Understanding School Funding and Levies

Olmsted Falls City Schools is proud of the tradition of excellence in our classrooms, and that tradition is built directly on the foundation of our community's support. Because our district relies heavily on local funding for the majority of its revenue, your investment is what makes our students' success possible.

We do not take this partnership for granted. Our Board of Education and district leadership are committed to transparency, fiscal responsibility, and treating your tax dollars with the utmost respect. We created this page to help our community better understand how public schools are funded in Ohio, the types of levies we use, and how those funds are managed.

How Ohio Property Taxes Work: The Fixed Revenue Rule

One of the most common misconceptions about school funding in Ohio is that when property values go up, the school district automatically gets a windfall of new money. That is not the case. By Ohio law, when voters pass a school levy, they are voting to generate a specific dollar amount for the district. Once that levy passes, the amount of money the district collects from it is locked in place.

If overall property valuations in our community increase, the tax rate (called the effective millage) is mathematically reduced so the levy continues to collect the exact same dollar amount it did when it was first passed. As property values rise, the effective tax rate drops — the district does not collect additional money just because homes are worth more.

This rule comes from a specific state law: Ohio House Bill 920, passed in 1976 to shield homeowners from inflation-driven tax spikes. It's the reason operating levy revenue stays flat year after year, even as the cost of running our schools — salaries, utilities, supplies — continues to rise with inflation. This is also why school districts across Ohio, including ours, periodically return to voters for new levies: it isn't that costs are being mismanaged, it's that HB 920 doesn't allow existing levies to grow on their own. (There is one exception, called the "20-mill floor," which sets a minimum effective rate for operating levies — but it does not apply to Permanent Improvement or Bond levies.)

The Three Types of Levies We Use

To manage the district's finances responsibly, we use three distinct types of funding mechanisms. They function a lot like a household budget.