School Administrator Alliances - Members Only - Representing the Interests of Wisconsin School Children

It’s not too late: Salvage special education funding with a sliver of the surplus

By Ryan Silvola | May 21, 2026

Dear SAA Colleagues:

Last week, a legislative proposal that directed a small share of the state’s projected $2.4 billion surplus to K-12 education failed to pass. This, despite widespread bipartisan support for using a portion of the surplus to lower school property taxes and honor the state’s obligation to fund special education.

The most tangible effect of the deal’s collapse is the lost opportunity to boost special education funding. It marks another chapter in the legislature’s decades-long neglect of its legal obligations on this front.

The $315 million for special education included in the $1.8 billion package was an attempt to rectify the most recent example of that neglect. Lawmakers celebrated a premature victory in the 2025-27 state budget, claiming it would have reached 42% and 45% in special education cost reimbursement this year and next year, respectively. If true, that would have meant a decisive increase over the 30.6% rate in 2024-25. However, the legislature relied on inaccurate cost projections. As a result, revised estimates show the “sum certain” appropriation will cover only 38% of projected costs this year and no more than 40% next year.

Last week’s budget surplus package, informed by more accurate estimates of special education costs, was expected to fund reimbursement levels of 42% this year (2025-26) and 50% next year (2026-27), likely allowing the legislature to make good on its original 2025-27 special education commitment. The 50% rate at the end of the next biennium also would have established a much-improved baseline for future state budget cycles.

But the provision fell through the political cracks, and with it, the fiscal relief that would have helped every school district, from avoiding educator layoffs, to preserving access to educational programs, to reducing the need for operating referendums that ask local taxpayers to step in where the state has abdicated its school funding responsibility.

As of this latest chapter, the state has lost significant ground since the 1960s in its legal obligation to provide adequate support to students with disabilities and the districts that serve them.

More than a quarter century ago, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held in the landmark Vincent v. Voight decision that the state has a constitutional obligation to provide an equal opportunity for a sound basic education for every Wisconsin student. To underscore what that meant, language in the decision specified that the legislature had to provide sufficient resources to ensure that districts with disproportionate numbers of students with disabilities could provide such an educational opportunity.

Based on the history of Wisconsin’s special education funding mechanism, “sufficient resources” arguably means the legislature would need to guarantee considerably higher reimbursement rates than those in current policy.

State law, in fact, guaranteed reimbursement at 70% as far back as the early 1960s. But by 1992-93, special education reimbursement had dropped below 50%. In 2000, the Wisconsin Supreme Court explicitly articulated the state’s constitutional obligation in this arena in the Vincent decision. Nevertheless, only a few short years later, as costs for serving students with disabilities rose steadily, the legislature held funding for special education frozen for an entire decade starting in 2008-09, causing the reimbursement rate to plummet to 24.9% by 2018-19.

Policymakers apparently recognize the need to provide much higher reimbursement to schools that serve these students, as current law guarantees between 90% and 100% reimbursement for students with disabilities who attend private schools using a special needs voucher, a level not reached for public schools in recent memory.

An attempt to remedy this and other flaws in the school finance system occurred when Assembly Speaker Robin Vos convened the bipartisan Blue Ribbon Commission on School Funding in 2017. A cornerstone of the commission’s 2019 recommendations called for increasing reimbursement for special education. But no legislative action resulted from the commission’s work, and since that time, little tangible progress on special education funding has been made.

Today, the legislature faces a lawsuit for failing to provide an adequate system of school finance to fulfill the state’s constitutional promise to K-12 students. The state’s deficient funding of special education is a primary rationale for the legal challenge.

Despite this checkered history, the special education provisions in the surplus package last week promised real progress. Unfortunately, partisanship interfered with a rare opportunity to capitalize on bipartisan agreement that could have forged a path forward. And Wisconsin’s school children are the ones who lose.

It’s not too late to fix this. Governor Evers and lawmakers could return to the table. At minimum, they could use surplus dollars to keep the special education commitment they made in the 2025-27 budget bill. Barring that, if legislators are true to their word and are serious about coming back in the next state budget to fix the special education funding flaw, then the failure of the surplus package creates an I.O.U. to K-12 education, to be redeemed in the 2027-29 state budget. No more excuses.

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Budget surplus agreement includes new funding for special education and general school aids

By Mike Barry | May 12, 2026

Dear SAA Colleagues:

The $1.8 billion surplus agreement announced yesterday by Governor Evers includes just over $600 million for K-12 education, split roughly evenly between new funding for special education and general school aids, two of SAA’s top budget priorities.

The $315 million in new special education categorical aid is expected to reach reimbursement levels of 42% this year (2025-26) and 50% next year (2026-27). Although funded on a ‘sum certain’ basis, the appropriation appears to be enough to reach the stated reimbursement targets based on reasonable estimates of cost increases over the two-year period. This should prevent the problem school districts encountered with the original 2025-27 budget, which contained a special education appropriation that was insufficient to reach the intended reimbursement rates of 42% in the first year and 45% in the second year. This caused DPI to prorate the initial reimbursement considerably downward.

Beyond next year, the 50% special education reimbursement rate establishes a much-improved baseline for future state budget cycles. Also, to the extent that special education funding is improved, it benefits general education as well by lessening the need to transfer scarce resources out of the general fund to cover underfunded special education costs. These are positive outcomes for public schools and students.

The budget surplus deal also includes $302.5 million in general school aid funding to help offset increases in school district property tax levies. However, instead of using equalization aid, this new general aid creates a category within the existing general aid appropriation. As you may recall, the original 2025-27 state budget failed to provide an increase in equalization aid, causing an inevitable increase in school property tax levies statewide. Unlike equalization aid, however, this new general aid does not take into account property wealth or shared costs, but rather distributes an equal per-pupil amount to every district.

The new general aid will begin in 2026-27 at an estimated $387 per pupil (using a three-year enrollment average for the first 25% of the aid distribution and a two-year enrollment average for the remaining 75%). As a general school aid, this new aid category falls ‘inside the revenue limit formula’ (meaning it is not spendable revenue). However, it will help offset school district property tax levies starting next fall and thereafter.

These are steps in the right direction. The K-12 provisions in this budget surplus package will provide a measure of immediate and much-needed relief for school districts, forty percent of which had an operating deficit last year. Still, we have a lot of work ahead to fix structural shortfalls in the school funding system and end the ‘funding via referendum’ cycle, which has proven so unworkable for schools and taxpayers alike.

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »