More to vouchers? Less to the rural K-12 schools? We find out tomorrow

Tomorrow appears to be the day when we get a better idea what schools might get for the upcoming school year for funding from the state. Except that the Wisconsin GOP-run Joint Finance Committee isn't revealing what will that funding will be.

The Legislature's budget-writing committee will vote Monday on a spending plan for the state's K-12 schools, moving the weeks-overdue state budget closer to passage — but details of the education package are still unclear.

"For the most part, stay tuned," said Joint Finance Committee co-chair Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, when asked on Thursday what will be included in the plan the committee will consider.

Nygren said not much has changed since the state Senate and Assembly released competing education packages earlier this summer. Lawmakers have agreed to keep intact an increase in categorical aid proposed in Gov. Scott Walker's original budget, Nygren said.

The budget will also likely include a measure to allow low spending districts to raise their revenue limits, both Nygren and co-chair Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, said.

If that's all there is to it, I don't why the GOPs on the Joint Finance Committee didn't go ahead and vote on K-12 education 2 months ago. Instead, we've seen school districts around the state hold off on hiring new or additional staff because they aren't certain that there will be enough money around, meaning the damage is already done, even if the sizable increases in per-pupil aid go through.

My guess is that we'll see some absurd, multi-part GOP omnibus that'll be sprung onto Democrats and the public with only a few hours to figure it out, and it'll end up being notably different from what was in Governor Walker's budget.

It's not like there hasn't been proposals thrown out there in the last 2 1/2 months. We've seen them from Assembly Republicans, who released a plan in early June, Senate Republicans, who released their own K-12 plan as far as a larger budget in July, and Legislative Democrats, who released their plan in .

But now we get to see what gets included. One of the big items that'll be interesting to see in a possible agreement will be in how many students will be eligible to use vouchers to pay for private schools. In addition, how much of that extra funding for vouchers would come at the expense of public schools, and it could especially hurt rural schools.

Right now, only families at less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level qualify for private school choice programs.

State Senate Republicans want to raise that to 220 percent, while Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, favors 300 percent of the poverty level. That's equivalent to a family income of $74,000 a year.

Under the Senate GOP plan, virtually all of the current $20 million in "sparsity aid" that covers the higher costs of rural school districts would be removed.

Even with the smaller voucher expansion in the Senate GOP K-12 plan from last month, I noted that regular public schools would also be hurt.

...Not only does the Senate GOP raise voucher eligibility to families of 4 that make nearly $54,000, but they also have other giveaways like not allowing for incomes of current voucher families to be verified, and approving the setup of "virtual private schools", where a teacher instructs from a remote location.

Combine those giveaways to the voucher lobby with prior revelations that the voucher program is taking more money and students from K-12 districts than previously thought, and now vouchers are projected to take $36 million more in taxpayer dollars than what was in Walker's original budget. And almost all of that is "paid for" by funneling away money from public K-12 districts in Wisconsin.

So, no I don't feel good about what kind of kickbacks to Scott Jensen and Betsy DeVos are going to be revealed in tomorrow's Joint Finance Committee meeting, nor do I believe that public schools will be getting a "$649 million increase" in funding, like Walker yapped about all Summer (and has gone silent on over the last month, redirecting his focus to the Fox-con).

But between the K-12 proposals (by far the largest spending item when it comes to state tax dollars) and the likely release of final tax revenues for 2016-17, we'll have a much clearer idea about how much non-DOT money will be available, and if anything else might have to be adjusted before this thing hits Governor Walker's desk.