Joint Finance Committee Cuts Billions from Gov. Evers’ Public Ed Budget

Barely Changes Severely Unfair Special Education Reimbursement

The Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee completed their changes to Governor Tony Evers’ biennial state budget bill for K-12 public education on June 12, passing along to the state Senate and Assembly a budget that cuts more than $3.1 billion out of the amount Evers allocated for public schools.

Ignoring inflation and other rising school costs that have led to record numbers of districts going to referendum in recent years, the Joint Finance budget includes no increases in general aid, no increases in per-pupil aid, and very small increases in mental health, transportation, and sparsity aid.

While WEAC and other public-school advocates have called for increasing public schools’ primary special education reimbursement to at least 60 percent of districts’ mandated costs, essentially doubling the current rate, Joint Finance’s budget only increases the special education reimbursement to 35 percent in 2025-26 and 37.5 percent in 2026-27. Rather than increasing the primary special education reimbursement that all districts can use, Joint Finance is increasing the so-called high-cost special education reimbursement that many districts cannot use. These small increases to the special education reimbursement essentially account for all the increase Joint Finance is proposing over the existing public-school budget that passed two years ago.

Unaccountable private voucher schools, meanwhile, will continue to have all their primary special education costs reimbursed at 90 percent, even though 95 percent of the state’s special education students attend public schools. Voucher schools will also enjoy increases in the general aid and per-pupil aid that are frozen for public schools. This glaring inequity has underpinned much of the K-12 budget discussion this year, along with the fact that the state is carrying a $4.6 billion budget surplus.

“The Joint Finance Committee’s budget is a slap in the face to all the students and staff in Wisconsin’s public schools, and to everyone who cares about public education,” WEAC President Peggy Wirtz-Olsen said. “To call it inadequate would be a monumental understatement. Public schools have lost 20 percent to inflation in the last decade, and this budget would almost certainly increase that deficit. School costs are increasing even faster than the cost of living, and our students’ needs are greater than they have ever been, yet the Joint Finance majority chooses to ignore all of that and play political games with our state’s future.”

Once the budget bill moves on to the state Senate and Assembly, both houses will have the opportunity to change it substantially, including increasing funding for public schools. Then it will go back to Governor Evers, who could veto the entire budget.

In the wake of Joint Finance’s budget changes, Wirtz-Olsen called on all WEAC members to email your legislators and demand changes that restore Evers’ original budget numbers. She said WEAC is continuing to analyze the Joint Finance budget and its possible impact on public-school students and educators.