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Budget cuts hurt schools

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by Keegan Kyle

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

More than a quarter of Wisconsin school districts responding to a statewide survey have considered consolidation or dissolution as a result of budget shortfalls in the past few years.

Conducted annually by the Wisconsin Educators Association Council, the statewide teacher union and the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators, the survey aims to poll the effects of state revenue controls on public schools.

The state currently limits the total amount of money school districts may raise through state aid and local property taxes. Schools are allocated funding from the state based on enrollment — currently $256 per student — and allowed annual adjustments for inflation.

Some critics of revenue limits, like WASDA Executive Director Miles Turner, say the current funding system threatens schools' abilities to manage decreasing enrollment and increasing utility costs.

"After a decade of tightening the belts of local school districts, schools now find themselves doing drastic cuts," Turner said. According to the survey, which polled 268 — about 68 percent — of the state's school superintendents, 90 percent of school districts considering consolidation or dissolution said the discussions were the result of fiscal problems. More than half of respondents said their district's enrollment decreased last year.

"Revenue caps are killing our quality education system," Turner added. "I think the citizens of Madison would be deeply concerned if they knew they were losing one of the best school systems in the U.S. to a law like revenue caps."

The Legislature has resisted attempts over the past several years to stop revenue caps since the caps restrict a district's ability to raise already high property taxes.

In 2006, Wisconsin ranked sixth in the nation for its state and local tax burden, which sits at 11.6 percent, according to the national research group the Tax Foundation.

For the past two years, University of Wisconsin educational leadership and policy analysis professor Allen Odden has worked in conjunction with educators and other state officials to address one question: What does it cost to adequately fund K-12 education in Wisconsin?

"We don't think the current system should be retained," Odden said, and among other concerns, added, "It has no clear goals."

After receiving a $500,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to study Wisconsin's K-12 funding, the 30-member Policy Advisory Task Force has many recommendations for state officials. Some have been acted upon, like state funding for 3- and 4-year-old preschool, while others remained on paper.

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