Columbus schools’ superintendent says more budget cuts will happen

Columbus City Schools Superintendent Angela Chapman recently said that last week’s $50 million cut to the district’s budget and the closure of four schools are only the beginning if state lawmakers don’t provide more funding to public schools.

“This is round one of the cuts. Will we have to come back next year with more cuts and more cuts and more cuts to truly make sure that our revenue keeps up with our expenditures?” Chapman told WOSU.

Ohio.News previously reported on significant budget cuts.

Chapman told WOSU that budget cuts are a symptom of the cost of running schools today, adding that the Ohio General Assembly hasn’t properly funded public schools for years as costs have risen due to inflation.

In his statement to WOSU, Ohio Senate Majority Caucus spokesman John Fortney said that Chapman’s claims are false.

“[T]he district conveniently omitted the fact to voters and parents that it carried a cash balance at the beginning of 2025 of $394 million,” he said, pointing out that there are now more teachers and administrators than students in these schools.

The news source discovered that, in 2014, CCS enrolled almost 50,000 students and now enrolls around 46,000. At the same time, the number of teachers increased by nearly 400 to nearly 4,000 and the number of administrators grew from 277 to 409.

The radical drop in students could be explained by Ohio parents deciding to homeschool their children.

Even though she didn’t comment on CCS’s budget cuts directly in her statement, Ohio House Majority spokeswoman Olivia Wile said that education is a priority for Republicans in the General Assembly.

“The recently passed state budget allocated more than $21 billion for public schools over the biennium, an increase of approximately $700 million in state aid from fiscal year 2025,” she said.

According to Chapman, CCS could cut even more from its budget if the state eliminated or further reformed property taxes, as Ohio lawmakers have been doing for quite a while. In addition to public schools, Chapman used libraries and police and fire departments as examples of those most affected by property tax cuts.

She said that her administration is still working out how it will make cuts to classified and non-classified staff and faculty, adding that her team has already made some good decisions that have prevented many people from losing their jobs.