BY MICHAEL HAWTHORNE
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS -- A consultant hired by the state to determine the average cost of educating a child says Gov. George Voinovich and lawmakers will have to explain why they tinkered with his methods and lowered his estimate.
John Augenblick, a Denver-based school funding expert, is listed as a state witness for two weeks of hearings this summer to determine if lawmakers complied with an Ohio Supreme Court decision ordering them to overhaul the way public schools are financed. Mr. Augenblick, who helped Kentucky adopt landmark education reforms, said Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery's office has asked him not to talk about his objections before the hearings begin Aug. 24 before Perry County Common Pleas Judge Linton D. Lewis Jr.
However, he made it clear he plans to defend his recommendations in court.
"What the legislature did is different than the recommendations I made," Mr. Augenblick said in an interview. "Whether or not those differences undermine the entire process is a question for the court to decide."
At issue are changes lawmakers made to a formula Mr. Augenblick crafted to determine how much money the state should spend to adequately educate a child.
He tied his recommendations to 18 academic standards met by 102 of the state's 611 school districts. The plan assumed all school districts can perform at the same level by spending the same amount of money.
While legislative leaders have repeatedly cited Mr. Augenblick's work when defending their response to the school-funding decision, the General Assembly's plan differs in several ways.
For instance, Mr. Augenblick recommended a per-student guarantee of $4,269 for the year beginning July 1. But the education budget adopted by lawmakers sets the amount at $3,851, with inflationary increases bumping it to $4,414 in four years.
When lawmakers started tinkering with the plan, Mr. Augenblick sent a letter to John Goff, Ohio's superintendent of public instruction, vowing to defend his proposal in court.
"I remain convinced that the methodology I used, including each of the specific decisions I made, is the appropriate one," he wrote. "To attempt to modify it, especially for the purpose of simply creating a higher or lower number, would be inconsistent with the original overall approach."
Lawmakers have said using Mr. Augenblick's figures would have made the plan more expensive and almost certainly would have required a tax increase to fund it.
As it turned out, lawmakers put a penny-on-the-dollar sales tax on the May 5 ballot to finance their plan, but voters rejected it by a 4-1 margin.
Legislative leaders have said the state has enough money to fund the new school-funding formula for at least the next year. However, they have warned that $500 million in budget cuts may be required to pay for changes in future years.
Despite the differences between the two plans, Senate President Richard Finan, R-Evendale, said he is confident Mr. Augenblick will bolster the state's legal arguments.
"He did say to us that phasing in his number was not inappropriate," said Mr. Finan, who selected his top lieutenant, Sen. Robert Cupp, R-Lima, to testify before Judge Lewis. "You don't put somebody on the stand if he isn't going to be a friendly witness."
House Speaker Jo Ann Davidson, a Reynoldsburg Republican who also will testify, refused to comment on the possibility that Mr. Augenblick could undermine the state's case.
"I'm not jumping up and down to be a witness," she said. "But I want to do what I can to support what the state has done to respond to the court decision."
When the Ohio Supreme Court declared the state's school funding system inadequate and unconstitutional on March 24, 1997, the 4-3 decision criticized the state for its lack of a "rational basis" to determine how much it costs to educate a child.
Judge Lewis, who first declared the school-funding system unconstitutional in 1994, has been charged by the Supreme Court with determining if the state's response is the "complete, systematic overhaul" mandated by the high court's decision.
His decision likely will be appealed by either the state or the Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, which represents the 500-plus school districts that successfully challenged the funding system.
William Phillis, the coalition's executive director, welcomed the state's decision to call Mr. Augenblick as a witness.
"These hearings are going to show this is all a big game that has nothing to do with solving the problem," Mr. Phillis said. "If Augenblick comes up with some rationale to defend something other than his own numbers," Mr. Phillis said, "we'll just yank out that letter he sent to John Goff and show that rationale is completely meaningless."
