The State of Wisconsin hands out nearly $5 billion in general aids for public school districts every year.
But not all schools get a proportional piece of the pie, and schools in northern Wisconsin are hit especially hard.
The Fair Aid Coalition is trying to fix that.
Coalition President Ben Niehaus, the superintendent of the School District of Florence County, met with other northern administrators on Monday in Minocqua.
“The Fair Aid Coalition advocates for those school districts that, I would say, simply do not play well in the school funding formula of distributing dollars to schools through the general aid formula,” he said.
The state’s complicated funding formula has meant districts like Niehaus’ have lost 15 percent of their funding every year for nearly a decade.
That’s put added pressure on taxpayers.
The Coalition hopes the state legislature will agree to fund every school at a minimum amount.
“We advocate to try and get a minimum aid that says the State of Wisconsin is obligated to support every student in that general aid formula at $1,000 and to provide some form of property tax relief to those schools and the taxpayers that support those schools,” Niehaus said.
On Monday, the Coalition recognized state Sen. Tom Tiffany (R-Minocqua) as its legislator of the year.
Tiffany pushed the $1,000-per-student guarantee farther in the legislature than it has ever been.
“It was a significant step forward. We’re hoping in the next session of the legislature that enough legislators will look at this as, it’s time to make sure that schools have minimum aid,” Tiffany said.
Tiffany will not be in the state legislature much longer. Also on Monday, he announced he was signing a declaration of non-candidacy for the Senate as he runs for U.S. Congress.
