Scott Manley, WMC Executive Vice President of Government Relations, discusses the realities of Per-Pupil Funding
With affordability being top of mind for Wisconsinites, people throughout the Badger state were surprised to see massive property tax increases on their December tax bills. Shockingly, many homeowners even saw double-digit tax hikes.
Much of these higher property taxes are directly related to Governor Tony Evers’ 400-year property tax hike veto, which was upheld by the liberal Supreme Court last year. With the brazen stroke of a pen, the Governor unilaterally guaranteed that Wisconsin’s property tax burden will get progressively worse each year.
Wisconsin has consistently ranked among the top 10 states for property taxes, according to the Tax Foundation, and thanks to Evers’ autopilot tax hikes, it won’t be long before we’re the highest-property-tax state in America. It’s an affordability time bomb that will explode each December for centuries to come.
Voters aren’t happy about it, to say the least. A recent Marquette University Law School Poll found that 82% of voters are “concerned” or “very concerned” about property taxes, and a strong majority (58%) favored lowering property taxes over increasing funding for schools.
High property taxes have become a political problem for legislative Democrats, and unsurprisingly, they are looking to place the blame elsewhere. Rather than admitting that the Governor’s 400-year property tax increase is the reason property taxes have gone up, Democrat lawmakers are blaming legislative Republicans for “underfunding” schools. But their claims simply don’t hold water.
In reality, we are funding students at a level twice as much as we were in 2000 – about $18,592 per student each year. That’s more than fifty percent higher than the tuition to attend UW-Madison this year. If we can give a world-class college education to UW students for $12,186, how is $18,592 not enough for K-12 students?
Even accounting for inflation, per-pupil funding has increased since 2000. So, while the Democrats like to plead poverty for schools, student funding is at an all-time high.
The fact of the matter is that Wisconsin doesn’t have a problem with the amount of money spent on education; we have a problem with how that money is spent. The chart below shows public school student enrollment, teacher staffing levels, and non-teacher staffing levels for the last twenty years – and reveals the spending problem in stark terms.
Although enrollment declines have resulted in 7% fewer students over the last twenty years, school districts chose to increase their district administrator staff by 40%, and non-teaching staff by 28% — even as they cut teacher positions by 2%. They have made a conscious effort to prioritize their hiring to grow a bloated back-office bureaucracy instead of adding teachers to classrooms.
Roughly two-thirds of Wisconsin students are below grade level in both math and reading; essential skills they need to succeed and enter the workforce. It makes zero sense for districts to be cutting teachers in favor of hiring bureaucrats and non-instructional staff at a time when academic achievement scores have been steadily declining. But that’s exactly what they’re doing.
Any rational discussion about school funding must address the fact that we are grossly misspending the finite dollars taxpayers are already investing in public education. There is simply no excuse for excessively expanding the bureaucracy in our schools at the expense of classroom teachers, at a time when academic achievement is suffering.
Unlike Democrats and the education establishment, we don’t believe blindly throwing additional money into a system that isn’t working will lead to better results. We believe in prioritizing teachers and results-based, experiential learning to ensure that Wisconsin’s students have access to the highest-quality public education.
Taxpayers are right to be angry that our property taxes are so high, and they should be especially angry about the misallocation of their school tax dollars. High property taxes and low return-on-investment are a choice, and school districts have chosen poorly.
