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Priority Legislative Alert: Your Immediate Response Needed
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | February 4, 2016
SAA members please watch this important 4 minute video alert on late breaking developments in the State Capitol. Portions of the video alert, including legislator contact information, appear below in text form.
This is a priority legislative alert!
If you are in one of the 142 school districts that are impacted by the Racine or Wisconsin Parental Choice Programs, I need your attention right now and I will need your immediate response to legislators.
Two amendments crafted by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos have been hastily added to today’s Executive Session in the Assembly Education Committee. This means that the amendments are scheduled for a vote in the Committee. This Executive Session is scheduled to begin at 1:00pm.
These amendments would amend Assembly Bill 751, which would make some technical fixes to the special needs voucher program, but the amendments have nothing to do with special needs vouchers. These amendments were introduced with very little notice and, of course, neither was afforded the scrutiny of a public hearing. And while the SAA is opposing both amendments, only one of them is the focus of this alert.
Assembly Amendment 2 (LRB a1861/1) would change the revenue limit calculation for incoming choice pupils, beginning in 2016-17, to no longer provide an adjustment that counts an “incoming choice pupil” as a full 1.0 pupil for revenue limit purposes. Instead, incoming voucher students would be counted as other resident students are counted (phasing them in as .333 pupils the first year, .667 pupils the second year and 1.0 student the third year.
Here’s the bottom line: Any districts that have voucher students will lose money under this amendment. It will have a different impact on different districts, depending on your revenue cap.
A preliminary, ballpark fiscal analysis estimates the loss of revenue cap authority at about $22 million spread across the 142 districts. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) has been asked to prepare a memo detailing the fiscal impact on each of the affected districts. We hope this memo will be available soon. Of course, we will forward it to you as soon as it is available.
Once again, the bottom line is if your district has voucher students, under this amendment, you will lose money in 2016-17 and you will have to pay for your voucher students by reducing educational opportunities for the children that remain in your district.
I am providing you the names and phone numbers of the members of the Assembly Education Committee. Please contact the leadership of the Committee (Chairman Thiesfeldt, Vice-Chairman Kitchens and the ranking Democrat Representative Sondy Pope) in opposition to this amendment. Also, contact any of the other committee members that are from your area of the state. Finally, make sure you also contact your Assembly Representative as well. For your convenience in doing so, we have provided links to the Assembly Directory and to Who Are My Legislators.
Remember, the Committee’s Executive Session is scheduled for 1:00 this afternoon, so we have no time to waste.
I guess the damage inflicted upon public schools and public school children in the biennial budget just wasn’t enough for some in the Legislature. These Committee members need to feel very uncomfortable over this vote. Let’s get to it!
Here are the members of the Assembly Education Committee:
Representative Jeremy Thiesfeldt (Chair) R-Fond du Lac 888-529-0052
Representative Joel Kitchens (Vice-Chair) R-Sturgeon Bay 888-482-0001
Representative John Jagler R-Watertown 888-534-0037
Representative Dean Knudson R-Hudson 888-529-0030
Representative Jessie Rodriguez R-Oak Creek 888-534-0021
Representative Rob Brooks R-Saukville 888-534-0060
Representative Cody Horlacher R-Mukwonago 888-529-0033
Representative David Murphy R-Greenville 888-534-0056
Representative Romaine Quinn R-Chetek 888-534-0075
Representative Rob Hutton R-Brookfield 888-534-0013
Representative Cindi Duchow R-Pewaukee 888-534-0099
Representative Sondy Pope D-Cross Plains 888-534-0080
Representative Christine Sinicki D-Milwaukee 888-534-0020
Representative Eric Genrich D-Green Bay 888-534-0090
Representative Mandela Barnes D-Milwaukee 888-534-0011
Representative Dave Considine D-Baraboo 888-534-0081
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