Conference Committee Brings K-12 Funding To Table

A conference committee on Thursday took the first step in bringing K-12 funding issues to the table as it continued its efforts to resolve the differences in the proposed 2007-09 state budgets forwarded by the Senate and Assembly. There were no agreements reached in Thursday’s deliberations.

The Assembly Republicans introduced a budget compromise offer on funding for Wisconsin’s public schools, but their offer falls far short of promoting great schools. The Assembly GOP offer in K-12:

• Still falls approximately $85 million short on school aids, compared to the budgets presented by the Senate and governor.
• Still fails to provide meaningful revenue cap relief for investments in school safety and health.
• Still fails to provide meaningful tax relief to Milwaukee property taxpayers who must shoulder 45% of the cost of the Milwaukee private school voucher program and denies additional property tax relief to other high poverty school districts.
• Still refuses to repeal the QEO, yet promotes merit pay.
• Still attempts to expand the private school voucher program to include schools in Milwaukee County and boost enrollment by 2,250 students each year while deleting a needed auditor position within the Department of Public Instruction to review financial records of participating schools. The GOP offer also expands the unaccountable voucher program into Racine County with no income or enrollment limits.
• Still cuts categorical aids for the most needy kids, such as school breakfast, bi-lingual, 4K and the SAGE class size reduction program.
• Still rejects help for Milwaukee Public schools to close the achievement gap and other MPS strategies.

The conference committee, which began its work in July, is comprised of members from the majority and minority parties. The committee will continue to seek compromise, as the two houses are more than $10 billion apart and have very different visions for the future of Wisconsin.

While the Senate Democrats’ pro-public education state budget provides the support to continue Wisconsin’s great schools tradition, the Assembly Republican budget proposal cuts $85 million in general school aids. The Assembly’s version also ratchets down the per-pupil revenue cap adjustment to $200, compared to the $264/$270 adjustment proposed by Governor Doyle and the Senate Democrats.

Members of the conference committee are:
Senate :
Judy Robson (D-Beloit), majority leader
Russ Decker (D-Weston), Senate chair, Joint Finance
Bob Jauch (D-Poplar), member of Joint Finance
Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), minority leader
Assembly:
Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem), speaker
Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon), majority leader
Kitty Rhoades (R-Hudson), Assembly chair, Joint Finance
Jim Kreuser (D-Kenosha), minority leader

Find out more about how the budget proposals stack up against each other by visiting OnWEAC’s Members Only page. The information is located in Cyberlobby, under 2007-09 State Budget Action.

Posted August 10, 2007