DeRolph v. State (DeRolph I, 1997)

The action was filed on 19 December 1991 in Perry County by the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, on behalf of Nathan DeRolph, then a student at Sheridan High School in Northern Local School District. verified Accounts differ on the scale of the plaintiff group — the coalition’s complaint is described as brought on behalf of some 550 districts, while other summaries name five districts as the suing parties; the distinction is between coalition membership and named plaintiffs and is not resolved here. open

The record behind it was substantial: trial ran from 25 October to 8 December 1993 before Judge Linton Lewis Jr., with more than 70 witnesses and over 500 exhibits. Judge Lewis ruled on 1 July 1994 that education is a fundamental right and the system unconstitutional; the Perry County Court of Appeals reversed on 30 August 1995; the Supreme Court accepted jurisdiction on 17 January 1996. verified

A clarification followed on 25 April 1997: local property taxes could supplement but not primarily fund schools, and school borrowing was permitted through 23 March 1998. verified

The first budget after the decision declined to itemize the second year, and said so # ↑ Contents

The remedy was the weak point, and it is why DeRolph produced four decisions rather than one. The court declared the system unconstitutional and directed the General Assembly to fix it, without specifying what a compliant system would contain or what would follow if none appeared. inference

What this repository computed # ↑ Contents

Not what Ohio publishes. Figures derived here from committed fixtures, each one citing the test that reproduces it.

The court identified specific defects rather than a general insufficiency, and the specificity is what made the decision usable. Among them: the base cost per pupil was not derived from any determination of what an education costs but by dividing available money by pupils — the practice this corpus records under adequacy as residual budgeting; districts were forced into borrowing to meet operating costs; school buildings were in conditions the court described at length; and reliance on local property tax produced disparities the state’s equalization did not correct. verified

The reliance finding, tested against the other forty-nine states # ↑ Contents

The court found that reliance on local property tax produced disparities the state’s equalization did not correct. Every source this corpus held until now describes Ohio alone, so the finding could be restated indefinitely and never checked — “too heavily” is a comparison, and there was nothing to compare against. The Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of School System Finances counts every school system in the country on one set of definitions.

In FY2022 Ohio raised 51.8% of school revenue locally against a national 43.35% — seventh highest of fifty-one — and took 34.4% from the state against a national 43.41%, forty-fifth of fifty-one. Only six states contribute a smaller share. verified crates/dispersion/src/census_states.rs, computed for the feed in crates/bundle

The two national figures were both written 43.4% until the cross-check refused them. They are not the same number — 43.35% local against 43.41% state — and at one decimal place they are indistinguishable, which made a real and interesting fact about the country read as an identity: nationally, the state and local shares are within six hundredths of a point of each other, and Ohio’s differ by seventeen points. That is the comparison, stated at the precision that carries it.

What makes this a finding about structure rather than about money is the two figures that are not unusual. Ohio’s current spending per pupil is $14,923 against a national $15,801 — twenty-fourth of fifty-one — and its federal share is within a point of the national figure. verified crates/dispersion/src/census_states.rs Ohio spends roughly what the country spends on schools, which is unremarkable. The distinctive thing is who pays, which is the distinction the court drew in 1997 and the one the clarification a month later sharpened into “supplement but not primarily fund”. inference

The survey year understates this rather than overstating it. FY2022 is the peak of federal pandemic relief, so the federal share is inflated and the state and local shares are both deflated; in an ordinary year Ohio’s local share would be higher. verified

Across years, the position moved — and it moved the wrong way # ↑ Contents

FY2012  local 49.17%  state 41.88%  federal  8.95%
FY2013  local 52.83%  state 41.92%  federal  5.25%
FY2015  local 50.19%  state 42.94%  federal  6.87%
FY2016  local 52.84%  state 40.05%  federal  7.11%
FY2017  local 53.40%  state 39.77%  federal  6.83%
FY2018  local 54.05%  state 39.62%  federal  6.33%
FY2019  local 54.46%  state 38.89%  federal  6.65%
FY2020  local 55.36%  state 38.04%  federal  6.60%
FY2021  local 54.04%  state 37.06%  federal  8.90%
FY2022  local 51.73%  state 34.25%  federal 14.02%

The state share falls in nine years out of ten, from 41.9% to 34.3%. Read between the two federally ordinary years, FY2013 and FY2019, it falls three points while the local share rises 1.6. Read endpoint to endpoint it falls 7.6, though both endpoints are distorted — FY2012 still carries the ARRA tail and FY2022 is the ESSER peak, and a large federal share deflates the two domestic ones arithmetically. Either reading gives the same direction. verified

Ohio’s answer to DeRolph was to reduce the state’s share of school revenue. That is not a claim about intent, and no single act did it; it is what the arithmetic of a formula phased in against a local base growing faster produces. But the specific thing the court found unconstitutional in 1997 — reliance on local property tax — is measurably greater now than when the case ended. inference

What this still does not establish. That the reliance causes the disparities, which is a separate claim the court supported on a trial record this corpus does not hold. open And the series starts in FY2012, ten years after DeRolph IV and fifteen after this decision, so it describes the aftermath rather than the remedy period itself. Whether the position also worsened between 1997 and 2012 is not answerable from this archive: NCES publishes no F-33 before FY2012 under any naming its later years use. open

The compliance deadline was 24 March 1998. Am. Sub. H.B. 215, the FY1998-99 main operating budget, was enacted on 30 June 1997 — three months after the decision — and its Department of Education table itemizes FY1998 across fifty-three General Revenue Fund lines and FY1999 across one. Fifty-one of the fifty-three carry $0 for FY1999; the whole year, $4,470,135,592, sits in a single line, 200-405 Primary and Secondary Education Funding. The act states the reason in its own text: verified the enrolled act, reconciled to its own printed totals

By January 15, 1998, the General Assembly shall develop a plan to provide itemized appropriations for the Department of Education for fiscal year 1999.

In anticipation of a new, improved school finance formula and education reform plan, to be enacted before fiscal year 1999, the foregoing appropriation item, 200-405, Primary and Secondary Education Funding is hereby appropriated.

Payment of fiscal year 1999 earmarks in the Department of Education’s budget are subject to the passage of a new school finance formula and education reform plan.

So the legislature appropriated the money and suspended the structure it is normally paid through, for the year the court’s deadline fell in. The promise was kept — Am. Sub. H.B. 650 itemized FY1999 on 13 February 1998 — and the evidence that it was is that 200-405 never appears in what was spent: the FY1999 actuals carry 141 line items and none of them is that one, while 200-501, appropriated nothing, spent $3,035,363,396. verified

What this does not settle is whether the deferral was a remedy, a holding action, or a bargaining position. The appropriation table records that it happened and not why. open

1991-12-19  Filed in Perry County by the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy
1993-10-25  Trial opens before Judge Linton Lewis Jr.; 70+ witnesses, 500+ exhibits
1993-12-08  Trial concludes
1994-07-01  Trial court holds education a fundamental right; system unconstitutional
1995-08-30  Perry County Court of Appeals reverses in a split decision
1996-01-17  Supreme Court of Ohio accepts jurisdiction
1997-03-24  DeRolph I