As passed by the Legislature, 2023 Enrolled Senate Bill 70 (the 2023-25 biennial budget bill) would have set the per pupil adjustment under revenue limits at $325 in 2023-24 and 2024-25, and there would have been no per pupil adjustment in 2025-26 and each year thereafter. The Governor's partial veto modified the language of the per pupil adjustment so that the $325 adjustment would apply from 2023 through 2425. In April of 2025, the State Supreme Court opined that the Governor's 400-year partial veto was consistent with the Wisconsin Constitution.So right now, we have $325 per student increases to the total revenue limit set to happen each year as long as any of us are around. The first way that the WisGOPs are trying to keep this from happening is by putting a Constitutional Amendment onto this November's ballot. This measure passed the Senate on an 18-15 party-line vote, and is likely to be taken up by the GOP-controlled Assembly next week, and reads as follows.
In approving an appropriation bill in part, the governor may not create a new word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill, and may not create a new sentence by combining parts of 2 or more sentences of the enrolled bill, and may not create or increase or authorize the creation or increase of any tax or fee.Seems benign on the surface, and I'd probably vote for it at face value (if you're going to raise/create a tax, a law should say so). But if the WisGOPs think this would have stopped what Evers did, they are WRONG. Because all Evers did is raise the allowable revenue that local K-12 school districts could raise. It didn't do anything to raise or create taxes or fees at the state level. In addition to the attempted Constitutional amendment, there’s a bill going through where the WisGOP Legislature wants to use more conventional means to stop that $325-per-student increase after the next school year. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau calculated the effect that would have on resources for both public schools and payments for vouchers and charter schools.
Using the 2025-26 revenue limit enrollment of 781,400 pupils for public schools, the bill would reduce statewide revenue limit authority by approximately $254 million annually beginning in 2027-28 compared to current law. The actual effect of the bills in future biennia would depend on actual enrollments and offsets to other revenue limit adjustments related to declining enrollment. If base level funding for general school aids and the school levy tax credit were maintained, this would result in an equivalent reduction in the statewide school levy compared to current law. Changes to general school aid and school levy tax credit funding, as well as changes to other revenue limit adjustments, would also affect school levies in future years. Providing no per pupil revenue limit adjustment under the bills would also reduce payments and appropriations for the choice and charter programs compared to current law beginning in 2027- 28. The following table shows estimated annual change to the general fund appropriations, offsetting general school aid reductions, and net general fund expenditures for each of the programs under the bills, based on estimated 2026-27 enrollments in the programs.This feels like a more legitimate way for the Legislature to act, and it allows for the revenue limits to be re-debated with whoever our Governor will be and whoever runs the Legislature. A $0 increase per student is not good policy, mind you, as costs keep going up in the real world and many schools are already going to referendum because an increase in resources of $325 per student did not prove to be sufficient (even for the lowest revenue limits, the increase is not even 3%). But it at least would be a way to put the solution in writing in a way that sets revenue limits through the normal lawmaking process. As the Joint Finance Committee debated the bill this week, Dems gave a reminder as to which party decided to let property taxes go up this year.
Rep. Tip McGuire, D-Kenosha, said Republicans had a choice last summer in the budget to put additional state aid into schools to prevent the property tax hikes while ensuring public schools succeed. He accused Republicans of forcing districts to go to referendum to fund basic needs because of their refusal to fund needed costs. “We have a way to get everyone everything they want, and you keep saying no,” McGuire said.And the GOP response to that complaint was odd.
Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, said the 400-year veto is bad policy that gives every district the same increase every year, regardless of factors such as enrollment and what they spend now. With some districts spending about $11,000 per child between state aid and property taxes and others spending $18,000, Quinn said a flat increase for each child exacerbates existing inequities.I’ve read this paragraph a few times, and I don’t know what this means (and I’m not sure Sen. Quinn does either). All districts have the same $325 per pupil increase in revenue limit, and the lower-revenue limit districts get a higher % increase than the higher-limit ones. Sen. Quinn followed with the mystifying GOP line that having all these referenda are a good thing.
He said referendums are a compromise with education funding in allowing districts to ask taxpayers for additional funds if they believe they need more.That’s true, we shouldn't ask people to have to raise their property taxes to fund their schools. Because if we’d use more state tax dollars to fund K-12 education, WE WOULDN’T HAVE PROPERTY TAXES GOING UP. Now do I think Governor Evers would actually sign this bill ending rev limit increases after next year? NO WAY. Tony’s not letting that happen while he’s in power.“What Democrats want is to never have to ask taxpayers again,” Quinn said.
