Chancellor John Carey discusses Ohio's proposed two-year budget

Ohio Department of Higher Education Chancellor and former state lawmaker John Carey was in Hillsboro Tuesday, Feb. 21, discussing the state's proposed biennium budget.

In a meeting with The Highland County Press, Carey said Gov. John Kasich's proposed two-year budget focuses on affordability in higher education. Carey also stressed that the current budget proposal has a long way to go before it passed the General Assembly and is signed by the governor.

In its current form, Carey said the budget has a two-year freeze on tuition increases at the state's colleges and universities.

"This budget is tighter, with less resources," Carey said. "But I've been through far worse when we had to cut higher education."

Carey quoted Thomas W. Johnson, former director of the Office of Budget and Management under Gov. Bob Taft, as saying "The budget process is often described the allocation of disappointment."

Carey also told The Highland County Press that Ohio is “one of the first states in the country to institute a 100-percent performance-based funding model,” with allocations being adjusted from “a subsidy for enrolled students to a subsidy for successful progress of students toward certificate attainment and course and degree completion.”

“The result has been transformational,” according to the Ohio Department of Higher Education. “Retention and graduation rates are increasing every year, and there is a greater emphasis on career advising utilizing OhioMeansJobs.com and face-to-face counseling."

Ohio’s public higher educational appropriations are also much higher than the national average, with Ohio seeing an increase of six percent from fiscal year 2010 to 2015 compared to a national decrease of 2.4 percent.

There have also been significant cost savings following Gov. Kasich’s executive order establishing the Ohio Task Force on Affordability and Efficiency in Higher Education and the Ohio Legislature’s challenge to two-year and four-year colleges and universities to reduce student costs by 5 percent. According to the Ohio Department of Higher Education, the “total estimated cost savings or avoidance reported for fiscal year 2016 alone is almost $250 million.”

According to Carey, more than 52,000 Ohio high school students were enrolled in College Credit Plus during the 2015-16 school year, which saved more than $110 million in tuition.

Community colleges are being utilized to “accelerate time to degree or certification” and to transfer to a four-year university at a reduced cost.

Carey was the Feb. 21 guest speaker of the Hillsboro Rotary Club, as the guest of Rotarian and Southern State Community College President Dr. Kevin Boys.

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• According to a Cleveland Plain Dealer report this month, the governor's proposed budget would cut funding to each of the five Highland County school districts over the next two school years, with Bright Local School District taking the largest cut with a 5-percent decrease in funding.

The Plain Dealer reports that the largest cut to Bright Local Schools would be from the current school year to next year, with a $269,836 (4.6-percent) decrease. From the 2017-18 school year to the 2018-19 school year, a 0.4-percent change, with a decrease of $22,880, is proposed, for a total two-year change of $292,706 in funding lost. 

"It's always disappointing when you lose funding," Bright Local Schools Superintendent Ted Downing said. "But I'm not in a panic mode yet. Until the final budget comes out, you don't know where it will be. As our property values go up, our state share goes down. That hurts, but that's the way it is."

While recent enrollment numbers are up at Bright Local, Downing said the proposed budget penalizes the district for lower enrollment going back six years from 2011-16. Downing encouraged residents of the district to let state lawmakers know how they feel about the proposed cuts.

By comparison, the second-largest cut in local school funding is 0.2-percent for Lynchburg-Clay Local Schools, with an estimated one-year loss of $17,588 from the current year to next school year.

Fairfield Local Schools are predicted to lose 0.1 percent of their funding, with the only loss coming from 2016-17 to 2017-18 in the amount of $4,505.

Hillsboro City Schools are also estimated to have a 0.1-percent total two-year change, with a loss of $12,755 from the 2016-17 to 2017-18 school years.

With the largest budget in the county estimated at $15,791,664 this year, the change to Greenfield Exempted Village Schools registers at 0 percent (rounded off), with a $6,974 cut from the current school year to next.

According to a Columbus Dispatch report, Gov. Kasich has noted declining school enrollment, which means 346 districts would lose money next fiscal year under his proposed budget.

"You hear the rhetoric that schools are the priority, but it doesn't show up in the state budget," Damon Asbury, director of legislative services for the Ohio School Boards Association, told the Dispatch.

The two-year budget must pass before July 1, when it takes effect.

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John Carey was appointed chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education by Gov. Kasich in April 2013. As chancellor, Carey oversees the state’s public two-year and four-year institutions and Ohio Technical Centers, and, with the advice of the nine-member Board of Regents, provides policy guidance to the governor and the Ohio General Assembly and carries out state higher education policy.

Prior to serving as chancellor, Carey spent time as an aide in Congress and a local official in his hometown of Wellston before serving 17 years in the Ohio Legislature. He is one of the few legislators in history to serve as chairman of both the House Finance and Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance and Financial Institutions Committee. Carey also served as assistant to the president for Government Relations and Strategic Initiatives for Shawnee State University in Portsmouth. He resides in Wellston with his wife, Lynley, a college professor, and their two sons, Justin and Jordan.