Ohio's share of public school funding is projected to fall to roughly 32% of the formula's calculated base cost in fiscal year 2027, the lowest level in more than two decades, according to NBC4 reporting on data from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. For Olentangy Local Schools, where 67% of revenue already comes from local property taxes, the decline accelerates the district's path toward an operating levy expected in 2028.

The statewide average state share stood at about 43% just two years ago in fiscal year 2024. It dropped to roughly 35% last fiscal year. It had never fallen below 40% in data going back to fiscal year 1999 until the current three-year stretch.

The figure measures how the state's funding formula divides its calculated base cost between state aid and what districts are expected to raise locally. It does not represent the state's share of all public education spending.

The decline is structural. The Fair School Funding Plan uses salaries, benefits and operating costs to calculate what it should cost to educate a student, but those inputs remain frozen at fiscal year 2022 levels. Meanwhile, property values and income figures used to determine how much districts can raise locally keep getting updated, said Howard Fleeter, a research consultant with the Ohio Education Policy Institute.

"If the cost stays the same, the local share of that goes up, the state share of the cost will go down," Fleeter told NBC4. "That's what's driving us from 43.3% in 2024 to 38.4%, and then to 35, and then to 32.2."

That formula math hits Olentangy especially hard. Delaware County property values have risen sharply, which the formula reads as greater local ability to pay. The district's five-year forecast, reported by 1808Delaware on Aug. 12, projects operating reserves will be exhausted by the end of the 2028-29 school year. Officials anticipate a levy during calendar year 2028 to maintain current services. If that timetable holds, the district will have stretched its May 2020 operating levy for eight years.

Olentangy educates more than 24,000 students daily, making it Ohio's fourth-largest public district. Of its projected $396.6 million in revenue this fiscal year, approximately $264.5 million comes from local property taxes. Personnel costs account for about $346.6 million, or 80% of projected spending.

Former state Rep. John Patterson, who co-developed the Fair School Funding Plan starting in 2017 with former House Speaker Bob Cupp, told NBC4 the phase-in assumed lawmakers would keep updating cost inputs as expenses changed. That requirement was never written into law.

Patterson and Fleeter said other formula elements also remain unfinished, including funding for students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students, English learners and transportation.

In written testimony before the Ohio Senate Education Committee on May 14, 2025, Superintendent Todd Meyer and Treasurer Ryan Jenkins warned that a proposed reserve-cap provision in the biennium budget bill would force the district back to voters far more rapidly, potentially every year. They said HB 96 would provide Olentangy about $18.7 million in additional funding over the biennium compared to the executive budget, including a growth supplement of $100 per student in 2025-26 and potentially $200 per student the following year.

Updating the formula's base-cost inputs before the next biennial budget would require additional legislative action and more state funding. Otherwise, the next opportunity comes when lawmakers write the next two-year state budget.

The Olentangy Board of Education meets next at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 27 at the district's administrative offices.