Columbus City Schools' Superintendent Angela Chapman warned the $50 million cut from the district's budget last week and the four schools slated to be closed is only the start if Ohio officials don't provide more funding to public schools.
"This is round one of the cuts. Will we have to come back next year with more cuts and more cuts and more cuts to truly make sure that our revenue keeps up with our expenditures?" Chapman told WOSU Monday.
Last week, the Columbus City Schools' Board of Education voted to cut more than $50 million from the budget, directing Chapman and her team to implement their decisions. This includes closing four schools; cutting $25.9 million by slashing an unspecified number of staff and faculty positions; eliminating 60 administrative positions; cutting $8.8 million in programs and cutting K-8 transportation for students who lottery into a non-100% lottery school.
Chapman argues this is a symptom of the cost to run schools nowadays. She said the Ohio General Assembly hasn't properly funded public schools for years as costs balloon because of inflation.
Ohio Senate Majority caucus spokesman John Fortney said in a statement Chapman and CCS are falsely accusing the state legislature of underfunding public schools.
CCS' argument isn't new and has been repeatedly invoked as the state's largest school district worked to contend with its budget woes this year. Ohio's public school budget was panned by critics prior to Gov. Mike DeWine signing it into law, over claims it created budget crises for many of the state's districts.
One of the more controversial measures limits how much school districts can carry over from a previous year's budget.
“[T]he district conveniently omitted the fact to voters and parents that it carried a cash balance at the beginning of 2025 of $394 million," Fortney said.
Fortney pointed out the district's teacher and administrator ranks have soared while enrollment has declined over the last several decades.
CCS enrolled almost 50,000 students in 2014 and now enrolls around 46,000. In that same time period, the number of teachers increased by nearly 400 to nearly 4,000 and the number of administrators grew from 277 to 409.
Ohio House Majority spokeswoman Olivia Wile didn't comment directly on CCS's budget cuts, but did say in a statement education is a priority for Republicans in the General Assembly.
"The recently passed state budget allocated more than $21 billion for public schools over the biennium, an increase of approximately $700 million in state aid from fiscal year 2025," Wile said.
Chapman warned CCS' budget situation could get even worse as the state considers whether to eliminate or further reform property taxes.
"How are we going to fund public education and shared city services like the library, police and fire?" Chapman questioned.
Chapman said her administration is still working through how it will make cuts to classified and non-classified staff and faculty. She said the district is working closely with teacher and staff labor unions to figure this out.
This line item accounts for $25 million of the $50 million in savings the school board voted to make.
Chapman said the board made the right decisions, alleviating the need for even more staffing cuts.
"Because our board was able to take action in non-personnel, our K-8 lottery and admin cuts, they were actually able to save jobs for classroom teachers, classified staff, custodians, bus drivers," Chapman said. "Because if they would not have taken action in all of those other areas, then all of the cuts would have come from staffing."
Chapman said she hopes attrition will help, by cutting open positions and some teachers retiring.
Chapman also wants the district to be more proactive. She proposed creating a long term strategy for items like building closures and renovations to plan for the future.
This idea echoes one led by the three winning candidates in this year's election for three open seats on the Columbus Board of Education: Patrick Katzenmeyer, Jermaine Kennedy and Antoinette Miranda, who all will take office in January.
Last week, the board punted a decision on cutting high school busing, opting to create a work group to study the issue further.
Chapman said the work group will begin in January. She said she hopes this will give the board more reassurance about where the district goes from here and what any additional options are that CCS can explore together to save money on transportation.
Chapman said one topic the work group will explore is how to better partner with the Central Ohio Transit Authority. CCS already partners with COTA on a limited basis.
CCS is one of the only urban school districts in Ohio that still buses high school students. One way other districts handle transportation is partnering with area public transit systems.
The district has been continually sued and penalized by the state for failing to transport private and charter school students under state law.
