GOP K-12 moves give Evers a little, but takes a lot. And keeps the voucher scam going

I wanted to review the big changes to the budget bill in K-12 education, so let’s go into the 32-part omnibus that the GOPs on Joint Finance approved of on Thursday. And let’s start with the largest of the aid increases to public schools.

1. General School Aid Base Funding Increase (Paper #550). Provide [an increase of] $83,200,000 GPR in 2019-20 and $246,742,000 GPR in 2020-21 for general school aids…

4. Per Pupil Aid (Paper #550). Provide [increase of] $17,459,200 GPR in 2019-20 and $36,277,600 GPR in 2020-21 and set the per pupil aid payment at $679 per pupil in 2019-20 and $704 per pupil in 2020-21 and in each year thereafter. This would be an annual increase of $25 per pupil in each year of the biennium

5. Special Education Aid (Paper #570). Provide[increase of] $15,533,200 GPR in 2019-20 and $81,337,100 GPR in 2020-21 for special education categorical aid. Base level funding is $368,939,100, which DPI estimates will reimburse 25.3% of eligible costs in 2018-19. It is estimated that the additional aid would allow for reimbursement of 26% of special education costs in 2019-20 and 30% of costs in 2020-21.

The flip side is that it is the first increase in special education aids to public schools in 10 years, with much of it coming in the second year, raising the base amount for the future to more than $450 million. It’s probably not as much as the schools need, (and there’s an important disparity here that I’ll discuss shortly), but it’s a start and GOPs were clearly feeling the pressure from the public as they nearly doubled this increase from the $50 million WisGOP had in their original K-12 plans.

The special education increase of $97 million was significantly less than the $606 million Governor Evers wanted, which Democrats education organizations denounced, and led to tweets like this.

We didn’t get elected to choose which children get to thrive and which don’t, the GOP plan cuts 84% of @GovEvers special education budget. The GOP plan is picking winners and losers.

— LaTonya Johnson (@StateSenLaTonya) May 23, 2019

I found it interesting that around $330 million of the increase is in General Aids, while very little of the increase is from Per-Pupil Aid. That’s a direct contrast to the last budget, where Scott Walker and other Republicans put almost all of the aid increases in the form of Per-Pupil aids. That seems like a win for poorer districts in cities and rural areas, as the General Aids try to make up for disparities in property value and other resources.

It also makes for confusing statements from Republicans and media reporters about a “$200/$204 per pupil increase in both years”, as that is clearly NOT the case, at least not in that form . What is being confused is the aid increases with the revenue limits for schools. Those are being upped beyond the aid increases that are coming from the state,

2. Revenue Limit Per Pupil Adjustment (Paper #550). Set the per pupil adjustment under revenue limits at $175 in 2019-20 and $179 in 2020-21 and specify that there would be no per pupil adjustment beginning in 2021-22 and in each year thereafter.

Add in the $25 per-pupil aid (which does not count toward revenue limits) and there you have your increase. There is also an extra boost in the limits for certain low-revenue districts, which enables them to have raise more property taxes to get back toward the levels of other districts if they choose to.

The revenue limits and low-revenue district provisions come close to what Governor Evers wanted in his budget. But as Kids Forward tells us, the GOP severely reduced the 2 largest increases for K-12 public schools that Evers had.

What that graph doesn't mention is that the GOP did add money to “K-12 education” in another way. It's just not a program they want you to know about.

GOP change to base K-12 budget
Vouchers and Charters UP $113.5 million
Aid CUTS to public K-12 $78.5 million

Some of that extra voucher money is in the form of “special needs scholarships”, which reimburse at least 90% of the special ed costs of voucher schools, while public schools are barely going to get 30% of their special ed costs covered, even with the increases approved yesterday. And the money for this special ed aid to vouchers is entirely paid for by cutting aid to the PUBLIC school district the child lives in.

So if you account for the voucher-related cuts to public schools, the net increase over the 2 years in the 3 main aid forms to public schools are as follows.

General K-12 school aids $251.5 million
Per-pupil aid $53.7 million
Special Education Aid $96.8 million
TOTAL $402 MILLION

The GOP did add $5.3 million for a new type of aid that was not in Evers’ budget.

Specify that a district would be eligible for this aid if the district's net per pupil payment from the general school aids appropriation is less than the difference between $1,000 and the per pupil categorical aid payment amount for that year ($679 per pupil in 2019-20 and $704 per pupil in 2020-21 under the motion). Specify that the payment for an eligible district would be equal to the difference between $1,000 and the per pupil categorical aid payment amount for that year multiplied by the enrollment used to calculate the district's per pupil aid in that year. Specify that if aid entitlements exceed the amount appropriated, DPI would prorate the payments.

This seems targeted to certain school districts in Northern Wisconsin and other places that have high property values but small student populations. I’d like a final list of that, but I bet it’s related to the list of schools I mentioned earlier this week that were likely to lose out with the GOP’s opening move to keep $1.09 billion in property tax credits as opposed to moving it into General Aids (Attachment 3 of this document gives you an idea of who those districts would be. Hayward was specifically named on Thursday). Those districts stood to significantly lose funding, as they wouldn’t get much from either General Aids or Per-Pupil aids.

But other rural districts took a hit with the GOP’s budget motion, as the JFC members chose to take out an Evers provision worth about $9.8 million a year that would have expanded the sparsity aid program to mid-size and larger districts that have lots of land area. The JFC also turned down Evers’ plans that would have directed $43.5 million to bilingual education, $5.7 million for to increase what schools get for providing breakfasts to students, as well as a number of other smaller proposals. In all, nearly $978 million was reduced from Evers’ proposed K-12 budget with JFC’s action, although at least most of the K-12 increases that remained went into General Aid and not Per-Pupil this time.

That $978 mil fills the budget holes caused by the GOP’s moves earlier this month to continue tax cuts for the rich and corporate and turn down Medicaid expansion. That seems like some messed-up priorities, and the WisGOPs decisions leaves flawed and failing school funding situation largely in effect, with the only positive change in direction being the likelihood of fewer referenda due to the higher revenue limits.

So even with these minor increases, there’s still a long way to go before we dig ourselves out of the hole dug during the previous 8 years, both in K-12 public school funding, and in most notable economic statistics.