As the legislature and governor remain without a deal on using the state budget surplus for
property tax relief, five school districts, teacher unions, parents and students filed a lawsuit
this week against the legislature for failing to adequately fund public schools in Wisconsin
as required by the state constitution. The sweeping lawsuit states it's not a new issue but has
gotten much worse over the last 25 years. The complaint says state aid to public school districts
this year is $2 billion less than the inflation adjusted number from 2009. You don't have to
explain that to our next guest. He's the superintendent of Salk Prairie Schools which is among districts
not part of that lawsuit that have been beseeching lawmakers and the governor to both further fund
schools and provide property tax relief. Superintendent Jeff Wright joins us now and thanks very much
for being here. Thank you. Glad to be here. So how disappointed were you and other superintendents
when the assembly adjourned without hatching this plan? We were really disappointed and in part
because they adjourned the session in the second third week of February and we talked about that
with some of our students that that will be similar to us ending the school year after homecoming.
That there's so much of this year left that the legislature and the governor could be working
together to solve these long-standing problems not only using the state surplus that exists now
to solve property tax relief and school district finance in the short term but also sitting down
and doing the serious work of trying to address long-term concerns about the state school finance
formula. So you described the lawsuit as addressing those long-term issues with the school financing
system and that what you're calling for is immediate action to use the state surplus to both help
property tax payers and schools describe what the urgency is. Well the urgency is in part the
fact that we have this unique moment where the state has more money and revenue than it anticipated
and so there is a surplus that we could be using to not only address property tax relief but also
some of these school funding issues. Six districts in Stock County recently put out a letter to the
governor and the legislature asking for this action. We're a really unique mix of school districts
we're in Wisconsin's most purple county and I think what we're saying is that if we as school
districts that are as politically diverse as those in Stock County can get together and ask for some
urgency on this issue that hopefully the legislature will also take this up in a special session
and act right away. As to the issue of why we're putting all the pressure on property tax payers
at the same time that we're collecting more money. Why do you think that is? Well school finance is
something that we could spend hours talking about with your viewers. It's incredibly complicated
but every time that the state raises the revenue limit what schools can spend per student that
money has to come from somewhere and often it's come from the state budget but recently the
legislature has decided yes school districts can spend a little bit more but that three hundred
twenty five dollars has to fully be funded by local property taxpayers and so that's why we're
asking with some urgency that before we go into another budget year instead of passing on that
responsibility for funding this to local property taxpayers that are already stretched incredibly
far use some of the state surplus to not only address school funding but also give that property
tax relief. How does this situation kind of pit property taxpayers against schools? Well there's
a direct connection between the state not funding schools the way it used to and an increased
reliance on property taxpayers to pay that bill. This year's high school seniors the year they were
born was the last time that the revenue limit was tied to inflation and so under the Tommy
Thompson administration under the Jim Doyle administration the revenue limits for school
districts were tied to inflation but when this class of seniors was born 17 years ago the revenue
limit and inflation was detached and so every year of their life the amount that a school could
spend educating a child has fallen further and further behind inflation to the point where now
it's over thirty five hundred dollars that gap between what would have been spent in real dollars
when those children were born and what a school district gets to spend now as their seniors.
If hundreds of districts under this scenario are forced to go to referendum to get the money
they need to operate and stay afloat what's the tipping point for voters I mean when do they just
say no. Well we're certainly seeing that for many communities we've already reached that point
that as the state has chosen not to allow revenue limits to go up and school districts have turned
to local property taxpayers for referendums to operate schools there are many districts that have
gone year after year to referendum hoping that they could get one passed and have not been able to do
so and some of the districts in the state have turned to their taxpayers and said if we don't pass this
we're going to have to consider dissolving the district and sending our students to other
communities for schools or be absorbed by another district. I think that that tipping point for a
lot of communities is that we know that schools are often the lifeblood of a small community
and that if we let the school fail if we let the school close there's very little that's going to
be attracting new families to our community in the future but for many communities they're already
at that tipping point which is why this lawsuit has been filed and why other districts are signing
on to the letters like ours asking the legislature to act immediately.
What about the argument from some Republicans that what's needed is reform not guaranteed
funding to prop up a broken system especially in light of kind of falling test scores.
Well I hope that we can we can talk about schools and not just talk about money that it it's an
honor to do this work and to be a trusted partner with a parent in watching their child grow and
learn and if a school can't show their community show the community how their school how their
students are growing that's on us we need to make sure that we're doing that we also need to be
incredibly transparent with how we're spending taxpayer dollars share the audits with our community
share the budgets because there's a lot of trust not only in the relationship that we get to have
watching a student grow and learn but also the trust that a community has to place in us as school
leaders and how we're spending the taxpayer dollars to educate Wisconsin's children.
We leave it there superintendent jeff right thanks very much thank you
thanks for so so um it's clear and yeah thank you i was a teacher first
if i can't explain something i was in the wrong line of work
you