Evers Signs State Budget
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | July 8, 2021
From WisPolitics.com …
Gov. Tony Evers OK’d a more than $2 billion income tax cut that reduces one of Wisconsin’s three brackets as he largely signed off on the budget that Republicans sent him last week.
But he nixed a provision to update income tax withholding tables and a $550 million transfer to the budget stabilization fund that Republicans had proposed.
In his veto message, Evers wrote taxpayers will already see significant savings in the budget he signed and nixing the update in withholding tables will not impact anyone’s tax liability. Rather than seeing additional money in their paychecks, taxpayers will instead continue to see the money in their refunds from the state.
He also wrote the budget stabilization fund was already flush with cash and the $550 million, which will now remain in the general fund, could be used to “address gaps and shortfalls in the Legislature’s budget actions.
In all, Evers’ veto message listed 50 changes he made to the budget.
During a signing ceremony at a Whitefish Bay school, the guv also announced he’s investing more than $100 million in federal funds into K-12 education.
Read the veto message here.
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Second School Funding Benchmark Could Jeopardize CIVID-19 Relief Funding
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | July 8, 2021
From WisPolitics.com …
Some new guidance from the U.S. Education Department added a wrinkle in the debate over education funding ahead of Evers’ final deliberations on the budget.
The budget GOP lawmakers produced met one benchmark to qualify Wisconsin for $2.3 billion in federal aid. But citing the new guidance from the Biden administration, Department of Public Instruction officials said it was unclear if the budget would hit a second benchmark that requires states to maintain aid to high-poverty districts.
Complicating matters, it won’t be clear until this spring whether the state meets the second mark. If it falls short, the state could need to pump additional general purpose revenue into K-12 schools to shore up its qualifications for the federal money.
As the Joint Finance Committee deliberated the budget, Evers had knocked the original proposed investment in K-12, in part, because it failed to meet a maintenance of effort requirement in the last two COVID-19 packages to qualify for $2.3 billion in federal aid for K-12. That benchmark required states to maintain how much they put toward K-12 and higher ed as a share of their overall spending. The GOP budget later met that mark after the committee used some of the $4.4 billion in unanticipated revenue growth to put more money into K-12 and tech colleges.
The American Rescue Plan Act that President Biden signed also included a second benchmark requiring states to maintain their support for high-poverty districts. It was noted in a March LFB memo. But the requirement began receiving new attention late last month after the U.S. Department of Education provided additional guidance.
The agency wrote the “maintenance of equity” provisions were designed to ensure schools that serve large proportions of historically underserved groups — including students of color, those from low-income backgrounds and with disabilities — receive an “equitable share” of state and local funds. What’s more, the effort is designed to make sure those schools that serve the highest poverty districts don’t see a decrease in state funding below what they received in 2018-19.
DPI’s Tom McCarthy said the agency, now being led by new Superintendent Jill Underly, is still working through a host of calculations that will go into determining whether the state meets that requirement.
For example, the provision includes a formula that takes into account a community’s poverty based on Census data and district enrollment to determine which districts will be used to determine if the state meets the benchmark. DPI is still working on that calculation.
The benchmark for the highest poverty districts will take into account both general school aids and categorical aids.
DPI last week released its first estimate of what districts will receive through general school aids, and four of the state’s 20 poorest districts are projected to receive less for the 2021-22 school year than they did in 2018-19.
But those numbers won’t be finalized until October.
Meanwhile, categorical aids are paid out in the fall and spring. That means the state can’t determine whether it met the benchmark for the high-poverty districts until spring.
It also remains unclear what the federal government would do if it determined the state failed to meet the maintenance of equity benchmark. The money distributed through the COVID bills is a reimbursement program in which districts spend money on qualified expenses and then receive payment from the federal government to cover the outlay.
During debate on the maintenance of effort requirement, Joint Finance Co-chairs Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, and Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, questioned whether the federal government would try to recoup money from school districts if the state fell short of maintenance of effort benchmarks.
Asked about the latest fed guidance, the GOP lawmakers issued a joint statement accusing DPI and Evers of playing politics. They cited DPI’s failure to submit to the feds for final approval a plan to divvy up some of the federal money among districts that Evers signed off on in mid-June “in hopes that the Biden administration will help him move the goalposts once again.”
A DPI spokesman said the agency was waiting until the state budget was finalized to submit the plan and expected to submit it by mid-August.
“It’s sad that Governor Evers is playing politics with this K-12 funding plan,” Born and Marklein said.
See the U.S. Department of Education guidance here.
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Evers to Act on State Budget This Morning
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | July 8, 2021
From WisPolitics.com …
Gov. Tony Evers will take action on the budget today during a morning news conference at a Whitefish Bay elementary school, his office said.
Evers will be joined by Revenue Secretary Peter Barca and new state schools Superintendent Jill Underly.
The guv also will travel to an Eau Claire hospital and UW-Green Bay today for additional news conferences.
A livestream of the 10 a.m. news conference in Whitefish Bay will be available on Evers’ Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/GovernorTonyEvers
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DPI Releases July 1 General Aid Estimate
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | July 1, 2021
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction today, as required by state law, released an estimate of the general school aids each public school district will receive for the 2021-22 school year. The estimate is based in part on the 2021-2023 state biennial budget recommendation approved by the Joint Committee on Finance on June 17, 2021.
For more information, and for full estimated general school aids, see here.
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Budget Heads to Evers’ Desk After Clearing the Senate
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | July 1, 2021
From WisPolitics.com …
The state budget is now before Gov. Tony Evers after it cleared the Senate on a bipartisan vote.
Three Dems joined all 20 Republicans last night in backing the bill. The massive bill drew four Dem votes in the Assembly.
The Senate Dems who supported the bill were: Minority Leader Janet Bewley, of Mason; Brad Pfaff, of Onalaska; and Jeff Smith, of Brunswick. None spoke before the vote to explain their support.
After the vote, Bewley and Pfaff told WisPolitics.com they were hoping Evers would use his line-item veto to improve the document. Bewley said she had received no assurances from the guv on what he would do, but was operating under the assumption he will use his line-item veto and then sign the budget.
“I really believe in the governor’s ability to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” Bewley said. “Some of us have to pay attention to our districts.”
Pfaff, elected to his western Wisconsin seat last fall by 582 votes out of more than 97,000 cast, said: “This isn’t the budget that I would have written if I was in the majority. But this is the budget that’s before us.”
It is the first time since 2007 that a budget cleared either house of the Legislature with bipartisan backing.
That year Republicans controlled the Assembly while Dems had the state Senate and guv’s office. The budget was delayed until October when a group of minority Dems and Assembly Republicans worked together to pass a budget in that house.
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