Judge blocks Ohio from withholding $11 million from Columbus City Schools
Anna Staver
Columbus City Schools won't have to pay an $11 million fine for failing to bus private school children. At least not yet.
A Franklin County judge blocked the Ohio Department of Education from withholding state transportation dollars, saying the school district had "a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of its claims."
Neither ODE nor Columbus City Schools responded to requests for comment, but the school district's attorney argued in court filings that these dollars were "critical to CCS' ability to continue to provide transportation services to children."
If the fines were imposed, according to court filings, Columbus might cut bus routes or programming for its public school students to afford busing the ones who attend nonpublic or community schools.
How we got here
Ohio law requires public schools to transport all eligible students, including those who choose private or charter schools. And state lawmakers recently added the ability to impose fines for non-compliance.
A provision in the two-year budget says ODE can withhold state transportation dollars from districts that fail to provide busing for "consistent or prolonged" periods. But the legislation didn't define those terms.
"As such, ODE unilaterally inserted its own definitions...without proper rule making," according to Columbus City Schools' court filings.
The department of education decided the words meant 10 consecutive days or 10 total days in a semester. The penalty would be to deduct the district's daily amount of state transportation dollars for every day of missed busing.
Public pushback
Columbus and Groveport Madison Schools, which filed a separate lawsuit, both argued this process was unfair and potentially unconstitutional because schools don't get a hearing or even the chance to present their side of the story.
In Groveport Madison's case, the district said a nationwide shortage of bus drivers during the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically reduced its ability to bus all students.
And Columbus said keeping the status quo while its case is argued doesn't hurt ODE. Ohio doesn't benefit from withholding transportation dollars, but the school's students could be "irreparably harmed."
State Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, disagreed.
He told The USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau that he's received numerous complaints from community schools about their kids not being picked up with little to no notice.
Over the last two school years, Columbus has called their nonpublic partners hours before a scheduled pickup to say they don't have enough bus drivers, Brenner said. "It was creating major chaos."
"Guess how much pandemic assistance Columbus City Schools has received...," Brenner said. "Over $455 million. Go hire some more bus drivers with that money."
Anna Staver is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau. It serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.