By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS - A committee trying to change the way Ohio funds schools is getting a familiar warning from suburban Republican lawmakers opposed to any hint of pooling tax money to pay for education.

The lawmakers have formed a group aimed at preventing the so-called "Robin Hood" approach, or sending local business taxes to the state for redistribution.

"Using locally voted tax revenues to support other school systems is un-American and will not solve the problems at hand," said Rep. Tim Grendell, a member of the group, dubbed Legislators Advocating Sensible Education Reform.

Fear of the Robin Hood approach is a familiar concept in Ohio politics.

A 1995 proposal by then Gov. George Voinovich to increase funding for the poorest school districts and reduce funding for the wealthiest drew an immediate rebuke from wealthy districts.

In 1997, the Ohio Supreme Court gave lawmakers a year to find a new method of financing schools after the court declared the funding system unconstitutional.

Although justices did not say how it could be done, a majority rejected the Robin Hood approach of taking from the rich and giving to the poor.

In February, the hint that the school-funding committee's recommendations might include such an approach was quickly criticized by the same Republican lawmakers forming their new group.

The most recent effort by lawmakers is consistent with the goals of suburban legislators representing wealthy districts, said Tom Sutton, a Baldwin-Wallace political scientist who studies school-funding in Ohio.

"They're trying to keep funding reform at the local level," he said.

Gov. Bob Taft, a Republican, called for the creation of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Financing Student Success in January 2003.

It's expected to make recommendations by the end of the year.

It comes after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled three times that the state's education system was unconstitutional because the local reliance on property taxes creates disparities between rich and poor districts.

What may emerge is an approach that would allow districts to raise a little more money from levies, which now do not rise with the value of the property they tax.

The lawmakers' group should wait to see what the committee's proposals will look like, said Paul Marshall, the committee's executive director and a former Department of Education budget expert.