by Chris Kulow | Sep 17, 2021 | Legislative Update Blog, State Budget
As an addendum to our previous post, the following bills also received a public hearing in the Assembly education committee on Thursday, Sept. 17.
AB 562 This bill requires each school board of a school district and each operator of an independent charter school, before providing any program related to sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or gender expression to a pupil in the school district or attending the charter school, to give notice of the program to the pupil’s parents or guardians. This notice is required with respect to a pupil in any grade before such a program is provided to the pupil. A “program” is defined to include instruction and materials as well as any test, survey, questionnaire, or other activity. (more…)
by Chris Kulow | Jul 28, 2021 | Legislative Update Blog, State Budget, State Issue
Governor Tony Evers called the Legislature into Special Session on July 27 to take up his proposal, “to do what’s best for our kids and schools,” to boost funding for Wisconsin’s K-12 schools and higher education by $550 million. The Legislature convened and ended the special session with no discussion or consideration of the Governor’s proposal.
The WASB will continue to follow any developments on school funding and other forthcoming legislation that impacts Wisconsin schools.
by Dan Rossmiller | Jul 26, 2021 | Legislative Update Blog, State Budget, State Issue
In a video and through a press release, Gov. Tony Evers today announced that he will call the Legislature into special session tomorrow morning (Tuesday 7/27) to take up a proposal that Evers called “what’s best for our kids and our schools.”
In his Executive Order calling the Legislature into a special session, the governor urges lawmakers to take up a draft bill that would invest a combined $550 million in Wisconsin’s K-12 schools and students, and higher education.
The proposal would provide:
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by Chris Kulow | Jul 8, 2021 | Legislative Update Blog, State Budget
Today, Governor Tony Evers signed the 2021-23 state budget with no major changes to the K-12 provisions as passed by the legislature, and also announced he would allocate an additional $100 million in one-time federal funding for schools from COVID relief funds under the governor’s discretion.
The governor said he was unwilling to risk the $2.3 billion in federal funds for schools with a full veto of the budget and also acknowledged that “Republicans and their allies” were careful with the language included in the bill and did not provide an avenue to increase school funding with a line-item veto as he did in the last budget. (more…)
by Dan Rossmiller | Jul 1, 2021 | Legislative Update Blog, State Budget, State Issue
As required by state law, the DPI released its July 1 estimate of the general school aids each public school district will receive for the 2021-22 school year. Today’s estimates are based in part on the K-12 funding package approved by the Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee (JFC) on June 17. K-12 funding was not changed by either house of the Legislature and along with other budget provisions now heads to the governor for his signature or veto.
General school aids are the largest source of state support for Wisconsin public schools. Under the JFC package, general school aids for 2021-22 will total an estimated $5.0 billion, representing a $109.9 million (2.2 percent) increase over last year.
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by Chris Kulow | Jul 1, 2021 | Legislative Update Blog, State Budget
The state Senate passed the 2021-23 state budget bill on a bipartisan vote of 23-9 with three Senate Democrats joining all Republicans in voting for the plan. The Senate made no changes to the bill passed by the Assembly and thus there were no changes to the K-12 provisions as approved by the Joint Finance Committee.
Like their counterparts in the Assembly, Senate Democrats proposed amendments to increase funding to schools in line with what the governor had originally proposed but they were also rejected on party-line votes. (more…)
