Ted Strickland: Education Governor? Ohio Schools Face Severe Budget Cuts

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Ted Strickland: Education Governor? OhiO Schools Face Severe Budget Cuts

Ted Strickland is another in a long line of Governor's who likes to tell the OEA and others he is the "Education Governor". And like other Governor's, he will punish schools with severe budget cuts as possibly soon as the 2011 state budget.


Local school districts warned of 2011 state cuts 


State Rep. Randy Gardner has told area school superintendents to expect a 20-percent or higher cut in state aid in the next state budget bill.
Gardner, R-Bowling Green, sent a memo more than a week ago to superintendents in Lucas and Wood counties alerting them that local schools were likely to see an average reduction in state funding of between 22.7 percent and 30.1 percent, depending upon which of two scenarios is used.
The new budget takes effect in 15 months.

His office provided the two scenarios to administrators: One that accepts the Gov. Ted Strickland's forecast of more than $1 billion in new state revenue growth in the next budget, and one that shows state tax receipts experiencing no growth in the next two years.

The numbers are based on data from the Department of Education, the governor's office and the Legislative Services Commission, among others.
The assumptions also do not include any major tax increases, new gambling revenues or new federal stimulus dollars.

In the current state budget, districts lost an average of 10 percent of funding — but the state closed the gap by doling out federal stimulus dollars that brought the actual cuts closer to 1 percent, according to Gardner.

Without a new flow of revenues, Gardner said Ohio could be facing a deficit between $6 billion and $8 billion in the next two-year budget.

Ted Strickland's "Turnaround Ohio" plan was to fix education funding. His plan has not. It's time we elect a Governor who will fund education properly.