Gov. Tony Evers has sent a letter to Pres. Trump (along with the governors of Michigan and Pennsylvania) seeking federal funding to combat the COVID-19 related losses to the State of Wisconsin which he projected to be $2 billion in lost revenue.
From the Associated Press:
“The governors, all Democrats, urged Trump in the letter to work with Congress to send $500 billion to states and local governments facing budget shortfalls. The letter was dated Wednesday, the same day that Evers signed a bill passed by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature that clears the way for spending about $2 billion the state is receiving in federal funds.
“But Evers said that doesn’t go far enough in addressing the crisis in Wisconsin. He told Trump that the state’s unemployment rate sits at about 15% and Wisconsin is expected to lose more than $2 billion in tax collections over the next year.”
Education Week’s “Politics K-12” blog (4/15, Burnette) sounds a similar warning. The piece suggests the “coming recession will be deeper and possibly longer lasting than the Great Recession,” citing to a new analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which is officially non-partisan but considered by some to be liberal leaning. The piece also links to an earlier (4/13) Education week article, which predicts “many school districts can expect a precipitous drop in their state’s K-12 revenue next year due to the widespread shuttering of the economy. The shutdown of businesses and skyrocketing unemployment rates will crater states’ sales and income tax revenue, which many districts are heavily reliant on.” That earlier (4/13) article notes a host of other K-12 “fiscal analysts have similarly concluded that America’s public school system is poorly positioned to weather the coming storm.”
Yesterday’s (4/15) piece goes on to highlight a “handful of economic trends that will prove detrimental to thousands of school districts next year,” including the fact that “more and more people have filed to receive Medicaid and unemployment benefits.” That means there will be “much less money left for public schools next year.”
