It's Do or Die in Ohio

On November 3, voters in Cincinnati decide on Issue 4, a new property-tax levy for Cincinnati Public Schools, and voters in Pickerington decide on a new school income tax. Columbus City Schools has nothing on the ballot, but it is cutting $50 million a year, closing schools and openly talking about a levy for 2027. These are three very different districts: a big urban system with an unusually large tax base, Ohio’s largest district, and a fast-growing suburb. They are being squeezed by the same things. Where the state has failed the public education system – and in fact has made it hard for local communities to pick up the slack – it falls to those same local communities to grit their teeth and do it anyway.

At the bottom are our full briefings on all three districts. See a full set of Ohio (and Wisconsin and Indiana's) school ballot measures elsewhere on the site.

↓ Appendix A: the Cincinnati Public Schools briefing
↓ Appendix B: the Columbus City Schools briefing
↓ Appendix C: the Pickerington Local Schools briefing

How Ohio makes districts go back to voters

Three features of Ohio school finance explain most of what is happening in all three places.

• Levies raise fixed dollars. Under Ohio’s tax-reduction factors (the H.B. 920 rule), when home values rise, the effective rate of most voted levies falls, so a levy brings in about the same number of dollars year after year. Costs rise; levy revenue doesn’t. Districts have to keep asking.
• The state pays less when property values rise. The state formula assumes each district can raise a local share based on its property values and residents’ incomes. When a reappraisal raises values, the state’s share of a district’s formula cost goes down, even though the levies, held to fixed dollars, don’t raise much more.
• The rules just got tighter. The 2025–26 property-tax laws ended new emergency, substitute and replacement levies (since January 2026) and added homeowner tax credits that districts absorb. Many districts are now pinned at the 20-mill floor, the minimum effective rate for current expenses.

Statewide, voters approved 66% of school tax issues from 2016 through May 2026, by the Ohio School Boards Association’s count, but only 39% of requests for new money. Renewals usually pass; new money usually doesn’t.

Cincinnati: Issue 4

Issue 4 is a new 7-mill, five-year operating levy. It would raise $66.3 million a year and cost $245 a year per $100,000 of home value, according to the ballot language. It is CPS’s first request for new operating money since 2016.

The district got here through three rounds of budget cuts, about 550 positions in all, plus the end of the IB program at three schools and five unpaid furlough days. On September 2 the state placed CPS in fiscal caution over a projected $44.5 million deficit in fiscal 2029, and its corrective plan is due November 30. The district says it will need to plan about $44 million in cuts even if the levy passes.

Cincinnati’s problem is partly that the state formula treats it as rich. Its large commercial and utility tax base means the state pays only about 27.5% of its formula base cost, against 57–77% for most of Ohio’s other big-city districts. The 2025–26 property-tax laws cost CPS about $10.9 million a year and limit renewals of its three emergency levies, which bring in about a quarter of its revenue, to five years at a time.

Two parts of the campaign need some clarification.

• “State takeover.” Some coverage frames a no vote as a step toward a state takeover. Fiscal caution is the first of three steps. A state oversight commission comes only with fiscal emergency, which requires an actual deficit the district can’t resolve. CPS ended June with $43 million in cash, and its GAAP general-fund balance was $169 million, with Aa2 and AA ratings from Moody’s and Fitch. A takeover is a possible end point years out on the current forecast, not the next thing that happens if Issue 4 fails.
• How the levy got here. In July the board voted 5–2 for a 0.75% income tax instead, then, after both county parties objected, rescinded it a week later and placed the property levy. In October the Cincinnati Business Committee and the Cincinnati Regional Chamber, past levy partners, came out against Issue 4, calling it too large and saying it lacks a spending or facilities plan. The district’s levy page lists five broad spending categories but no allocation. The teachers’ union, the county Democratic Party and parent volunteers are running the yes campaign.

Columbus: a big cushion, going fast

Columbus is not in fiscal distress. It ended June with $310 million in its general fund, about 116 days of spending. But it has run deficits two years running (−$61.8 million last year), and its August forecast runs out of cash in fiscal 2030 even after $50 million a year in cuts.

The biggest change is in state aid. The 2023 reappraisal raised Columbus property values about 37%, and the state now pays 11.9% of Columbus’s formula base cost, down from 30.6% in fiscal 2024. That is lower than Cincinnati’s share, in a district where more than one in five residents is below the poverty line. The current state budget also cut Columbus’s aid by $16 million, the largest cut in Ohio.

What the district has done about it:

• adopted $50.45 million in cuts for this school year (299 positions, mostly through attrition);
• voted, in two rounds, to close nine schools and its downtown headquarters, phased through 2028–29;
• ordered at least $50 million more in cuts for 2027–28, with a plan due December 31; high-school yellow buses are on the list.

Trust is a problem too. The self-insured health plan came up at least $22.5 million short in 2025, the HR director was fired, and on October 2 the Columbus Education Association voted no confidence in the board. Spring test results at two high schools were invalidated. Meanwhile only about half of the children who live in the district (51.4%) attend its schools, and Columbus buses many of the rest to charter and private schools. It also just won the EdChoice voucher case in the 10th District Court of Appeals; the state is appealing.

No levy has been filed. The board president hasn’t ruled one out, and the earliest practical ballot is May 2027. If you live in Columbus, that is the vote to watch.

Pickerington: the thinnest cushion of the three

Pickerington Local is the odd one out: a growing, high-performing suburb (4.5 stars on the state report card) that spends less per student than about four in five Ohio districts, $14,756 in operating spending. It also has very little cash. It ended June with $22.9 million, about 48 days of spending, just above the board’s own 45-day floor and among the lowest in the state. Without new money, the August forecast falls to $4.3 million in fiscal 2029 and goes negative the year after.

In May, voters rejected a permanent 1.25% school income tax with 37% yes. The question on November 3 is smaller: a 0.75% income tax for 10 years, on top of the district’s existing 1%. It would raise about $21.9 million a year, or $600 a year on $80,000 of Ohio taxable income. Social Security is exempt, but pensions, IRA withdrawals, interest and dividends are not. Pickerington hasn’t passed new operating money since 2011.

Both sides have a point.

• The district’s case: enrollment is up almost 18% since 2016, spending per student is low, and the cuts if the tax fails are specific. If it fails, Phase II starts in January: on-campus College Credit Plus, instructional coaches and many electives. If a May retry also fails, Phase III cuts teachers, middle-school band and orchestra, and busing to the state minimum.
• The critics’ case: staff grew 31% over the same years enrollment grew 18%, and administrative positions rose from 53.5 to 89. A state performance audit last December found about $5.7 million a year in possible savings, mostly in staffing and insurance, though it also said those savings alone would not close the gap. We found no local coverage of that audit.

Even if the tax passes, the district’s own forecast shows a $9.6 million deficit again by fiscal 2031. And the odds are long. Statewide since 2016, new school income taxes have passed 27% of the time (46 of 171). When a district came back within about a year after a request that drew under 40%, the retry passed 10% of the time (7 of 67), typically gaining about eight points. Pickerington needs about thirteen.

Forecasts are just that

Every Ohio district files a five-year forecast each November. It shows where cash is headed if no new levies pass (and nothing else changes, either). In November 2022, all three districts filed forecasts that put them in trouble by now.

Columbus passed a levy in 2023, which accounts for part of its gap but nowhere near all of it. Cincinnati and Pickerington passed no new operating money at all. But they did make deep cuts, which changes spending trajectories and obviously affects five-year estimates of cash on hand. None of this means the current forecasts are wrong. These districts have been cutting for real, and the structural pressures above are real.

What to watch

• November 3: Issue 4 in Cincinnati and the 0.75% income tax in Pickerington, along with 131 other school tax issues around the state (Appendix D).
• November 30: new five-year forecasts from every district, and Cincinnati’s fiscal-caution corrective plan, which must list cuts even if the levy passes.
• December 31: Columbus’s plan for another $50 million in cuts, and its decision on high-school busing.
• Early 2027: whether Columbus files a levy for May, and whether Pickerington tries again if November fails.

Appendix A: The Cincinnati Public Schools budget briefing

Below is the full Budget Committee briefing on Cincinnati Public Schools: what is happening now, enrollment, test results, spending and reserves, levies and property taxes, the claims we checked, each compared with similar Ohio districts and the state, with sources. ↑ Back to top

Appendix B: The Columbus City Schools budget briefing

Below is the full Budget Committee briefing on Columbus City Schools: what is happening now, enrollment, test results, spending and reserves, levies and property taxes, the claims we checked, each compared with similar Ohio districts and the state, with sources. ↑ Back to top

Appendix C: The Pickerington Local Schools budget briefing

Below is the full Budget Committee briefing on Pickerington Local Schools: what is happening now, enrollment, test results, spending and reserves, levies and property taxes, the claims we checked, each compared with similar Ohio districts and the state, with sources. ↑ Back to top