New Proposal Would Provide Funding for Nineteen Wisconsin School Districts Missing Out on Funding Boost

Wednesday, August 16th, 2023 -- 11:01 AM

(Rory Linnane and Hope Karnopp, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) The state budget enacted earlier this summer provides nearly $1.2 billion in new funding authority for public schools, but one group of school districts will miss out on the increases.

According to Rory Linnane and Hope Karnopp with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, nineteen school districts in Wisconsin where voters turned town referenda will not be able to access the boosts to their revenue-raising authority because of a state law that prohibits them from accessing increases for three years.

But a new proposal introduced by two Republican lawmakers, which has also gained support from Democrats, could eliminate that exception. The bill authors hope to get the proposal to the floor when the legislature reconvenes in fall.

Wisconsin school districts have been confined since 1993 by state-imposed revenue limits, which were locked in at different amounts for each district, depending on what they happened to spend the prior year.

Revenue limits determine how much money districts are allowed to take in through local taxes and state aids. Districts can go to referendum to ask voters to raise more than their limits. The limits initially rose each year with inflation, but that provision was deleted in 2009, and any increases have since been left to the discretion of lawmakers.

This summer saw a series of deals between Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who wanted more funding for public schools, and Republican lawmakers, who wanted more funding for charter schools and private schools that receive publicly funded vouchers.

In the same bill that raised voucher payments for private schools, lawmakers included a boost for about half of the state's public school districts that historically have been limited to the least base funding: under $11,000 per student.

About 221 of Wisconsin's 421 public school districts had been getting less than $11,000 and stood to benefit from the change, according to preliminary calculations by the state Department of Public Instruction, while almost all other school districts were already getting more than that.

But of those districts that stood to benefit, the DPI estimated 19 would be left out because of a 2017 state law. That law punishes districts that have tried and failed to convince their local voters to raise school taxes via referendum.

The law prohibits those districts from benefitting from changes to the state's minimum funding allowance for three years after the failed referendum. In his budget proposal, Evers proposed removing that exception from state law, but Republican lawmakers didn't keep the elimination in their version of the budget. Now, two Republicans are proposing the elimination with their own bill.

The 19 districts where referendum questions failed and are set to be allowed less than $11,000 per student are: Arcadia, Auburndale, Beloit, Berlin Area, Bristol No. 1, Horicon, Lake Mills Area, Merrill Area, Milton, North Lake, Northern Ozaukee, Parkview, Silver Lake J1, Southwestern Wisconsin, Sparta Area, Spring Valley, Valders Area, Walworth J1 and Westby Area.

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