Senate bill preserves K-12 funding, slashes vouchers
The State Senate Friday (April 5, 2002) approved a state budget adjustment bill that preserves K-12 education funding and slashes funding for the Milwaukee private school voucher program.
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Early retirement plan The budget adjustment plan adopted by the State Senate contains
an early retirement “window” for state employees,
but not school district staff. The Qualified Economic Offer law is to blame for K-12 employees
not being part of that plan. “Under QEO costing procedures, there was no equitable
way to provide the retirement benefit to local school district
employees,” WEAC Legal Counsel Anthony Sheehan said.
“The early retirement plan would be paid for by increasing
current contributions to the Wisconsin Retirement System,
which will increase fringe benefit costs and decrease salaries
for employees subject to the QEO.” Sheehan said the QEO would shift costs to current and future
employees, who would pay for this one-time window for a few
retirees for at least 10 years. “It appears that the people who would be able to benefit
from the early retirement window would not have paid for it,”
Sheehan said. “Current and future employees would bear
the burden of paying not only for their own retirement benefits,
but these people who were able to take early retirement.” “This is one more example of why the QEO should be repealed,” WEAC President Stan Johnson said. |
A committee of Senate and Assembly representatives will now be appointed to iron out differences between the budget bills passed by each house. That compromise bill will then go back to the Senate and Assembly for final approval and be sent to the governor for his possible veto actions and signature.
The Senate and Assembly bills are very different, but both houses agreed on the central point of protecting K-12 funding while addressing the state's $1.1 billion budget deficit. Governor McCallum's budget plan also preserved K-12 funding.
The Senate bill would save $23 million in the coming school year by cutting Milwaukee private school voucher subsidies from $5,780 per student to $2,000 for grade school students and $3,000 for high school students next year. The following year, the vouchers would be cut in half again.
The bill also saves an estimated $60 million by providing an early retirement incentive to state employees. The Senate's early retirement plan will not be available to K-12 teachers (see sidebar).
The bill also:
- Maintains the state's commitment to fund two-thirds of the costs of K-12 operations.
- Preserves early childhood educational opportunities.
- Increases funding for statewide special education and creates new “Enhanced Capacity and Quality” aid to Milwaukee's public schools.
- Continues the commitment to reduce class sizes in the early grades.
- Strengthens the economy by retaining an investment in Wisconsin's technical colleges and employees.
The Senate, Assembly and governor's versions of the budget all rely heavily on the state's anti-smoking endowment to balance the budget. The Senate bill empties the fund of $794 million, and increases funding of the Tobacco Control Board by $10 million a year.
The Senate bill preserves the state's $1 billion a year shared revenue program for local municipalities, a program that was eliminated over three years in the governor's plan and nearly cut in half over three years by the Assembly plan.
The Senate also was kinder to the University of Wisconsin System, cutting funding by just $20 million over two years and capping tuition increases at 8%. The Assembly cut UW funding by $108 million.
WEAC members and staff will be closely monitoring the work of the legislative conference committee.