School Funding in Beavercreek and Ohio
Beavercreek City Schools
Education is the single largest expense in the budget for the State of Ohio, Primary and secondary education account for 41% of total Ohio spending, with Higher Education accounting for another 10%. So I was surprised to learn that Ohio pays a tiny fraction of the per-pupil education costs for Beavercreek City Schools (BCS). As of 2024 projections, the state only pays about 12% of our total budget. Leaving 88% of the school funding on the shoulders of local taxpayers. Our Board of Education has little to no influence over the state legislators who establish school funding policies. We are tasked to work within the existing structure to educate our students.
I believe BCS is responsible stewards of our tax dollars. In this page, I will show that we are financially efficient, transparent, and responsible with our budget while complying with Ohio law.
Efficiency
According to Ohio state metrics comparing BCS to similar districts, we over-perform academically while spending slightly less than the state average per pupil.
Transparency
Setting and maintaining a school budget is complex. Thankfully, Beavercreek has a strong Treasurer Department at the helm. The best place to find detailed and current BCS funding data is at our Treasurer Department website. Once there, I recommend reading (or skimming) the latest Five Year Forecast for a digestible and comprehensive view of where our funding comes from and what we spend it on.
Responsibility
BCS makes financial decisions with the long-term health and status of our district in mind. Some recent examples of this are:
In response to rising healthcare costs, BCS in-housed our Health Insurance. creating an in-house pool that saves the district millions each year
When building our latest two schools, we invested in high-efficiency climate control and lighting, saving tens of thousands every year of operations
We win awards for our exceptionally clean audit results.