Notes from the West Wing
By
State Representative Garey Bies
Assembly K-12 Funding and Shared Revenue Proposal
I know it has only been a few days since my last e-update, but with events coming this week I thought a special edition of Notes from the West Wing was warranted.
As you are probably aware, the Wisconsin State Budget has been bogged down in the Conference Committee. The two sides were, and are, very far apart in their visions for state taxes and spending with the Senate Democrats proposing $18 billion in new taxes and the Assembly proposing a no tax increase budget. To date, the numerous compromise offers from the Assembly have been flat out rejected as Senate Democrats have refused to negotiate. This has led to the passing of summer and no budget. The consequence of this is that local school districts and local governments have been left in the dark as to what level of funding could be expected from the state. For school districts, September 28th is the deadline for the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to receive the data from the legislature on expected state aid. At that point, DPI then informs the local school districts of their anticipated state aid. From that, the local school districts then turn to the local taxpayers to make up any shortfall.
If the legislature does not pass a budget by the September 28th deadline, DPI instructs local districts to anticipate state aid to continue at previous budget levels, meaning no state aid increase. If this happens, local school districts will be forced to levy a property tax increase of $590 million. This would not be good for our taxpayers, our schools, and our students.
As I said, the budgets of the Assembly and Senate are quite far apart. However, in some areas the two houses are relatively close. While the Assembly budget called for an increase in total state aid to schools of $464 million and the Governor’s budget called for an increase of $448 million, the two budgets arrive at those funding levels in different ways. But with the September 28th deadline for DPI fast approaching and a resulting $590 million property tax increase looming, the Assembly, in the ultimate of compromises, has taken the Democrat budget provision concerning K-12 education, drafted it as legislation, and will take it up on the floor tomorrow and pass it in order to provide our schools with the funding they need to avoid a $590 million tax increase.
It would have been nice if the Conference Committee could have worked out the differences between the two houses, but until Friday, no measurable progress had been made by the Committee on any provision in the budget. The legislature, the schools, the taxpayers and the students simply cannot afford to wait any longer, so that is why we must take up this portion of the budget on Tuesday. Does anyone really think that the Democrats’ new claim that the entire budget can be addressed in two weeks rings true when no single issue has been resolved in the last 3½ months? No, I don’t think so. Perhaps the Conference Committee will finish their work in two weeks, but if they don’t, at least this critical budget component will be taken care of.
The K-12 funding package to be taken up by the Assembly provides for an increase of $235 million in general aid for K-12 education, as originally proposed in the Governor’s budget. Other components in the Assembly legislation, originally proposed by the Governor, include increasing special education funding by $53.5 million and school breakfast by $3.2 million. The Assembly proposal also includes the Senate Democrat provision to increase SAGE funding by $26.7 million and the Assembly provision to provide $10 million for school safety grants. The legislation also increases the pupil transportation reimbursement rate from $180 to $220 for pupils transported over twelve miles.
The legislation to be taken up by the Assembly also includes the Governor’s original provisions for declining enrollment and severely declining enrollment school districts. Also included is an increase for the revenue ceiling for low-revenue school districts. Passage of the legislation would provide for per pupil revenue increases of $264 in 2007-2008 and $270 in 2008-2009.
This is the Governor’s budget concerning K-12 education. The Assembly cannot compromise any more than adopting the Governor’s budget. It will be up to the Senate to pass it as well, and I hope they do. This is the budget provision introduced by the Governor, reviewed, debated and passed by the Joint Finance Committee and then largely passed by the Senate. This is the same budget plan the Joint Finance Committee held public hearings on as it traveled around the state. The state is out of time, we must pass this budget. If the Democrats refuse to pass this budget plan in the Senate, they will take their obstructionist tactics to a new level. We are giving the Democrats their K-12 budget. I will be very surprised if they do not pass it but for the good of Wisconsin, I sincerely hope they do.
In addition to the K-12 funding package to be taken up Tuesday, the Assembly Republicans also will take up legislation to establish county and municipal aid, also known as shared revenue. The Assembly position will provide $854.7 million to municipalities and will eliminate the decrease some cities would have seen under the Assembly Budget as well as the 5% across-the-board cut the counties would have received. We’ve also included a levy limit of 2% or growth, which is the levy limit signed by the Governor in the last budget and represents the halfway point between the Senate’s levy limit of 4% and the Assembly’s limit of 0%.
The key part of the levy limit language for me was that the exemption for the Door County EMS department be included. As I’ve said before, this is exactly the type of inter-governmental cooperation that should be encouraged, so I wanted the exemption language included, and am very pleased that it is included.
Passage of this legislation does not signal an end to the budget process. While these provisions represent just over 50% of state spending, there will remain many issues the Conference Committee will have to tackle, including $18 billion in tax increases proposed by the Senate Democrats, $15 billion of which represents Healthy Wisconsin. These issues, however, do not face a September 28th deadline as K-12 funding does. While it would have been nice if the Conference Committee could have addressed the entire budget by now, it has not. That is why the legislature must act to prevent an unnecessary $590 million property tax increase.
If you would like further details on these proposals or the action by the Assembly and hopefully the Senate to take them up, please do not hesitate to contact me. I can be reached by e-mail at Rep.Bies@legis.wisconsin.gov or by telephone, toll-free at 1-888-482-0001. You can also visit my website at http://www.legis.state.wi.us/assembly/asm01/news/.