JFC Republicans propose putting $150 million into K-12 schools now, setting aside $350 million
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | May 27, 2021
From WisPolitics…
GOP lawmakers are proposing to put $150 million into K-12 education now, while putting aside $350 million that could be released later.
The proposed move comes with a federal requirement that the state maintain its current spending commitment to K-12 education in order to qualify for $2.2 billion in COVID-19 funds, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
The state would have to add $387 million in funding for K-12 education to the budget in its current form to meet that requirement. The price tag would go up if the Legislature spends additional general purpose revenue in other areas of the budget lawmakers have yet to take up.
There is a separate requirement to maintain the state’s funding commitment to higher ed to qualify for that federal aid as well. The committee was also scheduled to take up higher ed today.
Dems argued holding back $350 million of the money wouldn’t meet that requirement and jeopardizes the funding.
Joint Finance Co-chair Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, said lawmakers will “deal with that maintenance of effort issue along the way” as they build the rest of the budget.
The $150 million going to K-12 includes:
*$109 million into special ed;
*$13 million for high-cost transportation aid;
*$6.3 million to increase sparsity aid.
The rest of the $150 million would go into categorical aids, Born said during a pre-meeting news conference.
The committee today also plans to rework a plan from the Department of Public Instruction for some federal COVID-19 aid going to Wisconsin schools. It would reward districts that have offered in-person learning for at least 50 percent of the 2020-21 school year.
GOP lawmakers didn’t immediately release full details of their plan for K-12 or the reworking of the DPI money.
See the GOP release.
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More Members Respond to SAA Budget Alert
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | May 27, 2021
Check out these letters in response to the SAA’s urgent State Budget Alert.
Time is of the essence, friends! The Joint Finance Committee (JFC) will take up the K-12 education portion of the State Budget today!
We need your communications to your legislators in support of our shared budget priorities ASAP.
Howard-Suamico School District
Topics: SAA Capitol Reports, SAA Capitol Reports with Email Notifications, SAA Latest Update | No Comments »
LFB: GOP Lawmakers Would Need to Put Another $428 Million Into K-12, Higher Ed to Qualify for $3.1 Billion in Federal COVID Aid
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | May 27, 2021
From WisPolitics.com . . .
GOP lawmakers would have to put another $428 million into K-12 and higher education to ensure Wisconsin gets $3.1 billion from federal COVID-19 relief packages, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
That price tag is based on the actions of the Joint Finance Committee to date. If the GOP-controlled committee spends additional general purpose revenue in other areas of the budget it hasn’t taken up yet, lawmakers would have to add even more into education to meet the federal government’s maintenance of effort requirement to qualify for the money.
Likewise, if the committee cut spending from current levels, the required commitment to education would go down.
Ahead of today’s Joint Finance scheduled actions on the K-12 and higher ed budgets, LFB put together an overview of the federal requirements to ensure the state qualifies for the money through the American Rescue Plan Act President Biden signed this spring.
Separately, LFB prepared a memo at the request of committee member Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton. It included details beyond what was in the budget papers on the ARPA funds as well as the Consolidated Appropriations Act former President Trump signed in December.
Under both stimulus packages, states must maintain the same proportion of spending allocated to K-12 and higher education in 2021-22 and 2022-23 as their average allocation for 2016-17 through 2018-19.
According to the memo, which was shared with WisPolitics.com, the Evers administration last week notified the federal government of baseline state spending on K-12 and higher ed. Based on those figures, the state would have to spend almost 35.3 percent of all GPR on K-12 in each year of the 2021-23 budget to meet the requirement. It would have to spend nearly 8.9 percent of GPR on the UW System, tech colleges and the Higher Educational Aids Board.
That amounts to $387 million more for K-12 education and $41.2 million for higher ed.
The combined federal aid to K-12 schools under the CAA and ARPA is more than $2.2 billion. For higher ed, the federal aid in the two packages is $878.2 million.
The memo also notes states have the option to seek a waiver from the maintenance of effort requirement.
To do so, states would have to submit details about their level of support for education for a fiscal year in which the waiver was sought as well as information such as how COVID-19 caused a fiscal burden that affected their ability to maintain education spending levels.
In January, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau projected Wisconsin would finish the current fiscal year June 30 with a nearly $1.9 billion surplus and would see an additional $1 billion in revenue growth over the biennium. The LFB is expected to do new revenue projections for the upcoming two-year period that take into account the $594 million tax cut that lawmakers approved and Gov. Tony Evers signed in February.
Joint Finance Co-chair Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, said yesterday lawmakers only recently became aware of the maintenance of effort requirement.
“We question the legality of Governor Evers unilaterally accepting funds that lock the legislative branch into funding criteria without any consultation before accepting the money,” Born said.
Evers spokeswoman Britt Cudaback said GOP lawmakers wouldn’t have to worry about meeting the maintenance of effort requirement standard if they simply passed the guv’s budget as introduced.
Read the memo.
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LFB: State Could Lose $1.5 Billion in Federal Money for Schools Unless it Maintains Spending Commitment to K-12
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | May 26, 2021
From WisPolitics.com …
Wisconsin will have to maintain its current funding commitment to K-12 schools to ensure districts qualify for the full $1.5 billion in federal money that’s part of the latest COVID-19 package, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
And the Legislature won’t know for sure if its K-12 spending plan meets that standard until lawmakers finish their work on the state budget. That’s because the share of general purpose revenue going to K-12 will be impacted by how much the Legislature decides to spend overall with its version of the budget.
The requirement will complicate calls from some Republicans to hold flat state spending for K-12 education because of the federal money flowing to schools as part of the three relief packages. Doing that would require overall spending in the state budget to remain largely unchanged. Otherwise, the state’s commitment to K-12 would fall short of the federal requirement.
Joint Finance Co-chair Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, said lawmakers only recently became aware of the requirement.
“We question the legality of Governor Evers unilaterally accepting funds that lock the legislative branch into funding criteria without any consultation before accepting the money,” Born said.
Evers spokeswoman Britt Cudaback said GOP lawmakers wouldn’t have to worry about meeting the maintenance of effort requirement standard if they simply passed the guv’s budget as introduced.
The Joint Finance Committee meets tomorrow to take up K-12 funding as well as the Department of Public Instruction’s plan to spend a portion of the latest round of federal COVID relief funds.
Nearly $1.4 billion of the COVID money will be divided up according to a formula that takes into account the number of poor students in each district, while DPI has proposed using $39.4 million of the remaining money to ensure 131 school districts will receive minimum grants of $600,000 each.
The LFB paper on the federal money notes the federal government included a maintenance of effort requirement for states that accept the federal funds. Under that provision, states must maintain the same proportion of spending allocated to K-12 and higher education in 2021-22 and 2022-23 as their average allocation for 2016-17 through 2018-19.
The LFB paper prepared for tomorrow’s hearing doesn’t calculate the state’s average allocation over those years. But a WisPolitics.com check of past LFB documents show the state budgeted 32.7 percent of GPR for general school and categorical aids for K-12 over that period.
Under Evers’ budget as introduced, he called for spending 32.9 percent of GPR on general and categorical aids in the first year of the biennium and 33.6 percent in the second.
The requirements to accept the federal money could complicate the Legislature’s K-12 deliberations in other ways. There is an opportunity for states to apply for a waiver from some of the requirements, but the Biden administration has not yet provided full details.
It’s also unclear what the penalty would be for failing to meet the requirements or how the federal government would recover funds. Under the program, districts don’t receive the funding upfront. Instead, they must submit to DPI claims to be reimbursed for eligible expenditures. DPI has to review and approve each claim before districts can receive the payments.
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More Members Respond to SAA Budget Alert
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | May 26, 2021
Check out these letters in response to the SAA’s urgent State Budget Alert.
Time is of the essence, friends! The Joint Finance Committee (JFC) plans to take up the K-12 education portion of the State Budget this Thursday, May 27th!
We need your communications to your legislators in support of our shared budget priorities ASAP. The sooner the better.
Topics: SAA Capitol Reports, SAA Capitol Reports with Email Notifications, SAA Latest Update | No Comments »