Columbus will keep its promise to Columbus City Schools graduates.
After some uncertainty about funding for the Columbus Promise, Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin introduced an amendment to the mayor’s proposed 2026 operating budget that will give $2 million to the initiative. The widely popular program sends CCS graduates to Columbus State Community College tuition-free and helps prepare students for college.
Hardin introduced an amendment to the city budget on Jan. 12 that will use $2 million in carryover dollars, income tax revenue that came in over projections, for the Columbus Promise. The city council passed the amendment 9-0 and referred the budget back to committee.
“We, as a city, made promises to parents and students,” Hardin said ahead of the meeting. “This is paying it forward. We’re literally talking about the workforce of the future.”
This emergency amendment comes after Hardin, the architect of the Columbus Promise, went to the news media in December to raise the alarm that Mayor Andrew Ginther’s proposed budget omitted the program. This despite the fact Ginther stood at a press conference with Hardin in February and committed the city to providing $10 million over three years for the program.
A spokesperson for the mayor’s office, Jennifer Fening, deputy chief of staff, disputed Hardin’s framing of the issue and said he’s unnecessarily frightened students and family.
In a statement emailed to media ahead of the council meeting, Fening called Hardin’s actions “naïve attempts at political theatre.”
“While Mayor Ginther’s commitment to Columbus Promise has never waivered, late last year, the Council President chose to express performative outrage about the program’s absence from the budget, in what one can only assume was an attempt to score political points,” Fening said.
Fening said the mayor has never included money for the Columbus Promise in his budget proposals in acknowledgement of Hardin’s role in the program and allowed Hardin to amend the budget to add it.
Hardin fired back, calling the statements “disingenuous” while speaking to the media ahead of the meeting.
“If there was some magical plan to pay for this, it was not discussed between the administration and council,” Hardin said, adding that it’s never guaranteed there will be carryover money.
The Columbus Promise is funded in a public-private partnership model with city dollars and private donations. In the absence of certainty about public funding, Hardin said the Columbus Promise had delayed opening its applications for its next group of scholars until Jan. 12 after partners heard the City Council would approve funding.
The city gave $2 million in 2025 to the Columbus Promise, and with this $2 million in additional money, the city has $6 million left to pay in 2027 if it’s going to meet its commitment to $10 million over three years.
This new grant eats into the carryover funds the City Council has traditionally used for council priorities. The city brought in a little over $5 million in carryover funds in 2025.
City Council has several hearings on the 2026 budget scheduled over the next two weeks before the council votes on the full budget. Hardin said there are more difficult conversations ahead as Ginther’s proposed budget does not fully fund everything Hardin would like to see, including homeless shelters.
Government and politics reporter Jordan Laird can be reached at jlaird@dispatch.com. Follow her on X, Instagram and Bluesky at @LairdWrites.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Promise money OK’d, mayor’s office slams ‘political theatre’
Reporting by Jordan Laird, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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