Evers Calls Special Session on Education Funding, Property Tax Relief
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | February 6, 2020
Governor Tony Evers this morning called on the Legislature to meet in special session and act on LRB-5625, legislation that would use $250 million dollars of Wisconsin’s anticipated budget surplus to recommit Wisconsin to two-thirds state funding for K-12 education, boost funding for special education and school-based mental health, and provide $130 million in property tax relief through equalization aid.
Evers call comes as GOP legislative leaders are leaning toward cutting taxes with the $452 million in anticipated budget surplus. When asked about the Evers education package earlier today, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) indicated he didn’t believe legislative Republicans were interested in going in that direction.
The Governor’s package includes the following:
- Provides $79.1 million GPR in fiscal year 2021 to increase the estimated reimbursement rate for school district special education costs from 30 percent to 34 percent;
- Increases the funding for high cost special education aid by an amount necessary to reimburse school districts for 100 percent of certain costs over $30,000 incurred to support a student with disabilities;
- Converts the relevant high cost special education aid appropriation from a sum certain to a sum sufficient appropriation;
- Increases funding for special education transition readiness grants by 100 percent, or $1.5 million GPR;
- Provides $19 million GPR in additional school-based mental health services;
- Expands the types of costs that are eligible for aid under the program to include school counselors, psychologists, or nurses;
- Provides an additional $3.75 million for the School-Based Mental Health Collaborations grant program;
- Provides $10.1 million to invest more in sparsity aid payments, including establishing a second tier of sparsity aid for school districts that would otherwise be eligible but have an enrollment of more than 745 pupils;
- Provides an additional $3.6 million for the expansion of summer school programming in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Racine as eligible districts;
- Permits school districts to hire newly retired employees within 30 days rather than the current 75 days;
- Provides an additional $130 million in equalization aid.
An estimated district by district breakdown of the additional $79.1 million for special education funding can be found here.
An estimated district by district breakdown of the 83 eligible districts for the Tier Two of Sparsity Aid can be found here.
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CPI For Bargaining Agreement
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 30, 2020
From the Legal Side:
In it’s most recent Quick Update, the BoardmanClark Law Firm reports that the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR) has advised the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) that the CPI increase applicable to one-year collective bargaining agreements with a term beginning on July 1, 2020 is 1.81%. This Quick Update also features discussion of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Cadillac Tax.
The SAA regularly receives these updates and we believe this is valuable information for SAA members. We are distributing this update to SAA members with the permission of BoardmanClark.
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SAA Opposes AB 670/SB 612
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 29, 2020
SAA Executive Director John Forester testified today in opposition to Assembly Bill 670 and Senate Bill 612 , relating to increasing the minimum WRS retirement age and return-to-work provisions for WRS annuitants. Testimony was delivered during public hearings on the bills before the Assembly Committee on State Affairs and the Senate Committee on Government Operations, Technology and Consumer Protection.
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WRS Retirement Age/Return-to-Work Bills to Receive Public Hearings
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 28, 2020
Companion bills Assembly Bill 670 and Senate Bill 612, relating to increasing the minimum WRS retirement age and return-to-work provisions for WRS annuitants, will receive public hearings concurrently in both the Senate Committee on Government Operations, Technology and Consumer Protection and the Assembly Committee on State Affairs on Wednesday, January 29th. The hearing notices are linked below. The Wisconsin Association of School Boards (WASB) supports this legislation. SAA opposes it. You might recall a previous blog post in which the SAA detailed the concerns about the bill raised by the SAA Legislative Committee.
Senate Committee on Government Operations, Technology and Consumer Protection hearing notice.
Assembly Committee on State Affairs hearing notice.
AB-670 Increasing Retirement Age (Felzkowski, Mary) Increasing the minimum retirement age under the Wisconsin Retirement System; decreasing the minimum break in service for annuitants in the Wisconsin Retirement System who are rehired by a participating employer, and allowing rehired annuitants to elect to not participate in the Wisconsin Retirement System.
SB-612 Increasing Retirement Age (Stroebel, Duey) Increasing the minimum retirement age under the Wisconsin Retirement System; decreasing the minimum break in service for annuitants in the Wisconsin Retirement System who are rehired by a participating employer, and allowing rehired annuitants to elect to not participate in the Wisconsin Retirement System.
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Proposals Abound for Anticipated State Revenue Increase
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 24, 2020
From WisPolitics.com …
The latest revenue estimates give the guv and lawmakers an additional $451.9 million — and maybe more — to play with ahead of the fall election with competing proposals to spend the money or create new tax cuts.
The estimates come as Gov. Tony Evers formally released an $8.5 million package to help farmers and rural economies, while Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, again called for a new property tax cut.
Still, Republicans were quick to push back on any rush to spend the money.
“With this new revenue, Republicans will continue to look for ways to protect taxpayers instead of growing government,” vowed Joint Finance Co-chairs Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, and John Nygren, R-Marinette.
The guv’s office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau today projected the state will take in an additional $818.2 million through mid-2021, largely thanks to strong corporate tax collections.
That additional revenue will mean a deposit of $409.1 million in the state’s rainy day fund, which is now expected to have a balance of more than $1 billion by mid-2021.
Adding the leftover tax collections with a slight bump in departmental revenues and a small decrease in net appropriations means an additional $451.9 million in the general fund, according to LFB.
And the state’s projected bottom line could grow even more depending on what happens with the Foxconn project in southeastern Wisconsin. The memo notes the state budgeted $212 million in tax credits for the Taiwanese manufacturer in 2020-21. But LFB Director Bob Lang wrote the agency expects the payment to be in the range of $50 million to $75 million based on progress at the facility to date.
The boost in tax revenue had been expected as monthly collection reports from the Evers administration showed corporate numbers running well ahead of projections. Late last year, Fitzgerald, who’s running for the 5th CD, said he wanted to see additional revenue go to a property tax cut.
Fitzgerald didn’t offer any specifics of what he will propose now that the new projections are in, saying he expects to work on the scope of the proposal in the coming weeks so the Senate can address it before adjourning in March.
“With another surplus this year, we should return some of that money to the working people in our state,” Fitzgerald said.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said he’ll work with his colleagues to pay down debt or reduce taxes and “return surplus dollars to the people who earn them.”
Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, urged using the money to address “areas of urgent need,” saying Republicans have underfunded the UW System during their control of the Capitol and then rejected Evers’ proposal to boost university aid. He also suggested using the money for school-based mental health care.
“With this news comes opportunity,” he said.
Three-fourths of the additional $818.2 million in tax collections comes from corporations, according to the LFB memo.
In May, the agency projected corporate tax collections to drop 14 percent in the first year of the budget before rebounding with growth of 3.4 percent in 2020-21. Now, the agency is projecting growth of 11.7 percent in 2019-20 and then an additional 0.7 percent in 2020-21.
That projection comes on the heels of corporate taxes going up 49.7 percent in 2018-19. LFB called the growth “unprecedented.”
LFB also noted an additional factor that could impact the state’s bottom line for the 2019-21 budget. The Department of Health Services in its last quarterly report projected Medical Assistance general purpose revenue costs to be $39.8 million higher than what was budgeted in
July. LFB called the estimate preliminary and noted steps can be taken to address the anticipated shortfall, which is 0.6 percent of budgeted costs for the fund over the biennium.
See the memo here.
See Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Coverage here.
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