The Ohio House majority caucus was to unveil their version of Governor Strickland’s education plan today, however, they announced this morning that it will be rescheduled for some time tomorrow. The Caucus wants to spend sufficient time reviewing it for accuracy before presenting it.

It is anticipated the plan will address funding disparities in the original proposal by limiting funding increases for individual school districts to 1.9% a year. Strickland’s current proposal capped increases to 15% in FY 10 and 16% in FY 11.  In addition, the House version is expected to phase-in over six years the governor’s proposed reduction in school districts’ required local share of school funding from 23 to 20 mills. 

The House was expected to introduce their changes to the Governor’s budget proposal (HB 1) this week, but has delayed the introduction of the sub bill until next week.  In the meantime, the Senate Education Committee, and the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee have already begun hearings on the budget due to the continuous delays of the budget process in the House.  The Senate wants to have enough time to hold budget deliberations in their Chamber.  There must also be sufficient time for a Conference Committee to work through differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget. By law the budget must be enacted by July 1, 2009.