The part of the bill that will get the right Cheddarsphere, the radio talkers, and legislative Republicans most exercised is this:
MPS ‘Hold Harmless’ Provision:There's a lot of mumbo-jumbo in there if you're not familiar with the way the choice program is funded, so I want to try to clear it up now so you can help me stop the spin.
-- Currently, MPCP students are not counted for the purpose of calculating state general school aid payments to Milwaukee, but Milwaukee taxpayers are required to pay 45% of the cost of the choice program. Without a change in the formula, increasing the choice cap will take additional state aid away from MPS and raise property taxes in Milwaukee.
-- MPS may count each choice student as 0.45 FTE in determining Milwaukee’s per-pupil property value for state aid. This provision will be phased in over five years (0.1 FTE in 2006-07 … 0.4 FTE in 2009-2010, and 0.45 FTE in 2010-11) to provide an equitable division of resources to Milwaukee over time as enrollment in the choice program is allowed to grow.
-- The Milwaukee Board of School Directors must direct 100% of these “hold harmless” funds to instructional services for students. Such funds must be used for core instruction—not for any administrative or non-instructional purpose—including funding teaching and instructional support staff, remedial instruction and after-school instruction provided by MPS and to address deficiencies in meeting the state’s Twenty School District Standards (Wisconsin State Statutes Chapter 121.02).
The spin will be that the state now wants to give the Milwaukee Public Schools extra money for students it does not teach. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Currently, the full cost of the MPCP is split between the Milwaukee Public Schools and the state. MPS pays 45% of the cost, the state pays the other 55%. The 45% that Milwaukee pays is deducted from the equalization aid that is sent to MPS from the state based on MPS's enrollment, and that enrollment does not include students in MPCP. So right now, Milwaukee is getting charged by the state to cover the partial cost of educating voucher students--students MPS does not teach. This is not fair to MPS, or the students and families remaining in the public schools.
To put it into easy to understand numbers, assume that the grand total of equalization aid sent to MPS is $100. With the MPCP cap set at 15%, that means MPS pays 45% of the cost of 15% of its aid, or $6.75 out of that $100. So for the actual students actually enrolled at MPS, the district can use only $93.25, instead of the full $100.
Under this bill, the state would start including MPCP students in its figures for determining state aid, counting them as .45 of a student. If passed, the bill means that MPS's equalization aid would rise (assuming 15% enrollment in MPCP) to $106.75. And then the state would deduct its $6.75, meaning that MPS would actually be able to spend the actual $100 on the actual number of students actually attending school in the district. In short, this places the full burden for educating these students on the state, with none on MPS. (The real numbers are somewhere around seven million times the ones I used--and my formula is simplified.)
So is this extra money for MPS? No--it is the full amount that MPS is owed under the state's equalization aid formula. The state will finally stop the practice of forcing MPS to pay for students that it does not teach.
(Here is the example with real money, pulled from a comment below: The state estimates MPCP will cost about $90.1 million in 2005-2006. MPS estimates its equalization aid will be $586.5 million. That means the state will take back about $40.5 million from MPS to cover the cost of the vouchers. If the formula were changed, the state would send an additional $39.5 million to MPS in equalization aid. That means if this new formula were in place this year, MPS's net would be negative $1 million, which is much closer to breaking even than negative $40.5 million!)
Why, you might be thinking, is the language so complicated? Why, you might wonder, can't the bill just say that it is changing the formula so that there is not longer a 45/55 split in funding, but 100% from the state? Well, I might answer, I can't get into the heads of Gov. Doyle or Rep. Sinicki, but I would surmise that the complicatedness has a lot to do with that last paragraph in what I quoted above: It isn't enough that MPS is finally getting the full amount that it deserves, but the state wants to make sure that the amount returned to them is all spent in the classroom, and not in some other way. The idea behind the bill is not just to expand MPCP, but to ensure that all children in Milwaukee see some improvement in education. Requiring that this money be spent directly on things that benefit children is one way to make sure that happens.
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