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COLUMBUS -- House Democrats will roll out a new school-funding plan today designed to boost aid to poor schools while capping increases to all districts next year at roughly 2 percent.

Those familiar with the revised blueprint for paying to educate Ohio's 1.8 million schoolchildren say it doesn't include more overall money than Gov. Ted Strickland's "evidence-based" model. It just divides the money up differently.

Under the Democratic governor's plan, funding increases to districts were capped at 15 percent in the first year and 16 percent in the second year, and a change designed to lower the share of funding expected to be raised by local districts was phased in over the two-year budget.

Under the plan by majority House Democrats, the local share change would be phased in over six years, which would reduce funding in early years to property-rich districts. Intense talks on the details of the Democratic plan were still going on late Tuesday, with a news conference scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Strickland's budget was criticized for giving rich districts large increases while 14 of the 20 poorest districts in the state lost funding, according to a Plain Dealer analysis. The House Democrats want to move more money to poor districts than Strickland's plan does. It isn't clear what impact that shift would have on school districts that are not at the bottom of the property-wealth ladder.

The House Democratic plan would rush more aid to poor districts through a heavier emphasis on an "instructional quality" index that differs district by district and is weighted for areas in poverty. The plan also apparently would call for more study of the mandates proposed by Strickland, including a longer school year.

Federal stimulus funding, which Strickland had lumped in with state money in his plan, will be broken out into a separate category under the House Democratic plan so that the impact can be more clearly seen. However, it's largely an accounting change as Ohio schools apparently won't see more overall money than they did under Strickland's plan.

Keary McCarthy, spokesman for House Speaker Armond Budish, a Beachwood Democrat, said the changes are designed to more accurately reflect teacher salary and administration costs and boost aid to property-poor school districts.

"That was the cornerstone of the DeRolph school-funding decision, and that's what our plan does," McCarthy said.

The DeRolph case led to a series of Ohio Supreme Court decisions over the past decade that found that a spending disparity between poor and rich districts caused by an over-reliance on locally voted property taxes had kept Ohio schools from reaching the "thorough and efficient" standard in the state constitution.

Strickland said Tuesday that he was pleased with the changes being made by the House Democrats and that the mandates on school districts will be delayed so that next year is a "planning year" for Ohio's more than 600 school districts.

McCarthy said a district-by-district breakdown will be available at Wednesday's news conference.