Assembly Committee Votes To Overhaul Voucher School Funding

School classroom. Image by Wokandapix on Pixabay

Wisconsin lawmakers advanced a bill that would change the way school voucher programs are funded, so that funding for all of Wisconsin’s private school choice programs comes directly from state general purpose revenue. The same group of lawmakers also advanced a package of bills Wednesday meant to address truancy.

The Assembly Education Committee approved AB 900, the choice program funding bill, in a 8-3 vote with Reps. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay), Kristina Shelton (D-Green Bay) and Dave Considine (D-Baraboo) voting against. Gov. Tony Evers has also expressed opposition to the bill.

According to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo, students who participate in the Racine, statewide and special needs scholarship programs are currently funded via two different mechanisms. Students who started on of the programs in 2014-15 or prior are fully funded from the state general fund.

The funding set-up is different for students who started in one of the two programs in the 2015-16 school year or later. For those students, the per-pupil amount paid to private voucher schools is funded by a reduction in state aid from the public school district that the student would otherwise attend. To make up for the reduction, school districts are able to count the students participating in the choice program and receive a nonrecurring revenue limit adjustment for each student, allowing school districts to increase local taxes by the exact amount lost in aid.

Other than the revenue limit adjustment, districts cannot levy more taxes to make up for these aid reductions.

In contrast, payments to private schools in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program are funded through a combination of state general purpose revenue (GPR) and local funding, and the program is on track to be fully funded by GPR by the 2024-25 school year.

Under AB 900, all the voucher programs would be separated from school districts and would, instead, be funded completely by state general purpose revenue starting in the 2024-25 school year.

Republican lawmakers and supporters of the bill have said the policy — often referred to as “decoupling” — would better serve Wisconsin schools by helping allocate money more efficiently and allowing all voucher programs to be funded the same way.

“I think that we have to focus on efficiencies here to be able to use the taxpayer’s dollar more effectively and more directly into the classroom,” Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) said during the Wednesday meeting. “This is an administrative cost for schools to have to do this fiscal gymnastics to say, ‘Now this is our state aid and we have to write a check to this school and this school and this school for this kid and this kid… It’s simply an accounting change.

Democratic lawmakers expressed frustrations about the Republican bill on Wednesday for coming so late in the legislative session and for neglecting to consider how Wisconsin’s education system is funded more broadly.

“It is not possible to talk about shifting such a significant component of funding for some schools without having an understanding of the larger picture,” Shelton said. “It’s like taking one piece of a puzzle away without being able to see what the whole puzzle is supposed to look like.”

Andraca added that the conversation needs to be had in the next budget cycle, not at the end of the legislative session.

An amendment to the bill that the committee adopted would provide a revenue limit adjustment for school districts that is equal to 25% of the impact on a school district’s levy that occurs due to the changes in the bill. The addition is meant to be a “sweetener” for public schools, but Shelton called it a “crumb, less than a crumb.”

“I was disappointed at the lack of collaboration on this bill and the framing of the sweetener… for public schools,” Shelton said. “If we actually were interested in collaboration and bipartisan support, I think there were things that we actually could have put in this bill to get us there. We could have been talking about 90% reimbursement for special ed. We could have been talking about increasing per pupil funding.”

Bill coauthor Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) said that lawmakers tried to work with the Gov. Tony Evers’ office, but that the governor was not interested in talking about the issue.

“You can call it a crumb. It may well be a crumb. We were very willing to talk about special ed and other areas, but he absolutely would not talk about it,” Kitchens said. “I believe the administration wants an issue more than they want a solution to the problem.”

Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback said Evers opposes the bill because the state “already has a public school system that is woefully underfunded.”

“Gov. Evers will not support creating a separate school funding system so certain schools can be funded differently than every other public school in our state,” Cudaback said in a statement to the Examiner. “Gov. Evers urges Republicans to focus on doing what’s best for our kids by meaningfully funding our public schools under the system we already have, as the governor has repeatedly requested.”

The committee also approved AB-1042 in a 10-2 vote with Considine and Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) voting against.

The bill would combine the three choice programs currently administered by DPI — the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, Racine Parental Choice Program and Wisconsin Parental Choice Program — into one program called the Private School Choice Program.

Supporters say the bill will bring more efficiency to the school voucher system once enrollment caps for the programs are lifted in 2026-27.

Committee advances truancy package

Lawmakers also advanced a package of bills meant to address truancy, though the support for the bills was mixed.

AB-1026, which would prohibit schools from promoting a student to the next grade who is absent for more than the equivalent of 30 full school days in a year, passed 8-5. Rep. Cindi Duchow (R-Town of Delafield) joined Democrats against the bill.

Sheboygan Republican Rep. Amy Binsfeld, one of the authors on the bill, said lawmakers were asked how they could make sure kids are getting to school and hold them accountable. She said lawmakers learned on the bipartisan task force on truancy that subjecting students “to the juvenile justice system, subjecting parents to fines when parents are already struggling financially, are not the best answer.”

“In trying to look at what could be an answer, how do we hold some accountability? This is kind of what came to mind,” Binsfeld said.

Shelton said that she was concerned about the harms the bill could do.

“I do think we can look at what academic and professional research tells us about grade retention, and that research tells us that it’s very clear that grade retention… is associated with poorer academic outcomes, including higher dropout rates, and a greater risk of behavioral issues,” Shelton said. “To me, that seems like the opposite of what we’re trying to do, right? We’re trying to keep kids in school. We’re trying to help them out academically.”

Rep. LaKeshia Myers (D-Milwaukee), who signed on to the bill with Republicans, said that schools are asking for something with “shock value” to address the issue and that the measure “puts everyone on notice.”

The committee approved AB-1024, which would require that notices to parents about a habitually truant student include telling parents that they can request an evaluation of whether the child has a disability. The vote was 7-4 with Rep. Chuck Wichgers (R-Muskego), Shelton, Considine and Andraca voting against.

Wichgers said that he spoke with some administrators who had concerns about the bill, which led to his opposition.

Lawmakers also adopted an amendment to the bill that would require a notice to include language that tells parents about correcting an unexcused absence.

AB-1025, which is meant to establish statewide standards defining truancy, passed 8-4 with Shelton, Considine, Andraca and Hong voting against.

AB-1027, which would dedicate $2 million to a truancy reduction grant program, was approved 11-1 with Duchow against. The bill that would instruct the state Department of Public Instruction to create the program, AB-1028, was approved unanimously.

AB-1029 would require DPI to include in its annual school and school district report cards information about the percentage of pupils who are habitually truant. The bill passed 8-4 with Shelton, Considine, Hong and Myers voting against.

Assembly Education Committee votes to change private school funding, advances truancy bills was originally published by Wisconsin Examiner.