EVANSVILLE — Beloit area Wisconsin legislators took part in a roundtable discussion with the Evansville Community School Board and area residents Wednesday about state school funding and the toll it’s taking on local districts.
State Rep. Clinton Anderson and Sen. Mark Spreitzer, both Democrats, took part in the discussion, fielding questions and hearing comments about the current system.
Residents brought up concerns about private school vouchers and how local tax dollars go from local districts toward private schools when there aren’t private schools in the area, including Evansville, Albany or Edgerton.
“We are struggling to fund the public school system but yet we have a lot of legislators trying to fund a private school system, which is unsustainable with the dollar amount they’re trying to put in,” Anderson said. “So, I don’t support any voucher school, private school funding increase. It’s not a sustainable system that we’re going down. That’s also why there’s so many school districts facing this problem. We’re siphoning money from public schools to private schools.”
Spreitzer referenced the recent bill approving the increase in state funding for schools, but also referenced how that came with an increase to the private school voucher program.
“This last session was particularly frustrating because the compromised bill that ended up becoming law that is the only reason why the Evansville school district got any additional money. The compromise a part of that was the very generous increase for private schools,” Spreitzer said. “The only way the Legislature was willing to do that increase for public schools was to tie it to an even bigger increase for private schools.”
There were also concerns expressed about districts going to referendums at the rate that they are.
“I represent the Parkview district. They’ve had a fair number of failed school referendums. One of those was at the same time that the same communities were going to referendum for fire and EMS service, so we’re starting to not just see the referendum fatigue from schools,” Spreitzer said. “People are going and saying, ‘Jeez, you want to raise my taxes how many times on the same ballot?’ and it’s a real problem. It all comes back to the same funding issues.”
Anderson said events like this are what legislators should be doing.
“We should be interfaced with the public. We should be answering questions. We won’t be able to asnwer every single question, but us being here gives us an understanding of what our community needs, what our districts need,” Anderson said.
Spreitzer said it is critical for area legislators to go to events like this to hear what constituents have to say because of how complicated school funding is in Wisconsin.
“Even legislators sometimes struggle with all the intricacies of it. But, especially knowing school districts are going to referendum in a couple weeks we wanted to get out here ahead of that because voters want to understand why we are in this position, why are we being asked to raise our taxes and making sure we explain from the state perspective that Evansville has been put in this position through no fault of their own,” Spreitzer said. “We need to do better and we will fight to do better at the state level, but in the meantime Evansville is doing what they can to support students here.”
The event was organized by Evansville Superintendent Nate Perry.
“Having worked in districts where Sen. Spreitzer and Rep. Anderson (serve), they really are really positive advocates for education,” Perry said.
Evansville has a referendum on the Nov. 5 ballot seeking $2.9 million annually. It is not the only district in the county with a referendum on the November ballot. Janesville has two referendums on its ballot, a four-year non-recurring $14.5 million operational referendum and a $151.8 million capital referendum. Milton will have a recurring $5 million referendum on its ballot.
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