Currently consists of . . . emails to listserves? And they’ll decide next Monday if they’re going to launch a campaign for the last 8 days before the election? Based on what I’ve seen, its not going so well so far! Check out these responses!
Here’s the string of responses:
At 12:05 PM -0500 10/22/08, Dorothy Borchardt wrote:
We have to have away to pay for it without taxing our seniors and others on limited incomes out of their homes! Look at the mess Milwaukee is in … no jobs, high unemployment, bad schools…. we don’t NOT want that for Madison.Conflating two issues is not useful.
First off, tax policy is created at the capital. It doesn’t have to be “taxing our seniors and others on limited incomes” in order to educate our children. That is the typical type of Hobbesian choices regularly presented to us for the past couple of decades. We don’t have to accept that framing.
In fact, tax policy could be written, for example, so that it wouldn’t tax anyone’s property in order to pay for schools if they made below a certain level of income. No, the current policy on property taxes was written in such a way as to make “the little people” really pay it through the nose, and once their anger against “the government” was sufficiently piqued, you could run partisan campaigns with anti-Madison and anti-Washington themes with impunity and no one would ask too many questions. Baloney. Tax policy and school funding policy are not written in stone, they can – and must, be changed.
Why, for example, is it possible that “almost fifty thousand corporations filed tax returns with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue in 2005. Two out of three returns showed a bottom-line tax of zero dollars.”? http://www.wisconsinsfuture.org/publications/taxes/WI_Revenue_Gap_12_2007.pdf
Tax policy has allowed that to happen. The report further noted, “There is indeed a pool of untapped revenue in Wisconsin – uncollected corporate taxes. “Corporate tax leakage” describes the loss of state corporate income tax due to large companies’ tax avoidance using tax breaks, loopholes and profit shelters. This leakage cost Wisconsin $643 million in 2006. Overall, Wisconsin’s corporate sector fell $1.3 billion short on its payments of all state and local taxes, compared to what it would have paid if it had supported public programs at the average level among corporations nationwide.”Imagine individuals or small business owners trying to get away with such a scheme. Of course your thinking, aren’t we a high tax state already? Check out the chart on page 2 of this report of the business sector share of state and local taxes, Wisconsin ranks near the bottom in terms of it’s taxation rate, and importantly, lower than any mid-west state around us. http://www.wisconsinsfuture.org/publications/protectingservices/Broken%20Partnership.pdf
As for individual taxation, right now, Wisconsin ranks 21st amongst all the states, right about in the middle. http://www.wisconsinsfuture.org/news/PressReleases/IWF_TaxFact_Aug15_2008.pdf What critics of this “tax hell” we live in don’t mention, ever, is that we are a low fee taxation state.
As to the second half of Mrs. Borchardt’s message on Milwaukee and it schools (see http://www.wisconsinsfuture.org/education/stories/RoysterNorman%208.24.08%20MJS%20op%20ed.pdf) I’m trying to see the connection beyond a simple rhetorical scare device.
Robert Godfrey
Followed by this from Peng Her . . .
Robert,
I agree. MMSD has been working very hard in finding ways to maintain a quality education with the limited resources it has in part do to the revenue caps enacted by our state Legislatures.
Until we get our elected officials to change the funding formula we can talk all we want about negotiating a new health care plan with WPS, standing up to John Mathews, and Qualified Economic Offers all we want, but we are simply not addressing the real issue. The real issue deals with funding (revenue caps).
This is my understanding of how we got where we are now. In 1993, our state Legislatures passed Wisconsin Act 16, which imposed a five year limitation on the total amount of money that public school districts were allowed to raise through a combination of state aids and the local property tax. For a five year period (1993-98) the annual increase in a district’s revenue per pupil was limited to a specific dollar amount ($190 in 1993-94) or the rate of inflation times the per pupil cost. Beginning with the 1994-95 school year, the per pupil dollar amount was to be adjusted for inflation.
There were significant changes in this legislation made in the 1995-97 state Budget. For example, the revenue controls were made permanent, and the per pupil increases were set at a fixed dollar amount ($200 per pupil in 1995-96 and $206 per pupil in 1996-97). This means that districts can no longer choose between a fixed dollar amount and the Consumer Price Index.
We all are asking how can we fund or maintain a quality education system in Madison. This includes funding 4 yr Kindergarten classes. First we all must tell our legislatures to eliminate revenue caps that are strangling our schools. Most candidates running for State office I’ve talked to said they would do this. Let’s keep their feet to the fire and make sure they follow through on their promise.
Secondly, make funding equitable for schools by changing the funding formula. The new funding formula should be based on needs of the school not property value of homes in the district. A new system of funding should guarantee a base amount of resources to educate regular students to high standards and also provide enough resources to give the same opportunity to meet high standards to children with special education needs. Therefore, districts with students who live in poverty, students with limited English skills, and those with special needs would get additional funding on top of the base amount. Districts in rural areas would get additional funding to help pay for transportation needs. This is the proposal being put forth by Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES). Their website as indicated by Robert is http://www.excellentschools.org/.
Third, we need to shift cost from tax payers back to corporations for fair taxation. Just in the last two decades, the state’s revenue from corporate income tax has been nearly cut in half. The Dept. of Revenue confirms that over 60% of companies whose tax returns showed annual receipts of over $100 million paid NO corporate income tax (2003). Wisconsin lost $643 million in 2006 because Corporations didn’t pay their fair share of taxes. Imagine how much better our schools would be if corporations started paying their fair share of corporate tax.
If education is going to remain a priority in Wisconsin, and if Wisconsin is going to continue producing future leaders, workers, and citizens, then an education is not a luxury—it’s a necessity.
Please contact your state elected officials to eliminate the revenue caps, create a new funding formula based on the needs of the school not the property value, and invest in early childhood education.
Peng
I hope (ok, not really) her radio buys go better than her emails! Isn’t it clear, we really need to support our schools right now? As Dorothy was always fond of saying when she was on the council “its for the children!”
