{"id":14273,"date":"2024-12-09T17:03:19","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T18:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=14273"},"modified":"2024-12-09T21:07:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T21:07:14","slug":"state-democrat-wisconsin-doesnt-have-4-billion-surplus-just-underfunded-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=14273","title":{"rendered":"State Democrat: Wisconsin Doesn\u2019t Have $4 Billion Surplus, Just Underfunded Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/state-democrat-wisconsin-doesnt-have-4-billion-surplus-just-underfunded-schools\/tcsquare\/2024\/12\/09\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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by Benjamin Yount<\/h5>\n

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One Wisconsin Democrat is taking hardline against the state\u2019s governor over the next round of state funding for local schools.<\/p>\n

Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, took to social media to push back on Gov. Tony Evers\u2019 latest comments on the state budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope the governor finally recognizes that his mostly going along with Republicans on public education for 6 years has only made the problem he inherited worse,\u201d Larson (pictured above) said. \u201cThis is the budget to fix that. Our kids can\u2019t afford for us to shortchange them any longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evers was a guest on UpFront over the weekend, and said he doubts he\u2019ll spend most of the $4 billion state budget surplus on public schools.<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s comments come after State Superintendent Jill Underly asked for at least $3 billion in her budget request.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t really have a surplus. The state has withheld billions of dollars while forcing a record number of school districts to make up the gap with referendums,\u201d Larson added. \u201cIt\u2019s time to fix that. Fund our kids, fund our future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larson has long accused Republican lawmakers of underfunding public schools. He also is a longtime critic of school choice programs throughout the state.<\/p>\n

He returned to that criticism Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoucher schools get 90% reimbursement for special education, public schools get 32%,\u201d Larson explained. \u201cMy office compiled the data. If the state reimbursed all schools fairly, most of the referendums would not be necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican lawmakers are quick to point-out that Wisconsin public schools have seen more money, year-after-year in the state budget.<\/p>\n

And Republicans have said they may look at boosting special education funding in the next state budget, but no one is saying how much more schools may get.<\/p>\n

Republicans are due back at the Capitol to begin working on the next two-year state budget in January.<\/p>\n

Evers has said he plans to once again ask for more money for public schools, more money for the University of Wisconsin system and more money for Medicaid.<\/p>\n

Republican budget leaders have said their top priority is to return the surplus to taxpayers.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

Benjamin Yount is a contributor to The Center Square.\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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The post State Democrat: Wisconsin Doesn\u2019t Have $4 Billion Surplus, Just Underfunded Schools<\/a> appeared first on The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/state-democrat-wisconsin-doesnt-have-4-billion-surplus-just-underfunded-schools\/tcsquare\/2024\/12\/09\/ by Benjamin Yount \u00a0 One Wisconsin Democrat is taking…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14274,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14273\/revisions\/14274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}