Assembly Republican lawmakers held a press conference in the Assembly Chambers today (May 22) to announce their K-12 education budget. Several lawmakers including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Joint Finance Committee (JFC) co-chair Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette). Rep. Nygren announced a total increase of about $500 million (compared to $1.4 billion proposed by Gov. Evers).
Also announced as part of the proposal: (more…)
Draft bills reflecting a number of recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on School Funding are currently being circulated for co-signers. The action comes nearly five months after the Commission met at the State Capitol in December to finalize a set of recommendations to the Legislature.
Legislator members of the Commission met last month to decide which of the recommendations that had been put into bill form would be proposed for introduction. They also decided who will be the lead author(s) of each proposed bill.
This chart details the decisions made during that discussion. (more…)
Governor Tony Evers delivered his first budget address last night in conjunction with introducing his state budget proposal. Here are links to the Budget in Brief and the entire 2019-21 Executive Budget broken out by agency.
WASB staff are busy poring over the details that pertain to K-12 education. We will be releasing a series of posts here on the major K-12 provisions included in the Governor’s proposal.
Reactions to the proposal predictably fall along partisan lines as legislative Republicans have sharply criticized the plan and announced they will throw it out and work from current law funding levels. (more…)
Governor Tony Evers has been previewing major portions of his 2019-21 state budget proposal ahead of its full release this evening. Here’s what we know about some of the provisions to be included in Gov. Evers’ plan that will affect children and youth and state finances generally:
Gov. Evers is expected to propose: (more…)
The entire 63 members of the state Assembly GOP caucus signed a letter to Governor Tony Evers detailing a list of goals where that they can work together on in the new 2019-20 legislative session. This comes in advance of a meeting of the new governor and both Assembly & Senate GOP members on Jan. 15. Included in the letter was support for K-12 education:
“Support for K-12 education – Over the past eight years, Assembly Republicans have supported record investments in education, totaling over $40 billion. Providing adequate resources to our public, choice, charter and homeschooling families is a very high priority for us and we look forward to working with you to meet the historic two-thirds funding threshold that Assembly Republicans set as a goal for the next state budget.”
For context on returning to two-thirds state funding and if it means more resources for schools see this previous post. (more…)