by Kevin Hawley
Our goal at Loveland City Schools is to provide a great education for our students and a great value to the community. In order to provide the level of education our community has come to expect and our students deserve, public school districts like ours must return every few years to ask voters to support their schools. This is the reality of public-school funding in Ohio.
Kevin Hawley is the Loveland City School District Treasurer/CFO
Schools in the state of Ohio are financed with a combination of federal, state and local funds. The state uses a formula to determine how much money each district should receive based on enrollment and the relative wealth of a district based on property values. This amount varies widely from district to district. Typically, as is the case with Loveland City Schools, a district receives more of its revenue from local property taxes. These taxes are primarily determined by locally-voted tax increases, otherwise known as tax levies. In our case, approximately 58 percent of the financial burden falls to local taxpayers.
The wonderful part of local revenue being a primary contributor to school funding is that the community maintains control of its schools. Conversely, the challenge is that local revenue does not increase with increases in property values. Therefore, a large portion of a district’s revenue is flat until the community votes to increase its property taxes.
The Loveland City School District is on the right track and reflects our community, but with our operational needs and reliance on property taxes, coupled with the way Ohio funding works, we will soon need to ask our residents for their support.
And in the Loveland City School District, we are coming up on a need to ask for additional operating funds, separate from our discussion around Building Tiger Nation and our facility needs.
Funds generated from operating levies are used for the day-to-day operations of the district such as teachers, utilities and supplies. Because schools, by nature, are a “people” business, the majority of operating funds are used to hire and retain high quality educators as well as provide highly competitive programming for our students.
The Loveland City School District is on the right track and reflects our community, but with our operational needs and reliance on property taxes, coupled with the way Ohio funding works, we will soon need to ask our residents for their support.
In the meantime, we continue to send the majority of our budget – 62 percent – directly to the classroom where the biggest impact can be made to prepare students for tomorrow, today. Maintaining the district budget through thoughtful and prudent spending is and always will be my priority. And I am incredibly grateful to our residents for the continued support for our schools, which are such an important part of our community.
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