>> 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 Sauk 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?
>> Well, we were really disappointed and in part
because they adjourned the session and the second or
third week of February, and we talked about that with
some of our students, that that would be similar to us
ending the school year after homecoming, that
there's so much of this year left that the
legislature and the 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, sitting down and doing the serious work of
trying to address long term concerns about the state's
school finance formula. >> So so you described the
lawsuit as addressing those long term issues with the
school financing system, and that you're what you're
calling for is immediate action to use the state
surplus to both help property taxpayers 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 has more
money in 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 Sauk County
recently put out a letter to the governor and the
legislature asking for this action. We're a really
unique mix of 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 Sauk 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 taxpayers 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 student what 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 $325 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's 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 $3,500. 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 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