By LeAnn R. Ralph
MADISON — The new state budget of $81 billion has more funding for public education, special education, nursing homes and personal care workers, according to state Senator Patty Schachtner (Senate District 10) and state Representative Rob Summerfield (Assembly District 67).
Senator Schachtner (D-Somerset) and Representative Summerfield (R-Bloomer) spoke about the state budget on The West Side on Wisconsin Public Radio, 88.3, on Monday, July 1.
Senate District 10 includes Assembly Districts 28, 29 and 30 and covers St. Croix County, Polk County and parts of Dunn County, Pierce County and Burnett County.
Assembly District 67 covers the Towns of Colfax, Elk Mound, Grant, Hay River, Otter Creek, Red Cedar, Sand Creek, Sheridan, Sherman, Spring Brook, Tainter and Wilson, and the Villages of Colfax, Elk Mound, Ridgeland and Wheeler, as well as parts of Barron and Chippewa Counties.
After making 78 line-item vetoes, Democratic Governor Tony Evers signed into law on July 3 the state budget that had been forwarded to him by the state Senate on a vote of 17 “yes” to 16 “no.”
The state Senate and state Assembly have Republican majorities.
Special education funding was increased in the two-year state budget by 22 percent, Summerfield said.
The state Legislature has not increased special education funding for about 10 years.
While a 22 percent increase in special education is a good start, the increase is still “throwing crumbs” at special education, Schachtner said.
School district administrators have been spending money from their district’s general funds to pay for special education, she said.
The current budget includes a $500 million increase for education, and in the last session, the legislature increased school funding by $600 million, Summerfield said.
“That’s not crumbs,” he said.
Governor Scott Walker signed a budget in 2011 that decreased school funding by $1 billion. Local school district administrators say that the $1 billion removed from the state education budget has never been replaced, and the increases now are replacing what was removed eight years ago.
The state budget includes a higher reimbursement to voucher schools than to public schools, Schachtner noted.
The “crumbs” comment came from the parent of a child with special needs. School districts have children with complex special needs that require highly-educated people to help provide for those needs, she said.
There is no parent of a special education student who will say there is enough investment in special education, Schachtner said.
And while Schachtner said she is appreciative of the 22 percent increase in special education funding, she also noted the budget includes $20 million in tax breaks for 11 people in the state making more than $30 million per year.
Education increases
According to news reports, the budget Governor Evers signed included an effective increase of $65 million in K-12 education funding over what the Republicans in the Senate and the Assembly had approved. The increase means per-pupil allocations will increase by $63 for the 2019-2020 school year. The per-student increase approved by Republican legislators was $25.
Under the Republican plan, school districts would have received $679 per student in state aid in 2019-2020, and $704 per student the next year.
Under the increase approved by Governor Evers, school districts can expect to receive $742 per student in each of the next two school years, according to news reports.
Nursing homes
The state budget includes a 7 percent increase for nursing home reimbursements and a 12 percent increase for personal care workers, Representative Summerfield said.
In recent years, Wisconsin has been at the very bottom among the 50 states in Medicaid reimbursements for nursing homes.
Wisconsin has had more nursing homes close in the last five years than ever before, Senator Schachtner said.
The cause of the nursing home closures has been because of the low reimbursement rate and because the facilities cannot find enough people to work, she said.
Nursing homes are in a “crisis state” right now, and increases in reimbursement rates should have been “ongoing for years,” Schachtner said, adding that if the increases had been included in earlier budgets, “we would not be where we are right now.”
Schachtner said she has talked with nursing home administrators who say they cannot afford to pay their employees more and that many of their nurses’ aides are on BadgerCare.
Many of the nursing home workers “are not getting paid enough to make a living for a family,” she said.
About 70 percent of the people living in nursing homes are on Medicaid, Schachtner said.
In years past, nursing homes contained more of a general population because there was no assisted living and no in-home nursing care, Summerfield said.
Now nursing home residents are more “end of life care,” and “we need to figure out how to do this,” Summerfield said.
Medicaid
Schachtner and Summerfield also talked about accepting federal money for Medicaid expansion.
Governor Evers’ proposed budget included Medicaid expansion, which would have brought $320 million to Wisconsin in federal dollars over two years, but Republicans removed Medicaid expansion from the governor’s budget.
Summerfield said Medicaid expansion “is not working in many states.” Rhode Island is considering a 10 percent payroll tax after accepting the Medicaid expansion because the enrollment has gone up, he said.
Massachusetts is trying to roll back the Medicaid expansion because 40 percent of the state’s budget is Medicaid, Summerfield said.
In Wisconsin, people who are at 138 percent of the poverty level can go on the Affordable Care Act exchange and buy health insurance, he said.
Schachtner pointed out Wisconsin taxpayers are sending money to Washington D.C., which is going to 37 other states that accepted the Medicaid expansion.
“It’s our tax dollars, and we are not taking our tax dollars … we are subsidizing other states’ health insurance,” she said.
Not taking the Medicaid expansion “cost my district $107 million,” Schachtner said.
Schachtner noted that according to a Marquette University poll, 70 percent of Wisconsin residents want the Medicaid expansion, and 89 percent who called Schachtner’s office were in favor of the expansion.
