Everyone was awaiting word from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau on revenue projections for the next two years. The hope was that the estimates would be raised from earlier figures, which would allow more money to be put into play and allow Republicans to get out from under some Walker proposals that have been highly unpopular. That included his idea of dropping state aid to schools for 2015-’16 by $127 million.
Public schools leaders around the state knew months ago not to expect much, if any, new money in the state budget, either in terms of state aid or in terms of permission from the state to spend more (using property tax increases, primarily).
In general, school officials wanted a funding increase that would take into account rising costs in some areas, especially given the spending lids schools have lived under and the reductions that have been made in recent years.
The school people were surprised when, instead of staying flat, they found themselves facing cuts under Walker’s proposal. Including in many Republican-oriented communities, a lot of opposition arose to cuts that would result.
In April, a Marquette Law School Poll (disclosure: I do some work on the polling effort) found 78% opposition to the $127 million cut. Other poll results also indicated a shift in sentiment toward supporting spending on public schools. Politicians noticed this.
But when the revenue estimate came out on Wednesday, it didn’t change prior projections. There would be no new money. That means big problems for a variety of parties, including the University of Wisconsin System.
But the main item to get attention was the $127 million K-12 problem. Republican leaders, including the governor himself, said they were not going to make that cut. Some said doing something about kindergarten through 12th-grade funding was their first priority.
Fine, but all that really was done was to go back to a flatline budget for state aid to schools, which was where the conversation stood in January. An inflation adjustment? Not much momentum behind that currently. Money is too tight, and there’s still that UW issue, among other things.
Related: Madison spends 16% of its $413,700,000 budget on healthcare.