Memo: 10-year voucher expansion could shift up to $800M from school districts
Up to $800 million could be spent over the next 10 years to expand the taxpayer-funded statewide school voucher program as proposed by GOP lawmakers, according to a new legislative memo.
The statewide voucher program is currently capped at 1,000 students and would cost about $75 million over the same time period if it is not expanded. The Legislature’s Republican-controlled budget committee last week approved language for the 2015-17 spending plan that would lift the cap gradually over the next 10 years.
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo, drafted for Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, and released Thursday, said the actual cost of the statewide voucher program over the next 10 years will depend on how many new students join the program. About 3,000 students could participate in the statewide voucher system by the 2016-17 school year, the memo said.
The fiscal bureau cost estimate factors in the number of students currently attending private schools, the number of those students with a family income of below 185 percent of the federal poverty level, and how the Milwaukee voucher system expanded over 10 years.
Overall, roughly $4.5 billion annually is devoted to general school funding in the proposed state budget. The cost for new students in the program over the next two years is projected to be about $37 million. In the last state budget, about $384 million was appropriated for the state’s three voucher systems.
Rep. Sondy Pope, D-Cross Plains, said the proposed state budget further harms already financially struggling public school districts. Barca characterized the estimated cost as funds “stolen” from public schools and diverted to the “private voucher school experiment.”
“We simply cannot afford to build two parallel school systems in this state,” said Barca.
Jim Bender, president of voucher lobbying group School Choice Wisconsin, said he could not respond to the memo because it was speculative. He added the memo was created to grab headlines. “Without seeing how they came up with the calculation, it’s very difficult to respond to,” he said.
The Joint Finance Committee last week also approved budget language that changes the way the voucher system is funded. School districts would see reductions in their state aid by each new Memo: 10-year voucher expansion could shift up to $800M from school districts | State-and-regional | wiscnews.com:
