The Board of Education at Cincinnati Public Schools voted unanimously Wednesday afternoon to approve the district's operating budget for the upcoming school year.
The school system's budget totals just over $634.6 million. Over the past few months, the Board has approved a long list of cuts to close a multi-million dollar budget gap, which included the elimination of more than 100 classroom positions, dozens of administrative roles, several maintenance jobs, and changes to transportation. The district now says the gap has been closed.
Heading into Wednesday's meeting, the school Board expected to approve additional reductions to balance the budget, but further cuts ended up not being necessary.
Treasurer Jennifer Wagner told the Board that although the school district was receiving about $3 million less from the state of Ohio than the previous year, CPS was still getting more funding from the state's newly signed biennial budget than it had predicted, resulting in a balanced budget.
Following the vote, Board member Brandon Craig said the cuts will still have a significant impact on the way CPS schools will operate in the fall.
"Everything that we have to give up, or everything we say we can't do, is something somebody likes. It's something that benefited somebody," he said.
Frozen federal funds
Despite the approval of the operating budget, the school district will need to clear another financial hurdle.
Last week, the Trump administration froze more than $6 billion in education grants nationwide for K-12 schools. State education departments say they were only notified of the freeze just a day before the funds were supposed to be disbursed.
The education departments of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana say the administration pulled back millions in grant funding for educational programs for English learners, migrant students, and adults. The federal government also froze money for after-school programs and teacher development.
The Trump administration told states it's reviewing the grants to ensure they align with the president's priorities, but did not say how long the review process would last.
CPS says the Trump administration took back more than $5 million from the district, which supported the educational materials for several programs and 37 full-time employees.
Board member Ben Lindy called the president's move lawless and said he's going to push CPS to take action to get that money back.
"I think that lawless behavior from the federal administration should be met with some kind of response from Cincinnati Public Schools," Lindy said. "I haven't seen anything like this in my six years on the school Board, and I hope it's something we can do something about."
Board members say they plan to meet with the CPS administration in executive session to discuss the next steps with federal funding.
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