- Podcasts
Podcasts - Videos
Videos - Policy Issues
Policy Issues - About
About
Rep. Tranel on Governor Evers's Call for More School Funding
Schools across Wisconsin are entering their second year of a 400-year school funding increase, but one southwestern Wisconsin lawmaker says the coming flood of new money won’t fix what is wrong with the state’s school funding problems.
Rep. Travis Tranel, R-Cuba City, said schools across the state will continue to be in a bind because Wisconsin pays for schools on a per-kid basis, and Wisconsin doesn’t have enough kids.
“Funding is not the largest challenge, the demographic crisis looming ahead [is],” Tranel said. “There are 421 Wisconsin school districts and about two-thirds have declining enrollment. From 2013-23, the Wisconsin school population declined by approximately 53,000 students. By 2050, the Wisconsin Department of Administration projects the Wisconsin population to decrease by 200,000, due to declining birth rates.”
Tranel said unless those trends are reversed, or schools make some tough decisions to spend less, Wisconsin’s school funding issues will continue.
And, he said, taxpayers will be left to pay more.
“Fewer students mean less per-pupil funding, even though school buildings need heating, buses must run, and staff costs remain. Eventually, property taxpayers will be unwilling to raise their taxes to increasingly fund empty schools,” Tranel added.
Gov. Evers’ 400-year school funding order guarantees local schools an extra $325 a-year until 2045. The governor this week said he ordered the funding hike because “of a decade of Republicans consistently failing to meaningfully invest in our kids.”
Tranel said that’s not true. Particularly in his part of the state.
“On average, the percentage of state support averages 74.38% for schools in the [my] district – higher than the state average,” Tranel explained. “Of course, many believe the percentage of state support should be higher, be fully funded by the state, or have inflationary spending increases in order to remove a large portion of the local property tax bill people receive. This would cost the state billions of dollars, shift tax policy to drastically increase state sales or income tax rates.”
Interested in the content of this Article?
Reach out to the MacIver Institute to aquire more information
