Budget summary

6/29/2009 6:18:35 PM

A summary of key education-related aspects of the 2009-11 state budget approved by Governor Jim Doyle:

Collective Bargaining Reform

• Repeals the Qualified Economic Offer effective July 1, 2009. Eliminates a provision previously adopted by the Senate prohibiting arbitrators from giving weight to accumulated fund balances and denying access to these funds to pay for school district employees’ salaries if an arbitrator rules in favor of the union.
• Removes the requirement that arbitrators give “greatest weight” to revenue controls and “greater weight” to local economic conditions when resolving contract settlement disputes between school districts and labor union representing school district employees.
• Allows for contract terms up to four years and combining two or more school district bargaining units when they so choose (Teacher/ESP units and across districts).

School Funding

• Cuts school aids by 2.5% compared to base level funding.
• Ensures no school district loses more than 10% in general school aid as a result of the $147 million base funding reduction to general school aids.
• Increases aid to consolidated school districts.
• Increases high-poverty aid by $13.4 million over the biennium to reduce the property tax burden in school districts where at least 50 percent of the pupils qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
• Provides $11.4 million in sparsity aid.
• Restores $1.5 million in 2010-2011 for four-year-old kindergarten grants in addition to base level funding of $3 million in 2009-10.
• Allocates $180,000 in 2009-10 on a one-time basis for grants of $60,000 each to the school districts of the Pepin Area, Cochrane-Fountain City and Plum City.
• Provides that independent Milwaukee and Racine charter schools (2r charters), beginning with the 2011-12 school year, receive a per pupil payment adjusted by the per pupil adjustment allowable under revenue limits. Caps the proportional reduction for general school aids for all school districts at the 2010-11. Beginning in 2011-12 and in future years, expenditures for the program above the 2010-11 reduction amount would be funded from the general fund, rather than as a first draw on general school aids.

Revenue Caps

• Sets the per pupil adjustment to revenue caps at $200 each year of the 2009-11 biennium and at $275 per pupil in 2011-12.
• Provides revenue cap relief for energy efficiency measures beginning in the 2009-10 school year and for school safety costs, school nursing costs and higher than average transportation costs beginning in the 2011-12 school year.
• Restores the prior-year base revenue hold harmless under revenue limits.
• Sets the low-revenue ceiling at $9,800 beginning in 2011-2012 and thereafter.

Milwaukee Private School Voucher Program

• Reduces voucher payments by 2.5%.
• Ensures schools participating in the Milwaukee private school voucher program meet accountability standards.
• Eliminates a proposed bilingual-bicultural education program requirement for the Milwaukee private school voucher program.

Education Support Professionals

• Treats education support professionals fairly under the Wisconsin Retirement System.

Technical Colleges

• Increases the state’s investment in technical colleges and financial aid for technical college students.
• Provides for a nonresident tuition exemption for certain undocumented persons who enroll in a UW System institution or a Wisconsin technical college.

State Employees

• Subjects state agencies to across-the-board budget cuts which will result in state employee layoffs.
• Requires state employees to take 16 furlough days over the course of the 2009-11 biennium.
• Requires nonrepresented state employees to forgo a 2% pay increase.

State Budget