The corpus › Formula Parameter

Local Capacity Percentage

The rate the plan charges against a district's blended wealth — 2.5% at the top, the district's own income ratio times 2.25% at the bottom, interpolating between. Its top is pinned to a rank rather than a value: the fortieth-highest district in the state.

parameter/local-capacity-percentage · 4 nodes point here · 1 correction

A district’s per-pupil local capacity amount is its blended wealth times this percentage. The blend is fixed — 60% valuation per pupil, 20% federal adjusted gross income per pupil, 20% adjusted median income per pupil — and the percentage is a sliding scale with three branches. verified R.C. 3317.017(A)(4) and (A)(5)

Ranked by the ratio of a district’s federal median income to the statewide median:

So a district at the state median income pays 2.25% of its blended wealth, one at half the median pays about 1.125%, and everything from the fortieth district upward pays 2.5%. The measure is progressive in its rate as well as in its base. verified

The top of the scale is a rank, not a value. R.C. 3317.017(A)(4)(c) and (d) direct the department to order all districts by that income ratio and take the fortieth highest. Nothing in the section says what ratio that is, and the value therefore moves when the distribution of district incomes moves, with no act and no departmental decision. verified

Why the fortieth and not some other rank is not stated in the section, and the budget analyses do not supply it either: of the twelve committed LSC greenbooks and both editions of H.B. 96’s, one mentions the benchmark at all, and its account of this percentage carries no reason of any kind. verified crates/project

A rank is the house convention rather than this plan’s invention — equity aid equalized to the 48th percentile district, parity aid to the 490th lowest-wealth, targeted assistance to the same 490th twelve years on — and LSC argued for parity aid’s threshold in as many words while saying nothing for this one. What is new here is the direction: earlier ranks counted from the bottom and named who qualified, and this one counts from the top and names who is capped. The 490th of 612 is LSC’s own 80th percentile; the fortieth of 609 is the 93rd. See FSFP Local Capacity Measure for the lineage in full. inference

What this repository computed Contents

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

Three of the four kinds, in one parameter Contents

0.025, 0.0225 and 0.0025 are legislated: they are digits in the section and only an act moves them. The fortieth-highest ratio the top branch is pinned to is measured — a statistic of the income distribution, recomputed each year from certified tax data, that nobody sets. And the section itself applies only to FY2026 and FY2027, so the whole schedule’s durability is a budget act’s.

That combination is what makes this parameter worth separating from the component that uses it. A reader told “the rate is 2.5%” has a legislated constant in mind; the rate that actually binds at the top is defined by where the fortieth district happens to fall. verified

The measured one has a value, and it was in the extract all along Contents

1.46503636 in FY2027 — Westlake City. This node recorded the benchmark’s value as unheld, on the ground that the section defines a rank and “the department’s certified income data under R.C. 3317.021 is what would settle it”. Neither half was needed. The FY2027 model carries every district’s federal median income, so the ranking R.C. 3317.017(A)(4)(c) prescribes can simply be performed: the fortieth highest ratio is Westlake City’s, and it reproduces the department’s own [C5] to the eight places the fixture stores. The denominator those ratios are taken against is derivable the same way — the median of the 609 district medians, $54,546.6375, which is the department’s [I7] exactly. verified crates/local-capacity, held to the department’s figures in crates/xcheck/tests/against_the_departments_own_capacity.rs

The rank is a strict one. The districts on either side of the fortieth sit at 1.47060496 and 1.46495024, so the benchmark is one district’s ratio rather than a plateau several would give — which is what makes it move when a handful of districts near that rank change position, and is the sensitivity this node describes further up. verified

R.C. 3317.021 turned out to answer a different question than the one it was named for here. It is the Tax Commissioner’s certification duty, and what it settles is that the median federal income this ranking runs on was not certified at all until H.B. 96 amended it — see FSFP Local Capacity Measure. A rank computed over an uncertified column is the same rank; it is the authority for the column that was missing. verified

And it stops mattering for 138 districts Contents

The minimum state share floors the state share at 10%, which means that for districts whose capacity exceeds 90% of base cost none of the three branches determines anything. That is 138 of 609 in the FY2027 model, and they are the districts at the top of the distribution — exactly the ones the 2.5% cap was written for. verified crates/project

Properties Contents

NamePer-pupil local capacity percentage
Unitpercent
KindLegislated in its constants, measured in its benchmark, and expiring with the section.

The three rates are written out. The point at which the top rate begins is not: it is the fortieth-highest district's income ratio, which is a fact about the distribution rather than a value anyone chose. A parameter whose ceiling is a rank has a value that changes when districts change, with nothing to amend and nobody to decide.

R.C. 3317.017 opens "This section shall apply only for fiscal years 2026 and 2027", so the schedule lapses with the biennium unless the next budget act re-enacts it.
Values over time
Rate schedule, FY2026 and FY2027, from R.C. 3317.017(A)(4)(d):
  0.025    at or above the fortieth-highest income ratio        (i)
  0.0225   plus [(ratio − 1) × 0.0025] / (fortieth ratio − 1)   (ii), for 1.0 < ratio < the
           fortieth-highest                                          fortieth-highest
  0.0225   times the district's own ratio                       (iii), for ratio ≤ 1.0
Blend weights, from (A)(5):
  0.60  valuation per pupil
  0.20  local share federal adjusted gross income per pupil
  0.20  adjusted local share federal adjusted gross income per pupil
Both wealth terms are taken as the lesser of the most recent year and a three-year average, which is a deliberate protection: a district whose valuation spikes on a single reappraisal is not immediately charged for it. verified

The section states no value for FY2028 or later, because it does not apply then. verified
Statutory basisR.C. 3317.017, read — (A)(1) to (A)(3) for the three wealth terms, (A)(4) for the percentage, (A)(5) for the blend. The section is the plan's replacement for the charge-off and it carries the minimum state share as well, in (B)(1) and (C). verified ohio-laws
Simulation keyNot bound. crates/regime-diff substitutes the whole local share to compare the plan against the charge-off, and Policy exposes no lever that moves the rate or the blend, so a counterfactual on the 60/20/20 split or the 2.5% cap cannot currently be run.
Written in formulas as
  • local capacity percentage
  • local capacity per pupil
SensitivityMoves the local share of every district that is not on the minimum state share, and moves it proportionally — so it is the most direct lever on the state-local split that exists, and the one no scenario can pull.

Splitting the income term is what makes the blend more than a rename of the charge-off. Property alone treats a district with expensive housing and modest household earnings as wealthy; an aggregate income measure rises with population and with concentration at the top; a median measure does not. The 60/20/20 weights decide how much of each of those errors the measure carries. inference

The benchmark's sensitivity is different in kind from the rates'. Nothing has to be enacted for the top of the scale to move — it moves when the fortieth district's income ratio moves, which is to say when a handful of districts near that rank change position. inference

What this node does not hold Contents

why the fortieth rank — Not in the section, and not in the fourteen budget analyses either — that route has been run and is recorded in `crates/project/tests/the_threshold_that_was_always_a_rank.rs`. It is also the wrong route: H.B. 1 of the 134th already writes the fortieth, so the budget never chose it and a document that explains what a budget changed was never going to say. The Fair School Funding Plan workgroup's own documentation, upstream of that bill, is where a reason would be.

What this node used to say Contents

The corpus is not rewritten to have always been right. Each entry is a claim this node carried, what replaced it, and the thing that settled it.

Correction 1 of 1

It said

The fortieth-highest income ratio was recorded as a field this corpus could not fill: “the section defines the benchmark as a rank and the department computes the value. It is not in the committed FY2027 calculator extract; the department’s certified income data under R.C. 3317.021 is what would settle it.”

It says

1.46503636 — Westlake City. The extract carries every district’s federal median income, so the ranking the section prescribes can be performed on it, and the result reproduces the department’s [C5] exactly.

Settled by

crates/local-capacity::benchmark_ratio, checked against the published figure in crates/xcheck/tests/against_the_departments_own_capacity.rs.

What else it touched

A rank was recorded as unfillable because it had been looked for as a value. The two things named as what would settle it were both already held — the income column was in the extract, and R.C. 3317.021 turned out to answer a different question entirely, which is that the column had no certification behind it until H.B. 96. A missing field is worth re-reading against what arrived after it was written; see FSFP Local Capacity Measure.