A bill passed recently by the Ohio Senate seeks to appropriate $648.5 million in tobacco settlement funds to the Ohio School Facilities Commission.
Tobacco settlement funds were gained from a multi-state lawsuit against the five largest tobacco companies late last decade, said Rich Savors, the commission's chief of communications. The $206 billion settlement was split up between the states involved in the lawsuit, and this bill seeks to distribute Ohio's share.
The commission is the sole source of state funding for rebuilding and renovating of educational buildings for Ohio's 614 schools districts, Savors said. The commission ranks districts according to the condition of their buildings and evaluates just how much money each school needs. The schools in the worst condition receive priority over schools needing only minor improvements.
The commission receives appropriations every year from the Ohio General Assembly, and this tobacco settlement appropriation will boost their operating budget in the 2007 fiscal year to $980 million, up from $665 million in 2006, he said.
This additional money could increase the number of schools the commission can aid by 25 to 30, Savors said, although the amount that each school receives depends on what problems need to be fixed. The commission does not put a limit on the amount they appropriate but funds only what needs to be funded.
The sky is not the limit
Savors said.
Rebuilding Ohio's Schools, a 12-year program started in 2000 by Gov. Bob Taft, works alongside the Ohio School Facilities Commission, Taft's spokesman Mark Rickel said. There have been 414 buildings built or renovated since the inception of the program and Rickel boasted about the speed at which the state's educational buildings are being redone.
Ohio is rebuilding its schools faster than any state in the country Rickel said.
Athens City Schools, which operates seven buildings, is not in bad shape but could use some minor work, Superintendent Carl Martin said.
There are some renovation needs Martin said.
He said the district's elementary buildings ' East, West and The Plains ' could all use renovation, but the rest of the district's buildings are in fairly good shape. Because of this, Martin said, the district was ranked somewhere in the 400s out of the state's 614 districts, so he is not expecting any state money in the near future.
The Senate passed the bill May 10, said Jennifer Hogue, legislative aide to Sen. Joy Padgett. The bill has been passed to the House of Representatives, but no action has been taken on the bill there yet.
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