Funding Regime
5 nodes · phase (ufo)
A named statewide method for distributing state aid to education agencies, holding for a bounded span of fiscal periods before being replaced. It is a Phase rather than a Kind because it is a stage the funding system passes through: the system remains the same system across the transition from the Evidence-Based Model to the Bridge formula to the Fair School Funding Plan, but it is in a materially different condition in each, and the condition change is intrinsic rather than relational.
Nodes
| Bridge Formula | The decade between two attempts at costing out an education. Enacted in 2011 as an explicit placeholder after the Evidence-Based Model was repealed, it distributed aid by reference to what each district had received before, inside caps and guarantees. |
|---|---|
| Equal Yield Formula | The regime in force when H.B. 920 was enacted and when the funding system was first challenged in court. Its logic was guaranteed yield: the state made up the difference between what a district's mills raised and a guaranteed per-pupil level. |
| Evidence-Based Model | Ohio's most direct attempt to answer DeRolph on its own terms, and the shortest-lived regime here. It specified the resources an adequate education requires, priced each, and summed them per district — then was repealed before its third year. |
| Fair School Funding Plan | The regime in force, enacted by H.B. 110 in 2021. Three departures from everything before it: base cost computed per district rather than declared statewide, local share measured as capacity rather than millage, and students funded where they are educated. |
| Foundation Base Cost Formula | The regime DeRolph was decided against. The state declared a base cost per pupil, multiplied it by enrollment, subtracted a charge-off for what the district was deemed able to raise locally, and paid the difference. |
Properties
What a funding regime may carry.
| Property | Type | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Name | string | The regime's common name, as used in legislative and department documents |
| In force from | string | First fiscal period in which the regime governed distribution |
| In force until | string | Last fiscal period, or "current" if still in effect |
| How it distributes money | text | How the regime decides what each agency receives, in two or three sentences |
| Status | string, one of current, superseded, partially-implemented, never-fully-funded | Whether the regime is in force, replaced, or enacted and never carried through in full |
| Where its boundary is drawn | text | Where this regime's boundary is contested or blurred — a successor that phased in over several years, or a period the department funded by freeze rather than by formula. Not required: a regime whose first and last years are not in dispute has nothing to note. |
Relationships
The edges this class may enter into. Out is declared by the node itself; in is declared by the node at the other end.
| Relationship | To | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Made up of out | Formula Component | A structural mechanism the regime is built from |
| Supersedes out | Funding Regime | The regime this one replaced |
| Assessed against out | Doctrine | A normative principle by which this regime has been judged |
| In force during out | Fiscal Period | A fiscal period in which this regime governed distribution |
| Established by in | Legislation | The enactment that created the regime |
| Challenged by in | Litigation | A case testing this regime against constitutional text |
| Baseline for in | Worked Scenario | A counterfactual computed against this regime as its baseline |