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Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Walker's budget, item by item - JSOnline #WIunion #SolidarityWI

Walker's budget, item by item - JSOnline

Walker's budget, item by item

JUSTICE

• Provide $1 million for raises for prosecutors.
• Provide $770,300 for more DNA analysts.
• Set aside $1.04 million to investigate Internet crimes against children.
• Cut $52.6 million from corrections.
• Provide $993,800 for more public defenders.
• Saves money by closing two juvenile correctional facilities - Ethan Allen School for Boys in the Town of Delafield and Southern Oaks Girls School in Union Grove - and consolidating operations at the Lincoln Hills facility in Irma.
• Repeal all mechanisms that would allow any early release of state inmates from prison, extended supervision or probation.
• Count on broad saving from lower prison population, which follows national trend.

EDUCATION

• Cut $834 million in state K-12 education spending over the next two years.
• Phase out income requirements and eliminate enrollment cap for Milwaukee school choice program, and make schools across county eligible.
• No change in the "funding flaw" under which voucher expenses are deducted from Milwaukee's state aid, even though no aid is granted to Milwaukee for those voucher-school students.
• Remove the requirement that MPS teachers reside in Milwaukee.
• Eliminate the minimum 180-day requirement for public school calendars, a measure that could open the way for some districts to initiate four-day school weeks. Districts would continue to meet a minimum instructional hour requirement.
• Repeal the limit on the numbers of students who could use the state's open enrollment system to attend a virtual charter school in another district.
• Allow any four-year University of Wisconsin campus to sponsor an independent charter school.
• Require that charter school teachers need only a bachelor's degree to teach, rather than a teacher's license.
• Remove mandates that school districts employ reading specialists and only licensed nurses with bachelor's degrees; prepare indoor environmental quality plans; and require training on drug administration to be approved by the state Department of Public Instruction.

UW SYSTEM

• Cut UW-Madison funding by 13% while giving the university