Let’s Get a Deal Done that Keeps Promised Special Education Rates and Provides General School Aid to Hold Down Property Taxes
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | February 17, 2026
The State Capitol has been abuzz recently with ongoing conversations of an end of session deal that could see much of Wisconsin’s budget surplus spent. This is a rare move as the legislature has typically been reluctant to pass any major appropriations after the biennial budget passes in July.
This year appears to be different, with the governor and legislative leaders negotiating over the past two weeks on a compromise deal that would likely see property tax relief paired with some form of public school aid. Recent updates indicate a willingness to increase funding for special education reimbursement by $200 million, which would likely reach the promised reimbursement rates of 42/45 percent.
As for property tax relief, the legislature has proposed options such as putting surplus dollars into tax credits and rebates. However, there is another option that would hold down property taxes locally while addressing one of the biggest omissions in the 2025-27 state budget: no general school aid increase. Increasing school aids provides schools with more state funds while alleviating the reliance on local property taxes. It is a win-win and needs to be included in any deal to address property taxes.
While the priority to return the projected surplus to taxpayers is clear, both the method and the magnitude remain critical components of any final agreement. Legislative leaders have presented a proposal that allocates nearly the entire surplus, with the majority directed toward one-time tax rebates for filers and property tax relief through an expansion of the School Levy Tax Credit. This approach doubles down on the decision made in the current budget to provide no increase in general aid to schools, continuing a trend that shifts more of the responsibility for funding public education onto local property taxpayers.
With time running out on this legislative session, it is vital that the governor and legislature reach a deal that addresses the burdens facing Wisconsin schools and taxpayers. SAA and WASB are collectively urging members to use their voice once more at this crucial time! Please contact the governor and legislators and urge them to work together to reach a compromise that includes addressing the special education shortfall AND increase general aid to help schools and hold down property taxes.
Click here to find your legislator and their contact information.
Please reach out with any questions.
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Capitol Update 2-11-26: Surplus Negotiations Heat Up
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | February 11, 2026
As the Wisconsin State Assembly returned to the floor this week, debate intensified over how to allocate the newly projected state surplus. Governor Tony Evers’ “400-year veto” remains central to that discussion. However, legislative leaders do not appear prepared to provide the Governor what he would need to agree to modifying the veto. With only eight days remaining before the Assembly plans to conclude its floor session for the year, the window for action is narrow.
The latest development is Governor Evers’ proposed $1.3 billion package, which includes $450 million in general aid and $200 million in special education aid. In exchange, the Governor would agree to the Legislature’s stated priority of property tax relief by adding $550 million to the school levy tax credit and approximately $93 million to offset reduced tax collections resulting from the “no tax on cash tips” policy. Senate Majority Leader LeMahieu has stated publicly that eliminating the 400-year veto must be part of any agreement. Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Vos has struck a more conciliatory tone, suggesting a deal may be forthcoming and emphasizing property tax relief as a top priority.
For school leaders, the immediate priority remains clear: the Legislature should first fulfill its commitment from the last budget by addressing the shortfall in Special Education Categorical Aid. Doing so would require only a small fraction of the surplus, estimated at roughly $200 million. Future shortfalls in the promised 42% reimbursement rate (and 45% in the second year) could be avoided by moving to a sum-sufficient funding model that provides stability and predictability for districts.
Where negotiations ultimately land remains uncertain. The Senate has so far taken a quieter role, and votes from Senate Democrats would likely be necessary to pass any final agreement. It is critically important to contact your legislators, regardless of chamber or party. With so little time left in the session, now is the time to lend your voice. Share what 42% and 45% mean for your district’s budget and for your students. There is still time to act and close the gap on the commitment made by policymakers.
The situation remains fluid, and it is crucial you reach out to your legislators and encourage them to fulfill their promise by providing additional revenue to cover the special education shortfall. If you need sample messaging, please reach out. You can find your legislator and contact information here.
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Capitol Update: Assembly Education Committee Meeting
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | February 4, 2026
The Assembly Committee on Education scheduled a hearing and executive session for Thursday, February 5 at 10:00 a.m. to consider four newly introduced bills. With two of the bills having only been released on February 3, the accelerated timeline has limited the opportunity for thorough review, yet the proposals would make extensive changes to existing law, district operations, and legal practices.
One proposal would undo the local decision-making that was only just established last year. 2025 Wisconsin Act 42 required school boards to adopt policies restricting student cell phone use during instructional time, while preserving local authority to determine appropriate exceptions and implementation. Assembly Bill 948 (AB 948) goes one step further and mandates a bell-to-bell ban. Extending the restriction to the entire school day and removing the local flexibility that the Legislature approved less than a year ago. Of course, this new restriction only applies to students in traditional public schools, not every school that receives tax dollars.
The hearing will also include two bills addressing confidentiality agreements and personnel records involving school districts and the Department of Public Instruction. Because these proposals were introduced just yesterday, only an initial review has begun. However, early concerns suggest that both bills could raise significant legal and operational issues, including potential conflicts with established due-process protections and existing public records law. These proposals are in response to the increased focus on license investigations but seem to raise more questions than provide solutions.
- Assembly Bill 1003 (AB 1003) would apply similar restrictions to DPI and create new requirements for educators who voluntarily surrender a license during an investigation. The bill also establishes new record-retention rules and response timelines for open records requests related to investigations.
- Assembly Bill 1004 (AB 1004) would prohibit education employers from entering into confidentiality agreements related to substantiated findings of immoral conduct and would grant civil immunity to employers that disclose such information to a prospective employer.
Given the speed with which these measures have moved from introduction to hearing, stakeholders have had limited opportunity to assess their full scope. Preliminary review indicates potential legal consequences, possible deviations from guidance issued by the Wisconsin Attorney General on open records, and broader implications for personnel practices and due process. Further careful analysis is ongoing.
The final bill the committee will be hearing is Assembly Bill 990 (AB 990), which provides flexibility for school boards to award a ½ credit of financial literacy to students who work in a school-based financial institution, like a credit union.
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Wisconsin’s Budget Surplus: Meet the Need, Keep the Commitment
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 30, 2026
Meet the Need. Keep the Commitment.
There has been renewed focus on the latest state budget estimates from Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, which projects the state will end the 2025–27 biennium with a surplus of approximately $2.3–$2.5 billion more than anticipated when the budget was enacted. This projection comes as policymakers and communities continue to debate rising property taxes, school funding pressures, and campaign priorities in an election year.
A critical part of this conversation is the special education funding shortfall in the 2025–27 state budget. While there has been discussion about how projections were developed, focusing on past assumptions does not change the reality districts face today: student needs are increasing, service costs are rising, and these services are required by law.
Special education is not alone in facing a funding gap. Medicaid is also projected to experience a comparable shortfall through 2027, underscoring that this is a broader structural challenge, not a one-time budgeting issue. With the surplus, policymakers can fulfill the commitments made in the last state budget for a fraction of the total. It would cost approximately $200 million to honor the stated reimbursement targets of 42% and 45% and convert special education funding to sum sufficient, providing certainty and stability for districts from year to year.
The Path Forward
A straightforward, long-term solution exists. Converting special education categorical aid to a sum sufficient appropriation would provide stability in district budget planning and ensure the state fulfills its commitment to students. This would allow funding to adjust to actual costs, rather than forcing districts to absorb shortfalls and shift the burden to local taxpayers and other educational programs.
Just last week, during the WASB Delegate Assembly, locally elected school leaders adopted an emergency resolution calling on the Legislature to fulfill its commitment to students by addressing this funding gap.
School districts cannot control how many students require special education services or the intensity of those needs. Capped funding forces districts to absorb unexpected cost increases, crowding out resources for other essential programs.
Given the surplus now projected, policymakers have an opportunity to act by creating long-term stability for special education funding and ensuring that every child receives the services they need to succeed. In the end, special education funding is about people, not percentages. Every student deserves the services guaranteed by law and by our shared values.
The SAA budget request called for 60% special education reimbursement – sum sufficient. The budget pressure now facing school districts and the growing reliance on local taxpayers were predictable outcomes when funding does not keep pace with rising costs. Addressing mandated special education services and strengthening general school funding are not an “either/or” choice. Both are necessary to support every student in Wisconsin.
The Bottomline:
- Student needs and service costs are increasing.
Every year, schools serve students with more complex and individualized needs. The price of providing required services continues to rise. - Funding has not kept pace.
Schools are serving more students who require intensive supports, specialized staff, and outside services, yet funding remains capped - Behind every dollar is a child.
Each reimbursement rate represents real students with real needs. - These services are required and essential.
Special education is not optional. Schools are legally and morally obligated to serve students with disabilities, regardless of cost or complexity. - Sum sufficient funding means stability for students and school budgets.
When funding falls short, districts are forced to shift resources from classrooms and other programs just to meet legally required services. Stable, predictable funding is achievable.
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Increased Tax Collections Announced
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 15, 2026
While finger-pointing continues in Madison over the 400-Year Veto and rising property taxes, these talking points can help increase transparency, foster honest community conversations, and clearly illustrate how state policy decisions have affected your school district and local taxpayers:
- Meeting the state’s commitments to special education and investing in general education are not competing priorities; both are essential to stabilizing school district budgets and protecting local taxpayers.
- Stronger-than-expected state revenue projections create a real opportunity to move beyond acknowledging the special education funding gap and to take meaningful action to address it.
- Lawmakers approved a modest increase to revenue limits but did not pair that increase with the state’s share of funding. As a result, the state shifted its responsibility onto local taxpayers.
- Districts were allowed a modest revenue-limit increase that again fell below inflation—for the 17th straight year—and was not paired with increased state aid. Unlike past practice, the 2025–27 budget shifted more cost pressure onto local property taxpayers.
- Taxpayers send their dollars to Madison with the expectation that community needs are reflected in the state budget.
- Share how the so-called “record investment” in special education has affected your district and how much your district still must transfer from the general fund to cover mandated services.
- Explain how rising fixed costs—such as fuel, utilities, cybersecurity insurance, wages, and health insurance—are putting additional pressure on your budget.
- Discuss how increasing student needs and the growing cost of specialized services continue to draw resources from the general fund and limit flexibility in your district’s budget.
Background:
This week, Governor Evers announced that the Department of Revenue (DOR) will soon release updated revenue collections that significantly exceed prior projections. Concurrently, the Governor outlined his legislative priorities for the remaining months of 2026 and the ongoing 2025–27 Legislative Session. In a letter to members of the Wisconsin State Legislature, he urged lawmakers to continue building on the bipartisan budget enacted last summer with additional investments.
The Governor’s letter called for bipartisan support for several priorities, including providing property tax relief and the funding necessary to meet the agreed-upon special education reimbursement targets of 42 percent in 2025–26 and 45 percent in 2026–27, or converting the appropriation to sum sufficient—an approach that aligns with the budget priorities of the SAA.
The Legislature returned this week for the first two sessions of 2026 in the Wisconsin State Assembly. Speaker Vos announced that the Assembly will adjourn the 2025–27 legislative session on February 19, 2026. Speaker Vos stated that undoing a 400-year extension of revenue limit increases for local schools “has to be part of the discussion” if Republicans and Democrats are to reach a compromise on providing property tax relief. The Governor’s use of his veto pen continues to be a sticking point around the Legislature’s willingness to provide a general aid increase, this was evident from the way the budget came together last July.
The updated revenue projections provide a clear opportunity for the Legislature to keep its commitment to special education. We know, legislators across the state heard from school leaders in the closing months of 2025 after the special education reimbursement rate came in lower than anticipated, and a proposal was circulated to provide the needed funding to reach 42% and 45% reimbursement rates. While they acknowledged the shortfall, they also cautioned that remaining state dollars were being closely guarded in anticipation of increased FoodShare costs and a looming Medicaid shortfall. With the additional revenue DOR is now expected to announce, those same legislators have an opportunity to move beyond acknowledging the problem and actually address the special education funding gap and growing taxpayer concerns about affordability and sustainability.
With legislative action focused on a constitutional amendment to limit the Governor’s future veto authority and a bill to repeal the Governor’s 400-year veto, which mirrors the political rhetoric and finger-pointing that school districts were caught in the middle of when property tax bills arrived in mailboxes last month. Speaker Vos and other legislators have suggested that responsibility for recent outcomes rests with school districts, asserting that lawmakers acted based on the advice of school administrators. Speaker Vos stated: “We said, following their advice, we’ll put a historic investment into special ed. Now, they’ve got what they wanted, and they’ve come back and still said, ‘Well, we still need to have this maximum property tax increase, no matter what you did on special ed funding.’ So, I guess if we had to do it over again, we should have probably put it into general education, as opposed to special ed, but we did what they wanted.”
This frame, however, does not fully reflect the broader policy context. State support for special education remained largely stagnant for nearly a decade before recent budget actions, contributing to reimbursement rates falling to historic lows. Throughout that period, districts continued to meet their legal obligations under state and federal law to provide special education services, even as costs increased due to transportation, contracted services, health care, and more complex student needs. Because special education aid does not automatically adjust to reflect these cost pressures, reimbursement rates are routinely prorated—even in years when increases are intended. As a result, recent increases are best understood as an effort to address a longstanding funding gap rather than an expansion beyond unmet needs.
It is also important to note that while districts were permitted a modest increase in revenue authority, that increase again fell below inflation—for the 17th consecutive year—and was not accompanied by an increase in state general school aids. Historically, when the Legislature allowed revenue limits to grow, it has paired that authority with increased state aid to reduce pressure on local property taxpayers. The 2025–27 budget departed from that approach.
These dynamics are further compounded by maintaining special education as a “sum certain” appropriation, which has resulted in reimbursement rates falling short of stated targets and requiring districts to redirect general operating dollars to cover mandated services. Taken together, these state-level decisions limit local flexibility and place increasing strain on district budgets.
The result is predictable: continued pressure on property taxes, growing frustration within communities, and more frequent local referenda simply to sustain basic educational services. School districts also face rising costs for fuel, utilities, food, and health insurance. Providing full context is essential. While differing perspectives are part of the policy process, focusing solely on local decision-making risks overlooking the structural funding choices that have contributed to current outcomes and may leave communities without a clear understanding of why their tax bills have changed.
It is important to remember, meeting the state’s special education funding commitments and investing in general education are not competing priorities—they are both necessary to stabilize school budgets and protect local taxpayers.
Additional Resources:
WASBO: WASBO statement
Southeast Wisconsin School Leaders: https://www.jsonline.com/story/opinion/2025/12/15/wisconsin-school-property-taxes-increase-pay-more/87702802007/?tbref=hp
Green Bay Area Public School: https://fox11online.com/news/crisis-in-the-classroom/green-bay-public-schools-expect-another-2-million-gap-due-to-lower-special-ed-funding
Commentary from Oconomowoc Superintendent: Beyond the numbers: Understanding the financial complexities driving OASD’s budget and lower mill rate or Link to PDF
Myth vs. Fact: School Funding and Property Taxes
Myth: School districts raised property taxes because they chose to spend more than inflation.
Fact: School districts can only raise revenue within state-imposed revenue limits. To spend more than those limits requires voter approval via operating referendum. The state authorized a per-pupil revenue-limit increase that was less than inflation but did not provide the state aid necessary to fund it, shifting costs to property taxpayers.
Myth: Schools received “record funding” in the state budget.
Fact: While the budget included increases, those increases did not keep pace with inflation or rising fixed costs, and key components, like special education aid, remain underfunded due to sum-certain appropriations.
Myth: Referenda are a sign of poor local fiscal management.
Fact: Referenda are often the only remaining tool districts have to address structural gaps created when state funding does not keep pace with mandated costs and authorized spending authority. When schools are only allowed spending increases that fall below the amount necessary to keep pace with inflation, they must either cut programs and services for students or seek referendum approval. Oftentimes, they resort to both.
Myth: Property tax increases would have happened regardless of state action.
Fact: Historically, when the state matched revenue limit increases with increased general school aid, property tax impacts were significantly reduced. On a statewide basis, property tax increases were held in check. The 2025–27 budget broke from that precedent.
Myth: This is a local problem.
Fact: This is a statewide policy decision with statewide consequences. Districts across Wisconsin—urban, suburban, and rural—are experiencing the same pressures because the revenue limits apply uniformly and the school aid formula applies to all school districts. Almost three quarters of Wisconsin’s school districts will receive less general aid than they did in the prior year. And the number of districts that lost so much aid they qualified for stop-gap hold harmless funding went up by nearly 30% compared to the previous year.
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