COLUMBUS - Efforts to place a new school-funding plan before voters appeared dead early today, after the Senate rejected a new plan backed by House conservatives.
Senate President Richard Finan, R-Evendale, conceded the General Assembly will likely miss a Wednesday deadline for placing a new financing plan before voters on the November ballot.
Frustrated by the inability of lawmakers to craft a compromise, he also said he would decline to name Senate negotiators to a House-Senate committee that is supposed to resolve differences between the two chambers' plans.
"I don't see where we can compromise," he said. "It's an exercise in futility."
His comments came after the Senate voted 29-0 to kill a school-funding plan backed by House conservatives. The alternative squeaked through the House at 11:27 p.m. on a 60-36 party-line vote.
The impasse set the stage for another day of tense negotiations as lawmakers seek to address an Ohio Supreme Court decision that declared the present school funding system unconstitutional.
By refusing to grant their support, minority Democrats won more time to debate the issue. They noted the Supreme Court gave lawmakers until March 24 to craft a new school-funding system.
Even though Republicans control both the House and Senate, Mr. Finan said the governor's plan can't be revived unless House Democrats agree to support it.
Democratic leaders defended their party's opposition to Mr. Voinovich's plan. "It's not up to the minority party to give 60 percent of their votes for anything," said House Minority Leader Ross Boggs, D-Andover. "You're the majority party. You set the rules. You have the votes."
The GOP holds 60 of 99 House seats - enough to provide the three-fifths majority required to place constitutional questions before voters. But conservatives refuse to back the governor's plan.
The alternative approved by House Republicans would:
- Not increase the sales tax or property tax relief for homeowners.
- Fund public schools by earmarking a set percentage of the state's general fund budget for primary and secondary education.
- Enable the state to sell at least $300 million annually in bonds for school building construction and repairs. The Ohio Constitution currently doesn't authorize the bonds.
- Require the general assembly to create a committee that would determine the cost of adequately educating Ohio's school children. The state just paid for a similar study by a national consultant who helped Kentucky reform its school system.
House Speaker, Jo Ann Davidson, R-Reynoldsburg, conceded the alternative does nothing to address the Supreme Court's edict to substantially reduce the state's reliance on local property taxes to fund schools.
Rep. Mike Fox, R-Fairfield Township, said a key provision of the GOP alternative - earmarking a set percentage of the state budget for education - was drafted to leave lawmakers with flexibility to get around the requirement.
"The Democrats are right about that part being make-believe," Mr. Fox said.
Mr. Finan said House conservatives are ignoring a provision that would boost property-tax relief for homeowners to 20 percent from the current 12.5 percent. "In Indian Hill, that's worth an awful lot more money than it is in Lincoln Heights," he said.
Critics complain that the debate has increasingly focused on the political concerns for individual legislators, rather than what school reform would mean for Ohio's 1.8 million school children.
Sunday story
VOINOVICH TAX-HIKE PLAN DEAD August 3, 1997
