Wisconsin Budget Project catches the K-12 cuts

The Wisconsin Budget Project has now released their overview of Governor Walker's budget, and I'd encourage you to read their breakdown of the big document. Their focus on the Governor's K-12 education policies is especially thorough, given that these changes haven't gotten nearly the coverage that other provisions have, and the Budget Project rundown illustrates why that issue probably deserves a lot more attention.

To begin this overview, it’s important to note that the Governor’s recommendations dig a deeper hole for lawmakers to climb out of as they attempt to balance the budget. That is done by allocating $105.6 million per year for the school levy credit. While increasing that credit has often enjoyed support from legislators on both sides of the aisle, committing that funding for tax relief is much more problematic at a time when the state is faced with a large deficit and making substantial cuts....

Putting a squeeze on public schools – The changes the Governor is proposing for school financing are complicated, but seem to keep public schools in a very difficult fiscal bind. In addition to maintaining current revenue caps for schools, the bill cuts total funding for the Dept. of Public Instruction by 0.1% in the first year of the biennium (and cuts General Fund support by 2%), before increasing total funds by 4.2% in the second year. But even in the second year it appears to me that schools will only be able to increase spending by about half of the increase, based on the amount of the increase that is outside of the revenue caps. In addition, the bill lifts the cap on school choice vouchers, and the growth in spending for those vouchers will apparently be siphoned out of the funding for public schools. By holding support for public schools well below the inflation rate and diverting funding for vouchers, my preliminary reading of the Governor’s plan is that it would force many school districts to make additional cuts in their budgets.

UPDATE: After studying the budget documents more carefully, it’s clear that the negative impact for schools is considerably worse than I initially thought – particularly in the first year of the biennium, when most schools will have to cut spending by $150 per student. My preliminary calculations missed that effect because one of the DOA documents creates the impression that schools are getting an increase of about $103 million per year in federal funds, which is not actually the case. In addition, I didn’t originally realize that schools aren’t able to raise property taxes to offset a $127 million cut in state categorical aid during the first year of the biennium.

So it appears that Walker is attempting to do the "spend more for property tax cuts without taxing for it" trick that he did with Tech College funding last year. This has the double-whammy of adding to the state deficit, and not allowing the funding to go into instruction, teacher pay, or anything that might improve the level of service from those schools.

There will be plenty more items to discuss as these departments go through their hearings, but the cut in per-pupil aid and related K-12 provisions are a good catch from the great folks at the Wisconsin Budget Project.