DEAR EDITOR:

In 1997, the Ohio Supreme Court’s DeRolph decision ruled Ohio’s school funding system unconstitutional. For 28 years, the Ohio Legislature has ignored that decision. Through the years, state and local lawmakers have allowed the cost of education to become an unbearable burden on property owners.

There has been little effort to control costs through district consolidations.

Trumbull County has 27 school districts, each with boards of education, superintendents and staff.

There are 32,932 students in Trumbull County. My home state of Maryland has 24 school districts, one for each county and one for Baltimore City. There are 895,668 students in Maryland.

Why does Trumbull County, with only 4% of the students, require three more school districts than the entire state of Maryland?

In addition to the massive savings in administrative costs, consolidation of districts provides a larger, more stable tax base and the general economies of scale further reduce costs.

Lowering property taxes and increasing other taxes to compensate is not addressing the problem.

Taxes are too high because spending is too high. That is the problem.

DONALD JOHNSON

Mineral Ridge