Burmaster’s budget recognizes
problems with funding system
Saying that access to and equity in education are issues
of moral and social justice and economic imperative Wisconsin’s
school superintendent, Sept. 18, called for a sizable reinvestment
in our public schools.
Speaking before a large crowd in the Capital Rotunda, State
Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster said our schools have been
stretched to the limit. “Wisconsin’s dedicated
educators have been resilient … (but) unless we reinvest
in our PK-12 education system and make our students world
ready, Wisconsin will lose (its) competitive edge in the 21st
century.”
Burmaster was delivering her annual
state-of-education address as part of a conference the
Department of Public Instruction hosts with the Wisconsin
Association of School District Administrators (WASDA).
“Faced with 15 years of revenue caps and rising costs,
school boards have struggled to preserve academic success
and promote innovation,” the state superintendent said.
“They have been forced into agonizing decisions to close
schools, cut programs, eliminate services, and limit educational
opportunities.”
Compared to the reforms and the funding increase championed
by the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES), Superintendent
Burmaster’s budget falls short. It is, however, the
most help that’s been offered to the state’s public
schools in years.
By asking for sizable increases in categorical aids, restoring
two-thirds funding, and increasing school districts revenue
limit authority, her budget will deliver desperately needed
new revenues.
Burmaster’s budgt calls for $763 million in new categorical
and general aid for public schools over the two years of the
budget. In addition, the increased revenue authority —if
fully used by districts —would add another $102 million
in school property tax revenue over what current law allows.
The total categorical and general aid was incorrectly stated
in an earlier addition of this story.
Burmaster calls budget an “ambitious
plan”
According to the news
release on the budget, the increased revenues will be
at the heart of “an ambitious plan to increase global
literacy and competitiveness” among Wisconsin students.
- Burmaster’s budget puts great emphasis
on STEM, an initiative that prioritizes science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics. It targets curriculum development,
facility upgrades, student access and teacher training,
with a total of $7.2 million in grants in the second year.
- As she has in all of her previous budgets,
the state superintendent attacks the state’s achievement
gap. She asks for full SAGE funding, a new grant program
for safety, and increases in funding for bilingual-bicultural
education, pre-school to grade 5 services, alternative education,
school nurse grants, and milk and school-lunch programs.
Funding would grow from $112 million in the base year of
2009 to $115.7 million and then to $117 million in the final
year.
- Superintendent Burmaster’s budget
calls for full funding of her sparsity aid program for rural
districts, a price tag of $8.2 million in each year of the
budget.. In the 2007-09 school year, the program was funded
at 45 percent and provided $3.644 million to rural districts
for eligible costs. Additionally, her rural transportation
package would increase per-pupil reimbursements, all additional
aid if there is money left, and allow school districts to
claim refunds on the state motor fuel vehicle tax. The budget
impact would be from a base of $27.3 million to $34.8 in
each year of the budget.
- The proposed budget would provide enough
of an increase in special education categorical funding
to maintain the reimbursement rate at the 2008 level of
28.8 percent, that would be an increase to $407.3 million
in the first year (from $372.4 million) and to $435.7 million
in the second.. Without the increase, the level would continue
its historical free-fall to 25.5 percent. She also asked
for full funding of the high-cost, low-incidence special
categorical for students with severe or multiple handicaps.
- The budget proposal calls for total funding
for English language learner programs. That means an increase
over the 2009 base year ($9.9 million) to $12.2 million
in the first year to $22.2 million in the second. This includes
increases in funding in regular ELL programs and an expansion
to include districts that currently don’t meet threshold
requirements.
- Under the state superintendent’s
budget, equalization aid to districts would grow 3.9 percent
in each year, from $4.8 billion in the base year to $4.99
billion and then to $5.18 billion.
- Finally, Burmaster included revenue limit
flexibility in her 2009-11 budget. Under current law, districts
can increase revenue for the 2010 school year by $285 per
year per student and the 2011 school year by $297 per year
per student. She asks for an increase to $335 in 2010 and
$350 in 2011. Districts would not need to go to referendum
to get the increases. In other words, districts will be
able to increase property taxes without going to referendum.
If the authority is used by all districts, the budget impact
would be an additional $35 million in the first year and
$67 million in the second.
WAES board member John Smart, Park Falls, thanked the state
superintendent for not only acknowledging the hard work of
school districts, suggesting changes in the state’s
school-funding system, and increasing Wisconsin’s investment
in public education.
“Our group and others have been carrying the reform
message for years. It seemed like every new budget sidestepped
the dire straits our public schools and our communities are
in. This time is different,” he said. “This time,
Superintendent Burmaster has told the truth about the crisis
and pointed in the direction of meeting the challenge.”
Tom Beebe, WAES executive director, also thanked Superintendent
Burmaster, but explained that his coalition would continue
to work for total reform. “The Wisconsin Adequacy Plan
(WAP) calls for an even larger increase in categorical aid
and a smaller impact on property owners.”
Beebe said that cost studies done by the
Institute for Wisconsin’s Future (IWF) call for
more revenue in programs and services for students with special
education needs, those for whom English isn’t their
first language, and for children from poverty. WAES also thinks
small, rural school districts need additional revenue.
Additionally, Beebe said, WAES wants the burden on property
taxpayers to be lessened, something that does not happen in
the DPI budget. “Instead of going to middle-class homeowners
again to fund schools-schools that are essentially a state
obligation-WAES would like to see an even larger investment
from the state through any number of tax fairness proposals.”
Burmaster’s press release ended with a note of political
and economic pragmatism that wasn’t apparent in her
address. “We all know times are tight, and the 2009-11
biennial budget will be no exception,” she said. “While
we won’t be able to do everything I’ve proposed
for education, we can begin the reinvestment that our schools
and communities need to keep our families, our children, and
our state competitive in the 21st century.”
The next stop for Burmaster’s budget will be the Department
of Administration where it will be put together with the budgets
of other state agencies and sent to Governor Jim Doyle.
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