Cutting public school funding since 1976.

HB 920 created Ohio's "tax reduction factor": when property values rise during a triennial reappraisal, voted operating millage is automatically rolled back so that the dollar revenue from that levy stays approximately flat. The mechanism stops applying once a district falls to the 20-mill floor — at which point inflation revenue is captured.

The practical effect: roughly 420 of Ohio's 611 school districts are at the 20-mill floor and capture inflation; the remaining suburban districts above the floor capture essentially zero inflation revenue from voted operating millage. Sycamore Community Schools sits well above the floor, which means the 6.5-mill operating levy voters approved in 2016 generates almost the same dollar revenue today as it did when first collected.

This statute is the single biggest reason Sycamore — and other suburban districts that voters have reliably supported — face structural revenue compression that property-poor districts at the floor do not. It is also the reason a district must return to voters for new operating millage every several years simply to keep pace with cost-of-living inflation.

For decades, Ohio collected a Tangible Personal Property tax on business equipment and inventory, and distributed the revenue to local school districts as part of their operating funding. In 2005, HB 66 phased out the TPP tax and committed the state to reimburse districts for the loss. Subsequent biennial budgets — from 2009 onward — phased out the reimbursement payments themselves.

By 2015, the reimbursements had ended entirely. Sycamore's specific permanent revenue loss was approximately $9 million per year — about 12% of the district's then-budget. The 6.5-mill 2016 operating levy was passed almost entirely to fill that hole.

HB 33 removed the income-eligibility cap from Ohio's EdChoice Expansion voucher program. Beginning in school year 2023–24, any Ohio student became eligible for full or prorated voucher amounts — $6,166 K–8 and $8,408 high school at full scholarship, with prorated amounts for higher-income families.

The expansion's effect on enrollment was immediate and large. EdChoice Expansion recipients went from 23,272 in 2022–23 to 82,946 in 2023–24 to roughly 100,941 in 2024–25. Statewide voucher spending across all five Ohio voucher programs went from roughly $354 million in FY22–23 to over $1.095 billion in FY25 — a tripling in two years.

Critical detail: in 2023–24, Ohio issued roughly 70,000 new EdChoice Expansion vouchers, but private-school enrollment grew by fewer than 3,000 students. Policy Matters Ohio's analysis estimates roughly 65,000 of those new vouchers went to families already in private school. The share of voucher recipients from low-income families dropped from 67% to 17% in a single year. The program is now overwhelmingly a state subsidy to wealthier families who had already opted out of public education.

The Fair School Funding Plan was Ohio's most ambitious school-funding overhaul in a generation — designed by a bipartisan committee in 2021 in response to DeRolph and intended to phase in over six years on up-to-date base-cost inputs that adjusted for actual educational costs. It was, in effect, the legislature's first serious attempt at constitutional compliance with DeRolph.

HB 96 abandoned the phase-in. Base-cost inputs were frozen at outdated 2022 figures — figures that predate the post-pandemic inflation surge that has hit every school cost line. Most districts were placed on a guarantee at FY21 nominal levels, meaning state foundation aid is essentially flat in nominal dollars and shrinking in real terms.

Policy Matters Ohio's post-enactment estimate: Ohio public schools will receive $2.86 billion less over the FY26–27 biennium than the FSFP would have provided. The same bill simultaneously increased voucher spending by 20%.

In December 2025, six months after signing HB 96, Gov. DeWine signed a five-bill property-tax package designed to address taxpayer complaints about rising property-tax bills. The package was framed publicly as "property tax relief." Its actual effect on school operating revenue was a multi-hundred-million-dollar cut.

HB 335 ("Property Tax Relief NOW Act," sponsored by Reps. Dave Thomas, R-Jefferson, and Bill Roemer, R-Richfield) caps inside-millage growth at the three-year inflation rate. As enacted, the bill cuts school revenue an estimated $621M–$763M over three years per Legislative Service Commission analysis. State backfill: $306M year one, $105M year two — partial and temporary.

HB 309 empowers county budget commissions to reduce school levies when a district's unencumbered fund balance is judged "excessive" relative to projected expenses — a provision that targets the exact reserve-building behavior Sycamore practiced for fifteen years to avoid coming back to the ballot. HB 186 caps revenue growth at inflation for districts at the 20-mill floor (the roughly 400 districts where most operating revenue actually comes from local sources). HB 124 and HB 129 add additional restrictions to the levy and tax-rate framework.

The Ohio School Boards Association called HB 335 a bill that "jeopardizes educational opportunities for Ohio's 1.7 million public school students."

HB 66 phased out two of Ohio's primary business taxes: the Corporate Franchise Tax (which had funded the General Revenue Fund) and the Tangible Personal Property tax (which had funded local school districts directly). It replaced both with a smaller Commercial Activity Tax. The Ohio Office of Budget and Management estimated the change cost the state $3.26 billion in FY10 revenue, vs. only $1.3 billion replaced by the new CAT — a net loss of roughly $2 billion per year.

The TPP-side impact on schools is documented in §02 above. The corporate-franchise-side impact landed on the General Revenue Fund — i.e., the same fund the lottery is technically supplementing.

The CAT exclusion threshold — the gross-receipts amount below which a business owes no Commercial Activity Tax — was raised from $1 million to $3 million effective January 2024, and from $3 million to $6 million effective 2025, both enacted in HB 33. The change exempts tens of thousands of additional Ohio businesses from the CAT entirely.

The CAT was originally created in 2005 specifically to replace some of the revenue lost from the corporate franchise tax phase-out. Raising the exclusion threshold sixfold within a single biennial budget undoes a substantial portion of that replacement — re-eroding the GRF that the 2005 CAT was supposed to backstop.

Ohio offers data-center operators full or partial exemption from state sales tax on equipment purchases — a giveaway intended to attract Intel, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta facilities. Per Signal Ohio's analysis of Ohio Department of Development data, data-center operators have claimed approximately $2.5 billion in state and local tax incentives between 2017 and 2024 (sales-tax exemption combined with JobsOhio credits and local property abatements).

The pipeline of announced Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta data-center projects in Ohio represents billions of additional dollars in exemptions in coming years if all qualify. Amazon's December 2024 commitment to invest $10 billion more in Ohio data centers compounds the trajectory. None of that revenue feeds the General Revenue Fund.