 would legalize recreational marijuana.

“Voting early avoids amount of crowding at the polling place,” she added.

She isn’t the only one.

Early voting data gives a look at not just how many people are voting — but who is voting.

Analysis

Party affiliation is tracked when an Ohioan requests to vote by mail.

Statehouse reporter Morgan Trau reached out to a dozen counties with different political leanings across the state. She gathered raw data from county boards of elections and calculated the breakdown of how many Democrats, Republicans, and nonpartisan voters have applied for absentee as of Oct. 31. These numbers were then rounded for clarity.

This analysis comes after the first review into which counties were voting early.

For full disclosure, Ohio has more GOP-leaning counties with fewer people in them than the fewer Democratic-leaning counties that have larger population numbers.

Cuyahoga, Franklin (which has Columbus) and Hamilton (which has Cincinnati) were the determiners in the August election. Although they each vote Democratic, Cuyahoga and Franklin counties are the strongholds in the state.

Cuyahoga County Democrats requested 50,000 ballots, Republicans 20,000 and nonpartisan 30,000. Franklin Democrats requested more than 10,000, Republicans 8,000 and nonpartisan about 30,000. Hamilton Democrats requested about 13,000, Republicans 8,000 and nonpartisan 23,000.

Other urban counties, Summit (which has Akron), Montgomery (which has Dayton), Lucas (which has Toledo) and Mahoning (which has Youngstown) follow the same trend.

Summit Democrats requested 11,000, Republicans 7,000 and nonpartisan 18,000. Montgomery Democrats requested 7,000, Republicans 5,000 and nonpartisan 12,000. Lucas Democrats requested 9,000, Republicans 3,000 and nonpartisan 6,000. Mahoning Democrats requested 5,000, Republicans 2,500 and nonpartisan 5,000.

This is an increase from the already unexpectedly high August special election.

“We’re super excited when we see great turnout like this,” said Nicole Mickley with the Medina County Board of Elections.

Suburban and more rural counties are also showing up, she added.

Medina Democrats have requested 4,500 ballots, Republican 5,000 and nonpartisan 5,000. Geauga Democrats have requested 2,000, Republicans 3,500 and nonpartisan 2,500. Lake Democrats have requested 3,500, Republicans 3,200 and nonpartisan 3,200.

Portage Democrats have requested 2,500, Republicans 2,000 and nonpartisan 4,500. Ashtabula Democrats have requested 1,000, Republicans 1,200 and nonpartisan 2,000. Lorain Democrats have requested 7,000, Republicans 5,000 and nonpartisan 10,000. Delaware Democrats have requested 4,800, Republicans 4,700 and nonpartisan 6,000.

“We’re expecting great voter turnout for the rest of early voting and then on election day as well,” Mickley said.

Previous election data shows that Republican-leaning counties have significantly higher voter turnout on the day of the election rather than early voting.

More rural counties Holmes, Meigs and Warren have much fewer voters, but a significantly higher percentage of Republican requests.

Holmes Democrats have requested 263, Republicans 696 and nonpartisan 624. Meigs Democrats have requested 222, Republicans 533 and nonpartisan 234. Warren Democrats have requested 4,500, Republicans 6,300 and nonpartisan 5,500.

Reactions

House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) wants more people to vote early — and he is advocating against Issue 1 and 2.

“I think it’s great that the numbers are high and I think it’s encouraging,” Stephens said. “The more people that vote, the better off.”

But state Rep. Rich Brown (D-Canal Winchester) is excited that the Democratic strongholds are surpassing early voting expectations.

“Issue 1 and 2 are the primary reason why folks are out there,” Brown said. “Especially, in my view, Issue 1.”

Frey says no matter which way you vote, Frey believes earlier is easier.

“Make sure that our votes counted,” she said.

When do I vote?

Vote at your local board of elections on these days:

Nov. 3: 7:30 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.Nov. 4: 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.Nov. 5: 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Citizens can no longer vote on Nov. 6, the Monday before the election.

Mailed absentee ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 6.

Vote at your polling location on Nov. 7. Polls open from 6:30 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.

If not returned by mail, absentee ballots must be received by your board of elections by 7:30 p.m.

Find your polling place by clicking or tapping here.

What do I need to vote?

In order to cast a ballot, voters must have an unexpired Photo ID such as a passport or driver’s license. Previously, voters were able to use non-photo documentation such as bank statements, government checks or utility bills to register to vote.

CLICK HERE for more information on ID requirements.

Here is the list of acceptable types of valid ID:

Ohio driver’s licenseState of Ohio ID cardInterim ID form issued by the Ohio BMVA US passportA US passport cardUS military ID cardOhio National Guard ID cardUS Department of Veterans Affairs ID card

More information for voters

To check your voter registration status, find your polling place, view your sample ballot and more, head to the Ohio Secretary of State’s VoteOhio.gov website.This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.

Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.

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Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David DeWitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and Twitter.