Gadfly Bites 4/17/26—The calculus of budget deficits

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1. Let’s start with the shiny new item of the week: Ohio’s student absenteeism dashboard is now live…sorta. It’s clearly a good idea and hundreds of schools and districts are providing informative attendance data—updated monthly—for the public to see and assess. But it’s a voluntary effort and, as reporter Laura Hancock points out, lots of schools and districts aren’t participating all across the state, including the Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland districts as well as some large charter school networks. And as Fordham’s Chad Aldis says, the data will really only achieve its full value if and when it spurs permanent change and improvement in absenteeism rates. (Cleveland.com, 4/15/26)
   
   

2. Returning now to the theme of Wednesday’s Bites, the Dayton Daily News concurs that school districts all across the state are facing fiscal crises. Interestingly, this reality has not yet resulted in more tax levies for the May ballot (just 65 this year in Ohio vs. 99 last year) despite the potential for big problem$ ahead. I assume that’s because everyone quoted here blames the state for “underfunding” districts—which enough whining (such as is included in the piece) might change. Why don’t they blame ongoing student enrollment losses? Because there’s not enough whining in the world gonna fix that problem. (Dayton Daily News, 4/15/26)
   

3. Staying on theme to end the week: As we have continually noted around here, even closing school buildings hollowed out by enrollment losses won’t help shore up multi-million-dollar budget deficits if districts end up holding onto the empty buildings afterward. Maintenance and security are costly while selling a building would actually bring in revenue, especially in an open sale or public auction. So why don’t they all immediately plan to sell if the calculus is that obvious? It’s either a petty effort to stop charter or private school competitors from obtaining those buildings, pressure from friendly public entities to do a backroom deal at a cut rate, a delusional belief that they need to have space “ready” when all the lost students magically return, or a mix of them all. Whatever the reason(s), count Toledo City Schools among those who are planning to continue to spend big to hang onto a whopping eight empty buildings after the long-underutilized facilities are finally closed this summer due to budget deficit concerns. (Toledo Blade, 4/15/26)

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