Strickland's school funding phase-in contradicts calls for urgency

William Hershey at the Dayton Daily News writes:

The plan has been met with some criticism. Phasing in changes to school funding to make the system constitutional seems to conflict with the urgency Strickland attached to the issue in a 2003 friend of the court brief. Strickland unsuccessfully tried to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved in the Ohio school funding case.

"Budgetary concerns aside, the state cannot continue to operate under laws that are unconstitutional simply because the public coffers are not overflowing," then U.S. Rep. Strickland wrote.

Ohio Republican Chairman Kevin DeWine said the school funding changes Strickland has proposed aren't that dramatic anyway. Strickland's proposed "conversion levy" would let people vote to allow some of their property taxes to increase with inflation, something they already can do, DeWine said.

"I don't think next year or eight years from now that the average voter will think something has changed when it comes to school funding, based on the limited information we have," DeWine said.

(Source: Dayton Daily News, 02/01/09)