WisGOPs choosing vouchers over public schools + less lottery playing = higher property taxes in Wis

2 weeks ago, the Department of Public Instruction released their General Aid payments for 2025-26, and it showed that nearly 3/4 of Wisconsin districts will be dealing with less General Aid from the state for this school year.

When combined with Governor Evers’ creative veto from 2023 that permitted increased resources for K-12 Wisconsin districts, that means those extra funds would have to come in the form of higher property taxes for those 3/4 of school districts in this year.

This is where I remind you that Evers wanted to pay for those extra K-12 resources with added state aids and related measures in his 2025-27 state budget, which the Legislative Fiscal Bureau said at the time would have kept property taxes back near last year’s levels.

But the WisGOPs in the Legislature didn’t go along with those ideas, and added $0 in General Aids for each of the upcoming 2 years. So the Legislative Fiscal Bureau updated those estimates after the budget was signed, and said the WisGOP (in)action on the budget raised gross school property taxes by $354.0 million for this year, and overall property taxes would rise by an additional $164 on the median-priced Wisconsin home for this year, and another $116 in December 2026.

Bad enough, but guess what state payments did get increased in our state budget! The money going to private (and often religious) voucher schools. As the LFB notes in its summary of K-12 education funding:

Under the [budget], the per pupil payment for K-8 pupils is estimated to increase from $10,237 in 2024-25 to $10,877 in 2025-26 and $11,305 in 2026-27, and the per pupil payment for 9-12 pupils is estimated to increase from $12,731 in 2024-25 to $13,371 in 2025-26 and $13,799 in 2026-27.

Milwaukee students receiving vouchers are entirely state funded, but vouchers for kids in all other parts of Wisconsin are paid for in a different way – by cutting the funding for the public school district where the kid lives in. Even if the kid never attended a day of public schools.

If you check out DPI’s rundown, you’ll see that $394.5 million is being taken away from Wisconsin’s public schools to pay for these vouchers this year.

And outside of Milwaukee, this ends up raising the property taxes of Wisconsinites because the public schools are allowed to do that in order to make up for the state funds being taken away from the district the voucher kid lives in. And given that the amount of students given vouchers and the amount of voucher payments continue to rise, this keeps adding to the property tax burden.

Another reason Wisconsinites are likely to face rising property tax bills is that the state’s lottery tax credit is going to be less for this year, as the Legislative Fiscal Bureau recently confirmed.

In 2025(26), with available proceeds of $293,929,700, an estimated average tax credit of $190 would be extended to eligible properties with values in excess of the credit base value, to be established by DOR prior to November 20 of each year. In 2024(25), the corresponding average tax credit was $207, based on the amount certified by the Committee in October, 2024. The decline in the estimated average credit is attributable to a projected decrease in ticket sales in 2025-26 of $21.6 million, compared to 2024-25. Actual lottery sales can vary from estimates, especially in the case of jackpot games like Powerball and Mega Millions, which are strongly driven by the size and number of high jackpots.

This now means that Wisconsin's lottery credit has declined in 3 of the last 4 years.

The LFB went on to explain that part of the reason for the lower reductions in property taxes is that people haven’t been spending on lottery tickets like they were 5 years ago. Even with blips such as September’s $1.8 billion Powerball jackpot that led to a rush of sales, the Fiscal Bureau thinks that declining trend will continue.

Lottery ticket sales were generally higher, both in Wisconsin and nationwide, through the COVID-19 pandemic and in the years since. Higher advertised jackpots for games such as Mega Millions and Powerball also contributed to increased revenues during this period. However, despite remaining high compared to pre-pandemic years, ticket sales have generally decreased since 2022- 23. Sales of scratch tickets in particular are expected to decrease by 5% in 2025-26, compared to 2024-25 sales. Moreover, high jackpots, and the associated increases in sales, did not occur at the same rate in 2024-25 as in previous years. The revised estimate of lottery sales projects that sales of lotto (jackpot) tickets will increase in 2025-26 by approximately 3.4%, compared to sales of these tickets 2024-25. However, much of this growth is driven by actual sales of Powerball tickets resulting from a large jackpot in early 2025-26. Sales of other lotto games are expected to decrease slightly in 2025-26. In particular, the price of a single play Mega Millions ticket increased from $2 to $5 in April, 2025, which has initially softened demand for those tickets. Finally, slower growth in real personal income, as well as increased competition from online sports gambling and illegal and gray market gaming, are expected to affect demand for lottery tickets.

That trend sure makes me wonder if tying lottery proceeds to property tax reductions is the best use of these funds. Especially when you look at how lottery proceeds are used in other states, where it often goes to K-12 education (including in Wisconsin neighbors Illinois and Michigan), veterans assistance (including Illinois and Iowa), and to add resources and/or cut taxes that go to the state’s general fund (including Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota).

And perhaps using lottery proceeds for K-12 education and/or the state general fund would be a way to take pressure off of both property taxes and state aids for funding Wisconsin schools. Because what’s happening today under the funneling of state funds to vouchers and the lessening amount of lottery credits isn’t working when it comes to keeping property taxes down. And that’ll become especially apparent when many of us get our bills in the mail in just over a month.