Columbus City Schools announced it will consider cutting nearly 300 positions as it tries to address another $50 million budget shortfall.
The district announced the proposed cuts in a press release Tuesday afternoon just three hours before a scheduled meeting for the Columbus City Schools' Board of Education. The board is expected to consider the cuts as well as vote on an updated contract with the Columbus Education Association.
The cuts include a total of 299 positions, most of which are open positions. The district said attrition, retirements and what it calls "other building staff changes" will mean less people will be impacted.
The district said it will be focusing those cuts on building substitutes and attendance program specialists.
The district estimates the cuts will save nearly $26 million.
“We are investing more than $1 billion next school year in high-quality educational programming for our students, but a $50 million spending reduction is still going to be felt by our team,” CCS Superintendent Angela Chapman said in a statement. “I’m committed to putting students first with this plan, minimizing the impact on our work with students in classrooms, but without significant change to Ohio’s public education funding, this situation will worsen in coming years for every district in Ohio.”
CCS leaders have blamed its budget situation on inadequate state funding by the Ohio General Assembly and Gov. Mike DeWine.
Columbus isn't alone in this predicament. Cincinnati Public Schools' administration is also considering cutting more than 100 positions to address its own budget woes.
To date, CCS has closed multiple school buildings, cut dozens of administrative staff and cut back on busing for K-8 students who use the school lottery system to go outside of their neighborhood school or to a non-100% lottery school.
The press release said that over the past five months, CCS began cutting non-personnel contracts, services, travel and training by $8.9 million for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. Chapman also eliminated 62 administrative level positions, saving $7.2 million.
Nearly all of the positions — 111 in total — impacted by these proposed cuts will be from what the district calls "certificated staff." These are typically teachers.
The district said only one individual will be impacted from proposed cuts among "classified staff" — such as custodians and bus drivers — because of attrition, retirements and other staff changes.
Chapman and other school officials plan to speak ahead of Tuesday's board meeting.
