Estimates from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction indicate more than half of Wisconsin school districts will get less general state aid in the coming school year, but Republican legislative leaders called those numbers into question. DPI released projections on Tuesday, showing that 234 of the state’s 424 public school districts are projected to receive less aid in the 2015-16 school year. The DPI numbers also show 188 districts are expected to receive more.
State Representative Sondy Pope (D-Cross Plains), the ranking Democrat on the Assembly Education Committee, said parents won’t be happy. “Now that they’ve realized that these Republican legislators are putting the governor’s presidential ambitions ahead of their children, they are mad, and there’s going to be a price to pay down the road for this,” Pope said. “I know we have said this before, but we’re at the point where we just can’t cut any more.”
Joint Finance Committee co-chairs, Senator Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and Representative John Nygren (R-Marinette), said the numbers released by DPI are “misleading,” and the state budget plan “contains a significant increase” in school funding.
