Paying for Democrats' new Ohio education plan over the next 10 years would require unprecedented increases in state funding. Meanwhile, budget experts are unable to predict when the state will finally climb out of its economic morass.

Gov. Ted Strickland and House Democrats have said that phasing in their new "evidence-based" school-funding plan over 10 years would require no more budgetary effort than the state has shown in the past 10. But a Dispatch analysis found it is going to be far more difficult than that.

To completely pay for the plan by 2019, state funding for traditional public schools would have to increase by an estimated 7.8 percent per year after 2011. State funding increases have met or surpassed that rate only three times in the past 19 years, and increases in the past 10 years have averaged less than 5 percent.

But that is not the way Strickland and House Democrats have been describing it. The governor told the Columbus Metropolitan Club last week:

"From 1999 to 2008, the state increased its investment in primary and secondary education by 47 percent. With the plan before the legislature now, we will build on those investments by making a commitment to increase funding by an additional 45 percent in the decade ahead."

Strickland calculates 45 percent by taking the amount of state spending on traditional public schools in 2009, $5.94 billion, and determining what it will take to reach the $8.64 billion price tag of the fully phased-in plan.

But that calculation appears to have two serious flaws.

First, it does not account for inflation. "They should inflate it," said Richard G. Sheridan, former head of the state's legislative budget office and a consultant for the Center for Community Solutions.

That $8.64 billion number is the total if the plan, hypothetically, were fully funded in 2011. But the plan would not actually be fully funded until 2019, so that number will not remain static. When legislators plug updated numbers into the formula every biennium for teacher salaries, textbooks, operations, etc., the total will grow.

Sheridan agrees that no one knows the exact inflationary growth. But using an annual 1.9 percent increase for inflation -- the same figure that Strickland built into the second year of his proposed education formula -- the actual target amount by 2019 would be $10.04 billion, not $8.64 billion.

"That's more than reasonable," Sheridan said of the 1.9 percent figure. "It would be more like 3 percent for salaries and wages."

Second, Strickland is ignoring that state funding would take a step backward in the first two years. Although the cut is masked by one-time federal stimulus money, school funding that comes from state-generated tax dollars actually would drop from $5.94 billion in 2009 to $5.53 billion in 2011.

To get from $5.53 billion in 2011 to $10.04 billion in 2019 would require funding to increase by an average of 7.8 percent each year.

The constitutional price

The Democrats' plan would give Ohio schools something that past education plans never did: the promise of billions of dollars in future funding. Democrats say it's time to stop muddling through inadequate funding plans every two years, and instead charge toward a system that truly funds a quality and constitutional education system. The current setup has been declared unconstitutional four times by the Ohio Supreme Court.

But the state can't afford the upgraded system now, so Democrats would phase it in over 10 years.

A 7.8 percent annual increase means that state funding for schools would jump by about $900 million in the 2012-13 state budget, compared with an increase of about $600 million in the current budget.

The spending would continue to build up in ensuing years: an increase of more than $1 billion in the 2014-15 budget, an additional $1.2 billion on the pile in 2016-17, and a leap of more than $1.4 billion in 2018-19 as the state finally fully funds what Strickland and the Democrats say is needed for a constitutional school-funding system.

Sen. John A. Carey Jr., a Wellston Republican and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, doesn't think the state can pull that off. He and other Republicans expect to make major changes to the plan.

"It's about having the resources to do it. Education is a top priority, and Republicans have shown that. But education is not the only responsibility that we have," he said. "There is no way in 2009 we can say what this legislature is going to be spending in 2019."

Rebuttal

The governor's office takes issue with the Dispatch analysis, arguing that it is proper to use the $8.64 billion figure and not adjust it upward because it can't be determined with certainty how inflation or other factors such as enrollment changes will affect the number.

"It's based on the best source of accurate information we have available," said Amanda Wurst, spokeswoman for Strickland. "Out-year estimates are going to change based on policy decisions of future governors and general assemblies, how the economy performs and the changing demographics.

"We could very well see deflation in the next 10 years."

But with about 80 percent of education spending going toward salaries, deflation isn't going to happen, Sheridan said, particularly when so many teachers get automatic pay increases each year.

"If they are going to complain they can't project the enrollments or the inflation rate, then why do they project what it's going to cost and act as if that's the target?" Sheridan said.

Even if the figure is left at $8.64 billion, it would take annual 5.8 percent increases after 2011 to get there by 2019, a level hit eight times in the past 19 years.

Regarding the accounting of one-time federal money, Wurst said: "The federal government provided these resources that would have otherwise come to the state had it not been for the recession. When Ohio recovers, we will have those resources again to invest in education."

Strickland and House Democrats have repeatedly said the future of the education plan comes down to commitment, not sustainability.

"The point the governor is trying to make is that even if there are inflationary increases at some point the plan is sustainable with a sustained commitment to education," Wurst said.

jsiegel@dispatch.com