'There was a mistake': Ohio overpays public schools, voucher program by millions

The state of Ohio accidentally overpaid schools $30 million due to a funding formula error. The state's largest education union is looking at the pros and cons of what some may call a "happy accident."

Ohio finally has a constitutional funding formula for the state’s public education system after nearly 30 years , but many schools are still struggling.

"There's still a lot more work to be done on that," Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro said.

Every dollar counts when it comes to schools, he added.

But a funding formula error has led to what could be considered good news for hundreds of schools.

The state overpaid K-12 school districts, charters, and private school voucher programs about $30 million this year.

"That could be salaries for staff to address class size issues; it could be extra resource officers; it could be some additional counselors or nurses; it could be assistance in terms of maintenance," DiMauro added.

I obtained the financial records — and districts like Cleveland schools got around $700,000, Akron with $400,000, Parma with $175,000 and Canton with $145,000. I reached out to each, but no one was available to talk.

Here are the top 10 public schools:

In total, the Department of Education and Workforce overpaid public schools by $21 million, charters by $2 million, career centers by $1.2 million and county boards of development disabilities by $135,000. The remaining amount, which is between $4-6 million, went to the EdChoice voucher program.

Luckily for the schools, the money doesn't have any visible strings attached.

"We're not going to go and claw all that money back," Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said.

Huffman acknowledged the fluke came from faulty data.

"There was a mistake in the calculation of the school funding formula," he added.

I reached out to DEW to get clarity on this this happened. Spokesperson Lacey Snoke told me that the calculation system is based on the average amount of money a student needs per district. However, some schools failed to report certain spending, which ended up inflating the per-student amount.

"Fourteen school districts did not report expenditures related to athletic co-curricular activities, so the approximately 11,000 students who attended those schools were excluded from the calculation of the per-pupil amount," she wrote.

Including those students would have reduced the per-pupil amount used to calculate the formula by $1.40. This occurred in three of the per-pupil amounts used in the base cost calculation.

Not every school benefited from the miscalculation. Eighty of the 610 public schools ended up owing the state money.

Here are the top ten public schools that owed the state money:

"I like to fix problems as soon as you can — what we would simply do is, say starting with the next biennium, that the foundation formula is based — not on what we paid, but what we intended to pay," Huffman explained.

DiMauro is concerned that Huffman’s fix, whether it is just a quick technical one or something larger, may actually harm the funding formula. This is where the invisible strings may be.

It has taken the educator years to help get a constitutional funding formula into place — with holdouts from Republican lawmakers like Huffman. Now that it is finally here, he worries that this will be a way to change the system.

"I would hate to see any harm caused to districts," DiMauro said.

That change should be coming before the end of June.

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