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Ellis/Olsen Plan Cost Less Than Anticipated
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | May 1, 2013
A memo released by the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau outlining a number of options to modify per pupil revenue limit adjustment indicates the cost of some proposals under discussion in the legislature may be lower than was presumed earlier.
According to the memo if a $150 per pupil adjustment were allowed in both 2013-14 and 2014-15, statewide revenue limit authority would increase by $82 million in 2013-14 and $207 million in 2014-15 compared to the $0 adjustment provide in the proposed budget (2013 Assembly Bill 40). According to the memo, under the $150/$150 increase school district revenues would increase by $289 million over the biennium. (Initial estimates of the “Ellis-Olsen” proposal, as described by Sen. Mike Ellis ( R- Neenah), had pegged the increase in school district revenues at about $382 million.)
This additional revenue limit authority would be funded from some combination of state general aid and local levy. If the full amount of funding would be provided as general aid under the $150/$150 option, there would be no property tax impact on a statewide basis. If no additional general aid funding were provided, districts would have the ability under revenue limits to raise, in total, those amounts from property taxes. More likely, some combination of state general aid and local levy would be provided.
The memo also outlines the cost of modifying the low revenue adjustment along with the general revenue limit adjustment. Since 1995-96, the state has established a per pupil ?low-revenue ceiling amount—currently set at $9,100 for 2013-14 and thereafter ($100 above the 2012-13 level)–that allows (low spending) districts to increase their per pupil revenues up to that ceiling without having to go to referenda. Use of the low-revenue adjustment is not required; rather, it is an option for districts to increase their revenues if they so choose.
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