WisGOPs could bail out K-12 and get us $4 billion with one simple move...that they won't make

A headline from today.

Superintendents of Wisconsin's five largest school districts write to the Legislature today, urging a bipartisan solution to securing $2.3 billion in federal coronavirus aid, saying they are "dismayed" with actions of lawmakers to datehttps://t.co/F9LJQMMSjF

— Scott Bauer (@sbauerAP) June 15, 2021

"..dismayed with actions of lawmakers to date," eh Mr. Bauer? What actions might those be?

Superintendents of the Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay school districts urged lawmakers in a letter to set aside partisan differences and to do what is best for the state’s schools.

The state budget being written by the Legislature’s Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee does not include enough funding for K-12 schools to ensure that Wisconsin would be able to keep $2.3 billion in federal coronavirus relief money. Republican leaders have repeatedly said they will ensure the funding wouldn’t be lost. The budget committee plans to complete its work this week.

As it stands, the new budget would include $128 million more in state funding for K-12 schools than the current one, which is about one-tenth of what Democratic Gov. Tony Evers requested. Evers and Democrats have urged lawmakers to spend more on K-12 schools, especially in light of rosier projections showing the state will collect $4.4 billion more in taxes than originally expected.

“We are dismayed that the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted to place ESSER dollars at risk,” the superintendents wrote, referring to the name of the federal aid bill.

You mean the REPUBLICANS on the Joint Finance Committee, right supers?

But hey, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau tells State Sen. Jon Erpenbach that there's a way out, and the GOPs wouldn't even have to add money to schools! What is it?

At your request, I am providing information relating to the potential effect of Medicaid expansion on federal maintenance of effort (MOE) calculations relating to federal education funding provided under the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

Based on Joint Finance Committee actions through June 10, 2021, it is estimated that an additional $256 million GPR in 2021-22 and $177 million GPR in 2022-23 of education funding would be needed to comply with the federal MOE requirements under the CAA and ARPA. You asked what the implications would be for the state's MOE calculation if the state adopts full expansion of Medicaid and uses the resulting net GPR savings ($838 million in 2021-22 and $821 million in 2022-23) to reduce GPR spending on the Medicaid program by the same amount. Because the federal MOE calculation is based on the total amount of GPR spending, no additional education funding would be needed to meet the federal MOE because of the major GPR spending reductions under this option.

And what a coincidence, today's JFC meeting goes over Medicaid spending! Are you telling me that all GOPs have to do is to pass Medicaid expansion, and we'd save $1.6 billion in state tax dollars while guaranteeing the $2.3 billion in Fed K-12 dollars? Well, that's a lucky break for the WisGOPs, isn't it?

You think they'll do it?

Really had you going there, didn't I?

Nah, they'll try some overcomplicated measure that allegedly raises K-12 state spending but doesn't get the money into the classroom, and tie up other investments with an overly-huge tax cut in order to play some kind of gotcha game. And with taxes slated to come up later this week, I guess we'll find out soon enough what the game is.