Email Shows Governor Offered $1.3 Billion Package Linking Tax Cuts to School Aid
According to the Associated Press and WisPolitics.com, an email from Governor Tony Evers’ office shows Evers’ staff made an offer to Republican legislative leaders to sign a bill that includes a $200 million increase in state reimbursements for special education and $450 million for general school aid. This would increase aid coming from the state and decrease how much districts can raise through property taxes for public schools. The report says Evers’ staff pledged Evers support for putting $550 million into the school levy tax credit, which offsets some of what homeowners would otherwise pay in property taxes for schools but does not necessarily increase funding for schools.
The Evers’ staffer’s email also offered to have the state cover $97 million to exempt cash tips from income taxes.
Recalling deals Governor Evers has made with Republicans in the Legislature in budget cycles, WEAC leaders are calling on the governor and legislative leaders to remember what our students need. Per-pupil spending and education employee compensation are below the national average and declining. Record numbers of school districts have gone to referendum just to have enough money to stay open.
“As they work on a deal, let’s remember that the deals the governor and the Legislature have made in the past have not helped the students in Wisconsin’s public schools,” WEAC President Peggy Wirtz-Olsen said. “As educators in public schools, the people who work with students every day, we need to remind the governor what we need.”
WEAC supports property tax relief, and believes the best way to deliver it is for the state to make good on the promise to fund at least two-thirds of local schools’ total costs. That longstanding standard is now a distant memory. Indeed, two-thirds of schools are getting less state aid this year than they received last year.
Wirtz-Olsen said any budget deal must also include a provision for sum-certain special education dollars, consistent with a bill currently in front of legislators. Also, Wirtz-Olsen said the governor and the Legislature should move forward with a study focused on providing the same quality, affordable health care for education employees that legislators and the governor have, consistent with another bill that has been introduced.
“If the deal the governor makes with the legislative leaders includes two-thirds funding from the state, sum-certain dollars for special education, and health insurance equity for public school employees, then that might be a good deal,” Wirtz-Olsen said.
WEAC has emphasized increasing state special education funding and bringing it in line with the state’s special education reimbursement for unaccountable private voucher schools in all of its activities related to the 2025-27 state budget. Currently, the state reimburses vouchers’ special education costs at 90 percent and public-school students’ special education at less than 35 percent. As record numbers of school districts go to referendum to meet essential costs, the low special education reimbursement rate is a large contributing factor.
WEAC is backing the just-introduced Special Education Bill (Assembly Bill 835/Senate Bill 828), a new, comprehensive bill moving through the Legislature that could significantly improve funding stability for Wisconsin’s public schools and strengthen the next generation of public school educators. Among other things, the bill makes a major change to the special education reimbursement, phasing the rates up to 90 percent. All WEAC members are urged to contact their legislators in favor of the bill.
