Budget impacts schools

Since Gov. Scott Walker released his biennial budget proposal more than a month ago, school districts have been scrambling for ideas on how to absorb millions of dollars in cuts to education spending.

In Superior, the school district faces a $2.7 million reduction in revenue for the 2011-12 school year. The Maple school district estimates it will lose about $900,000 in funding.

Beyond those cuts, though, are a host of other provisions that have raised concern.

Christina Kintop, a member of the Superior School Board, said she laments the cuts to school funding but worries more about the long-term implications of Gov. Walker’s budget proposal.

“I personally believe the route they’re going down will destroy public education,” Kintop said.

Aside from cuts to general equalization aid and the mandatory 5.5 percent reduction in district revenue limits, Kintop expressed concern over cuts to categorical aid and proposed changes to the virtual and charter school systems.

The biennial budget proposal includes reductions to several categorical aid programs that were deemed to affect a small number of districts.

Affected would be grants for advanced placement, alternative education, children-at-risk, alcohol and drug abuse prevention and intervention, and programs aimed at boosting student achievement.

“I don’t know what’s left of public education in Wisconsin,” Kintop said.

In addition to spending cuts, the governor’s budget proposal refused increased funding requests for numerous education programs, totaling $32 million for 2012 and $61 million for 2013.

Programs requesting increased funding included SAGE, special education, BadgerLink, bilingual/bicultural aid and school breakfast reimbursement.

Those programs will all remain at their current funding levels through 2013 under Walker’s budget proposal.

Bonnie Baker, a member of the Superior School Board and secretary of the Douglas County Republican Party, said cuts can be difficult to accept, but they are needed to put the state on the path of fiscal responsibility.

When the School Board postponed a decision on art and music spending at its meeting in March, Baker said it was a very difficult vote.

“I didn’t like it, but I know it had to be,” Baker said. “I know the reality of the Wisconsin budget.”

Baker said she understands anxiety over the cuts to education funding, but the reductions are necessary to rein in spending and establish more efficient operations. A nearly 20 percent increase in property taxes over two years is not acceptable, she said, and the taxpayers cannot continue to bear the burden.

“We (the school district) have not been given anything we can’t handle,” Baker said.

Another hot-button issue included in the governor’s budget proposal calls for the expansion of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, which allows students to use vouchers to attend charter schools. The governor’s budget recommends the repeal of the low income eligibility requirements for the program, eliminates the cap on program enrollment and increases the number of schools eligible to participate.

A report released last week by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction showed students enrolled in the Choice program scored lower in statewide tests than those enrolled in the Milwaukee public school system. Under the governor’s budget proposal, Choice schools would no long have to administer the statewide test (WKCE), allowing them instead to administer any “nationally-normed test” of their choosing.

Other items in the budget proposal repeal the requirement that charter school teachers acquire licensure, expand the window for open enrollment and eliminate the statewide enrollment cap for virtual charter schools.

“There are so many aspects of the budget that I don’t think the public understands,” Kintop said. “I feel like this is so much bigger than this bill or this budget.”

Of interest to rural schools is an item in the governor’s budget proposal that repeals a revenue limit exemption that would have taken effect in 2011-12. It allowed districts to place costs for transportation and a few other select expenses outside the revenue cap.

The exemption for transportation costs would have had a great impact in rural districts, especially in the northern half of the state. South Shore, for example, has among the highest per pupil transportation costs in the state — nearly $1,000 more per pupil than the average.

The Maple school district’s transportation costs also eat up a large portion of its budget. The district covers about 500 square miles of busing over what business director Paul Staffrude called “some of the poorest roads in the state.”

In the 2009-10 school year, the district spent $1,084 per pupil on transportation costs. The state average is $476 per pupil.

A transportation costs exemption would have freed up about $400,000 under the district’s revenue cap, Staffrude said, but those savings would have come at a cost to taxpayers.

“We looked at this exemption and it would have provided funds; however, we did not think that adding more of a property tax burden to the local taxpayers was fair, especially in light of the recent increased levies due to long-term facilities replacement,” Paul Staffrude said. “Revenue cap exemptions are born 100 percent by the taxpayers with no shared revenue from the state to offset the property tax.”

If the exemption had been utilized, Staffrude said, the savings would have been used to replace aging buses. Instead, the district is looking into leasing options rather than purchasing.

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