UPDATE: BUDGET AMENDMENTS REVEALED
Thursday, May 28th, 2009 -- 3:22 PM
The Joint Finance Committee was set to meet Thursday afternoon; they hoped to have a budget agreement hammered out by the end of the day.Wispolitics.com posted the JFC?s [url=http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/090528motion575.pdf]proposed amendments[/url] to the budget bill the 16-member panel is set to consider.
An initial scan of the document shows potentially bad news for public schools.
The Governor had indicated last week a 2.5% cut in school aid could be coming, but was vague on the details.
According to the document, JFC is prepared to cut $147-million in general aid; that?s a 3.1% cut.
The JFC also proposes $5.5-million in categorical aid cuts; that?s a additional 2.5% cut on top of the Governor's proposed 1% cut.
Categorical aids cover programs like the SAGE, transportation, school lunch and gifted and talented programs.
The Qualified Economic Offer for teachers (QEO), which allows school districts to avoid arbitration with their local unions by offering a 3.8% total package increase, would stay in place for one more year, but expire in July of 2010.
It?s somewhat unclear how much of the decreased aid will be passed on to local taxpayers. The amendments require districts to count Federal Aid against their revenue cap, and would reduce the proposed per pupil increase in the cap.
A legislative aid we talked with Thursday said he believed the JFC intended those changes to prevent property tax increases, but the projections weren?t available as of late Thursday afternoon.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.