State DPI budget proposal calls for nearly tripling special education reimbursement rate
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Education advocates are imploring the state to approve the DPI's new funding proposal.
Chris Hambuch-Boyle, with the Wisconsin Public Education Network, told us, "We're holding strong for this legislature to make the difference. We need them to do it now."
This week State Superintendent Dr. Jill Underly proposed more than $3 billion dollars in state education funding.
If approved by the legislature, the Department of Public Instruction hopes that money would ease the growing financial burden on local school districts.
This proposal would not only significantly raise the special education reimbursement rate, but the DPI says it would also provide other important adjustments that would help districts and taxpayers.
Wisconsin's public-school districts are required by law to provide certain special education programs.
But right now they are only reimbursed for 32% of those costs.
Underly proposes raising Wisconsin's reimbursement rate to 75% in 2026 and to 90% in 2027.
The DPI says districts have to pull funding from other areas to cover the special education gaps, and this budget proposal will help.
DPI Communications Officer Chris Bucher said, "What's happening right now is districts are having to go to their communities and ask them to make the impossible choice of raising their own property taxes just to fund their school operations, their local schools."
The proposals would also increase per-pupil aid and general aid.
But public education advocates say the system has been gutted for so long that even if the legislature signs on, it still will not make districts whole right away.
Still, they say the money is desperately needed so they can refocus on education, and not fundraising.
Hambuch-Boyle said, "The process for doing a referendum in a public school district, a small one or any of them, takes the total eye off of what we are meant to do for kids and families."
When the DPI's budget proposal is debated, it will be before a legislature that will look slightly different after the election: Democrats flipped four seats in the Senate and 10 seats in the Assembly to narrow the GOP majorities in both chambers.