State Budget Highlights

The Legislature passed the 2001-03 State Budget on July 26.

The Assembly voted 73-22 in favor of the $47 billion budget. The Senate voted 25-8 on the bill. The budget will go to Gov. McCallum who must act on the bill before August 30.

WEAC members are encouraged to contact the governor and urge him to make great schools a priority as he makes veto decisions on the budget. Let him know by e-mail how you feel about revenue cap flexibility, collective bargaining rights or support for WTCS.

Revenue Cap Flexibility:

• $45M -- Allow districts to raise their limit by 0.78% annually. This effort will be aided as part of the school funding formula.
  
• $14.1M -- Restore the current law annual inflationary adjustment under revenue caps.
  
• $8.4M -- Restore the current law 40% funding of summer school programs under revenue caps.
  
• $22M -- Provide a revenue cap exemption to school district expenditures related to "community service" programs.
  
• $60M -- Maintain the state's commitment to fund two-thirds of referenda-approved school district construction costs as well as maintain current law on scheduling of local government referenda
  
• $700,000 -- Provide a revenue limit adjustment for large area, low enrollment districts and modify special adjustment aids for qualifying districts
  
• $193,300 -- Provide a revenue limit adjustment for the Wausau School District Integration Transfer Program

The state-imposed revenue caps, which limit the amount of money school districts are entitled to receive in state aids and property taxes, are keeping many school districts from providing classrooms that work. Districts are being forced to delay spending on necessities such as building maintenance and the purchase of computers. They have also cut or eliminated important programs and services for children.

SAGE:

• $171M -- Fully funds the SAGE program through third grade in all eligible schools. The governor's original budget cut SAGE funding by approximately $37 million by only allowing schools with a poverty rate above 50% to continue SAGE through the third grade.

There is no better example of a program that makes classrooms work than the SAGE class-size reduction program, which limits class sizes in early grades in low-income schools and requires districts to create and implement plans for improving student performance.

Special Education:

• Provide no general aid increase for reimbursement to school districts for special education costs.

The ability of Wisconsin schools to provide classrooms that work ischallenged by the state's failure to commit to funding special education. Schools are being forced to choose between special education and regular education. It will be critical for WEAC and its members to urge the governor not to veto the revenue cap flexibility provision in the budget. That is the only way districts can generate revenue to offset the lack of special education funding in the budget.

Four-Year-Old Kindergarten:

• Cut $14M -- Provide that for revenue cap purposes, pupils enrolled in a 4K program would be counted as 0.3 pupil, rather than 0.5 as under current law. Also provide that all children in a 4K program that provides 87.5 additional hours of outreach activities would be counted as 0.4 pupil, rather than 0.6 pupil as under current law.
  
• Allow school districts to increase their revenue limit in an amount equal to the 0.2 pupil reduction

The success of Wisconsin's public schools is linked to the general readiness of students to learn. Appropriate funding for 4K programs will provide the youngest learners with every opportunity to reach their full potential. The budget stops short of restoring current law funding for 4K programs.

Collective Bargaining:

• Reject the Assembly proposal to make bargaining the selection of group health insurers a permissive subject of bargaining.
  
• Reject the Assembly proposal to revise the QEO law so that a school district would only have to provide "substantially similar" benefits to teachers from one contract to the next.
  
• Reject the Assembly proposal leaving it up to the State Commissioner of Insurance, a Republican appointee, to determine what constitutes "substantially similar" benefits. Under current QEO law, an employer must maintain both the existing fringe benefits package and the district's percentage contribution effort in that package.
  
• Reject the Assembly proposal to require school districts to not only solicit sealed bids for provision of group health insurance but also encourage them to put their employees in the state insurance pool rather than continuing coverage under one of the WEA Insurance Trust group health plans.
  
• Maintain the establishment of the school calendar as a mandatory subject of bargaining.

The quality of a school staff is enhanced when the staff is part of decision-making over issues like fringe benefit options and salary structure. The Assembly Republicans wanted to roll back health insurance benefits by making health insurance a permissive subject of bargaining and by changing the QEO law. Another Republican provision would have made the establishment of the school calendar a permissive subject of bargaining. Nearly a thousand WEAC members contacted Assembly Republican leaders to demand that the assault on Wisconsin public school employees stop. In the end, the Assembly retreated on every point.

QEO:

• New QEO Component: Maintenance of All Conditions of Employment. In order for a school district employer's offer to be deemed "qualified," newly require the employer to maintain all conditions of employment as those conditions existed 90 days prior to the expiration of any previous collective bargaining agreement between the employer and its represented teaching employees or 90 days prior to the commencement of negotiations, if there was no previous collective bargaining agreement.
  
• New QEO Component: Maintenance of Any Provisions Relating to Permissive Subjects of Bargaining. In order for a school district employer's offer to be deemed "qualified," newly require the employer to maintain any provisions relating to permissive subjects of bargaining that existed in the previous collective bargaining agreement between the employer and its represented teaching employees or that existed 90 days prior to the expiration of any previous collective bargaining agreement between the parties in any written agreement by the parties.
  
• Binding Arbitration Authorized if Employer's Offer is not "Qualified." Specify that if an investigator from the Employment Relations Commission determines, as part of an investigation whether a bargaining impasse exists between the parties, that the employer has not submitted a timely QEO, either the labor organization representing the school district professional employees or the school district employer would be authorized to petition for compulsory, final and binding arbitration, and the current law QEO provisions whereby an employer could avoid such arbitration procedures would not apply. Require the Commission to prescribe by rule the methodology to be used to determine whether or not a proposal submitted by a school district employer constitutes a timely QEO.
  
• QEO Initial Applicability. Provide that these provisions would first apply to petitions for arbitration filed by school district employers or their represented teaching employees after the general effective date of the biennial budget act.

WEAC supports the full repeal of the QEO law. The law unfairly singles out educators to cap salary increases, destroys local collective bargaining and is harmful to employee morale impacting the overall quality of instruction in schools. These proposed changes to the QEO law seek to restore fairness to the local bargaining relationship by maintaining conditions of employment, protecting permissive subjects of bargaining and requiring the WERC to define a timely QEO.

"Paycheck Protection":

• Reject the Assembly Republican provisions to establish a "paycheck protection" law making it illegal for all employers and unions to collect member dues for use in political action.

The "paycheck protection" law would undermine the First Amendment rights of teachers and other education employees. It prevents them from forming associations to advance their interests by speech and petitions to the government for redress of grievances. No other types of voluntary membership associations are subject to such restrictions on constitutionally protected activities.

GPR Appropriation for the Milwaukee Voucher Program:

• Delete the general school aid reduction for the voucher program for non-MPS districts.
  
• Require MPS school aids to be reduced by an amount equal to 45% of the cost of the voucher program.
  
• Allow the amount of property taxes levied by MPS to offset the voucher reduction to be counted outside of the calculation of two-thirds partial school revenues.
  
• Fund Voucher summer school programs at the same 40% level as public summer school programs.

This provision essentially establishes a separate GPR appropriation for the voucher program. State aid to schools outside Milwaukee will no longer be reduced to pay for the voucher program. This provision will require the voucher program to "stand alone" as an appropriation in the state budget. WEAC believes the voucher program must eventually be held accountable to the taxpayers for this appropriation and that voucher schools should be required to meet the same standards and assessments as public schools.

Charter School Law:

• Allow, on a pilot basis, the UW-Parkside to establish or contract to establish one charter school in Racine. The Charter school could not operate as a high school or enroll more than 400 pupils. Apply various other conditions relating to the creation of this new charter entity.
  
• Reject the Assembly provisions that would have allowed counties, CESAs and WTCS districts to charter schools statewide.

In order for public schools to benefit everyone, they need to be accountable to the voters through their elected representatives on school boards. That is why WEAC feels so strongly that new charter schools must be instrumentalities of the local school districts and that employees of charter schools must be employees of the district with full bargaining rights.

WTCS Related Funding Items:

• $1.3M - Provide a 3.25% annual increase in funding for the WHEG grant program
  
• Cut $4.3M -- Limit TOP Grant to just first year students effective July 1, 2001.
  
• $1.5M - Provide $750,000 annually for incentive grants to districts with limited fiscal capacity.
  
• $1.5M - Provide $750,000 annually for additional course selection grants for the purpose of adding sections in courses where student demand exceeds capacity.
  
• $300,000 - Provide funding for assistive technology grants
  
• Require each WTCS board to accept credits transferred from another district or from an institution or college campus within the UW system for general education courses and for courses included under a current plan for coordinating the transfer of credits.
  
• Expand the sunset date for expenditures on applied technology centers without referendum approval from January 1, 2002, to July 1, 2003.

WEAC supported these increases in grant funding for the WTCS, but also supported a general aid increase to the WTCS. The conference committee did not provide any general aid increases to the WTCS.

Summary of Other Various Public Instruction Related Items:

• Delay $115M in school aid payments to the next biennium.
  
• Fund state residential schools in 2/3 calculation.
  
• Create a Legislative Council Study Committee of School Funding.
  
• Create a Legislative Council Study Committee of Special Education Funding.
  
• Rename the morning milk program the school day milk program.
  
• $220,000 - aid increase for County Children with Disabilities Education Boards
  
• $217,800 - aid increase for school breakfast programs
  
• Retain base level funding for the High School Graduation Test development, but delay test implementation by two-years. Restore the parent opt-out provision to the test.
  
• $2.5M - Eliminate the 5% base budget cuts to DPI.
  
• Delete all provisions that would require DPI to report on distribution of federal aids.
  
• $900,000 - Provide $450,000 annually to the minority precollege scholarship program.
  
• $223,700 - Aid increase for the Badgerlink program.
  
• $300,000 - Aid increase for after school care programs.
  
• Beginning in 2002-2003, prohibit districts from starting school before September 1. Specify that DPI could only grant a waiver of this requirement if it determines there are extraordinary reasons for granting it. Require DPI to promulgate rules to implement and administer this provision.
  
• Allow school districts to hold their annual meetings before May 15 or after October 31. Under current law, meetings may not be held before May 15 or after September 30.
  
• Beginning in 2005-2006, require all public and private schools to offer the Pledge of Allegiance or the national Anthem in grades one to twelve each school day; allow schools to adopt a policy requiring school uniforms; require schools that offer human growth and development classes to offer instruction in marriage and parental responsibility; encourage armed forces veterans to visit schools to discuss their experiences as veterans and establish certain special observance days in statute.
  
• Establish a children's vision initiative.
  
• Establish a Wisconsin Educational Services Program for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
  
• Reject Assembly provision allowing TEACH grants to be given to private schools.
  
• Require public utilities to provide DOA with energy billing and use data for public schools.
  
• Create a new Department of Electronic Government

For More Information:

Please contact Bob Burke, WEAC Legislative Program Coordinator, with any questions relating to the information contained in this initial summary of the budget conference committee report. Bob can be reached by e-mail at burkeb@weac.org or by phone at 800-362-8034.