Summary of 2001 Act 109 Biennial Budget Repair Bill w/ Governor's Vetoes

Provisions Related to
Elementary and Secondary Education
and State Agency Operations


Also Includes Listing of Key Provisions Discussed During Budget Repair Process but NOT Included In Final Bill

Prepared by Policy and Budget Team
Department of Public Instruction
August 9, 2002

Agency Budget Reductions

• Require the department to permanently reduce GPR spending in its largest operations appropriation by $1,043,100 in FY 2003 and beyond. This represents an 8.7% reduction from the original FY 2003 GPR operating budget of $11,974,400.
  
  The following actions have been implemented to achieve the required savings:
   
  1. Eliminate 10.5 GPR FTE positions - $773,600
  2. Reduce LTE salaries - $170,000
  3. Reduce supplies and services - $99,500
     
     Total = $1,043,100
      
  The agency is making permanent the cutbacks in supplies and services, as well as the use of LTEs, instituted in FY 2002.

• In addition to the $1,043,100 in reductions described above, the bill requires several other permanent GPR cuts in the agency in FY 2003, including:
   
  1. Residential schools - $521,700
  2. Assessment - $2,683,400
  3. Library aids - $553,100
  4. Library service contracts - $15,600
     
     Total GPR reductions in FY 03 = $4,816,900

Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY)

• Specify that, to the extent permitted under federal law, the department award a subgrant of at least $250,000 FED to the HIPPY program in 2002-03 from federal funding under the William F. Goodling Even Start Family Literacy program or other applicable federal programs. The department has facilitated an agreement with Milwaukee Public Schools to provide funding for HIPPY and has supported a program request to the state's federal delegation for earmarked federal funds for the program.

Modified Requirements for License Revocations

• The bill changes penalties in the criminal code for some offenses. The change related to the department amends current law in S.115.31 to reflect those changes and requires the department to continue to revoke licenses for the same types of offenses.

Minority Group Pupil Scholarships

• Provide an additional $500,000 GPR in 2002-03 for the minority precollege scholarship program, which provides funds for minority students in grades 6 through 12 to attend precollege courses at campuses throughout the state. The scholarship pays for the cost of the course, books, supplies, room and board. The increase is above the $1,677,500 in 2002-03 that was previously appropriated for the program.

Debt Levy Limit for Partial School Revenues

• Limit the amount of referenda-approved school district debt levy included in the definition of partial school revenues, beginning in 2002-03, to the lesser of the actual referenda-approved debt levy or $490 million. Set the general school aids funding level at $4,200,945,900 in 2002-03, which is a reduction of $20,000,000 compared to the Act 16 general school aids appropriation.

Primary Guaranteed Valuation

• Set the primary guaranteed valuation per member under the equalization aid formula equal to $1,930,000 beginning in 2002-03. This provision would result in a redistribution of aid under the aid formula. Under current law, the equalization aid formula provides support for three levels of shared costs. The first level is for shared costs up to the primary cost ceiling of $1,000 per member. Primary aid is currently calculated using a statutory guaranteed valuation of $2,000,000 per member. A reduction in the primary guaranteed valuation would result in additional aid being distributed at the secondary aid level.

General School Aids Funding Determination

• Specify that the general school aids appropriation for the 2003-04 fiscal year, and every even-numbered fiscal year thereafter, would be a sum sufficient equal to the amount set by law, and that for the 2004-05 fiscal year and every odd-numbered fiscal year thereafter, the amount would be set by the Joint Committee on Finance.

Memberships and Dues Reductions

• Require the secretary of the Department of Administration (DOA) to lapse in 2002-03 to the general fund an amount equal to 20% of the GPR amounts expended in 2000-01 by each state agency for the costs of membership dues paid to national, state and local nongovernmental organizations and to reduce or re-estimate the corresponding appropriations to reflect the lapses. Provide that these amounts shall be lapsed from the respective agency appropriations from which the membership dues were paid in 2000-01. This is a one-time lapse in 2002-03.

State Employee Cap

• Require that each state agency in the executive branch of government, including the University, identify and report to the secretary of DOA, by July 30 of each year, each classified and unclassified position in the agency which became vacant during the preceding fiscal year.
  
  The Governor vetoed provisions that would have 1) required the secretary of DOA to ensure that during the ensuing fiscal year no executive branch agency fill more than 80% of the total number of FTE positions that became vacant during the preceding fiscal year; 2) directed the secretary of DOA to withhold approval of any agency allotment requests to fund any position subject to this hiring freeze (20% of the vacated positions); and 3) stipulated that such funds be lapsed back to the funding source from which the frozen position was funded and that the unfunded positions be deleted from the agency's base budget. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) had estimated that these provisions may have resulted in the elimination of up to 1,300 state positions annually.

Base Budget Review

• Require every state agency, including the Legislature and the courts, to periodically (once every third biennium) submit a base budget review report. Specify that such report must include a description of each programmatic activity of the agency and provide for each such programmatic activity an accounting, by fund source, of expenditures for the prior three fiscal years and for the last two quarters of each of the prior three fiscal years. Direct the Secretary of the Department of Administration to develop categories for state agencies to use in organizing the required expenditure information. Provide that such reports shall be included with agencies' budget requests and submitted to DOA and LFB by September 15, of the even-numbered year in which an agency is required to prepare a base budget review report.
  
  Specify that the Secretary of DOA, beginning with agency budget requests submitted for the 2003-05 biennium, select one-third of all state agencies to submit the required base budget review information for that biennial budget. Require that for the 2005-07 biennium, the Secretary select half of the remaining agencies to submit their base budget review information for that biennium and stipulate that the remaining agencies would then be required to submit base budget review information for the 2007-09 biennial budget. The cycle would then be repeated in succeeding biennia. It is not yet known if the department will be one of the agencies selected for the 2003-05 biennial budget submission.

Voluntary State Employee Furlough

• Authorize the chief administrative officer of any state agency to grant any state employee, other than an elected official or an employee nominated or appointed by the Governor to a fixed term, a voluntary furlough during the remainder of the 2001-03 biennium, not to exceed eight weeks duration. Stipulate that during the period of the voluntary furlough, the appointing authority would continue to pay the employee's fringe benefits costs, other than for Wisconsin Retirement System contributions and Social Security, and the employee would continue to accrue benefits, other than retirement creditable service and Social Security credits, as though employment was continuous.
  
  Specify that the timing of any voluntary furlough would be at the discretion of the appointing authority. Stipulate that for employees included in a collective bargaining unit for which representation is recognized or certified under the State Employment Relations Act, these voluntary furlough provisions would apply unless otherwise provided in a collective bargaining agreement. Specify that all non-FED salary and Social Security and retirement contribution fringe benefits savings amounts not expended by state agencies (other than the Department of Employee Trust Funds and the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, which are funded from earnings derived from the Public Employee Trust Fund) for employees taking a voluntary furlough would lapse or be transferred to the general fund.

Delay of High School Graduation Test (HSGT)

• Delay by two years, until 2004-05, the current law requirement that beginning in 2002-03, a school board or charter school operating high school grades must administer a high school graduation test. Also delay by two years, until September 1, 2004, the current law requirement that by September 1, 2002, a school board or charter school that operates a high school must adopt a written policy specifying criteria for granting a high school diploma, which must include a pupil's score on a graduation test. Delay by two years, until September 1, 2005, the current law requirement that beginning September 1, 2003, a high school diploma cannot be granted to any pupil unless the pupil has satisfied the school board's or charter school's criteria.
  
  In addition, delete base funding of $900,000 GPR in 2001-02 and $2,375,000 GPR in 2002-03 for the high school graduation test. The department has eliminated 6.0 GPR FTE that were funded by HSGT dollars.

Permitting High School Students to Serve as Election Inspectors

• Provide that a pupil who is 16 or 17 years of age, who is enrolled in grades 9 to 12 in a public or private school, and who has at least a 3.0 grade point average or the equivalent may serve as an inspector at the polling place serving the pupil's residence, with the approval of the pupil's parent or guardian and of the principal of the school in which the pupil is enrolled.

Sale of Soft Drinks in Schools

• Require that if a school board enters into a contract that grants to one vendor the exclusive right to sell soft drinks in one or more schools of the school district, then the contract could not prohibit the sale of milk in any school. Specify that, to the maximum extent possible, the school board would have to ensure that milk is available to pupils in each school covered by the contract. The provision would first apply to contracts entered into, modified, extended, or renewed on the effective date of the bill. The Governor vetoed language that would have required milk to be made available "whenever and wherever the soft drinks are available to pupils" citing that the provision "is overly broad and would require the sale of milk at all scholastic events, not just those during the school day."

Youth Challenge Program

• Delete $1.2 million GPR from the Department of Military Affairs earmarked for operation of the Youth Challenge program. To fund operation of the program, for each cadet enrolled at the Academy, DPI shall decrease the equalization aid (or other state school aid payments received by the district, if necessary) that would be paid to the cadet's relevant school district by either an amount equal to the current year revenue per pupil for the district under revenue limits or an amount equal to the average per-cadet cost at the Youth Challenge Academy, as calculated by DMA, whichever is less.

ITEMS NOT INCLUDED IN FINAL VERSION OF ACT 109 W/ GOVERNOR'S VETOES
(Current law is maintained)

• Include juvenile corrections schools in two-thirds general school aid calculation.
• Set revenue limit per pupil annual increase to $210 in 2002-03.
• Provide an additional $27,400,000 in special education categorical aids in 2002-03.
• Provide an additional $8,000,000 in 2002-03 for enhanced capacity and quality aid to Milwaukee Public Schools.
• Allow schools participating in SAGE to alter a contract or a renewal of a contract by notifying DPI by July 1st which grades from kindergarten through third in which the district wishes to reduce class sizes.
• Reduce funding for the Milwaukee Parental Choice Progam by $42,000,000 in 2002-03 by reducing the per pupil payment; change the appropriation from sum sufficient to sum certain; specify that aid payments shall be prorated if amounts in the appropriation are insufficient.
• Impose several pupil nondiscrimination, standards and assessments requirements on Milwaukee Parental Choice and Charter schools.
• Prohibit a nonresident school board under the open enrollment program from assigning a pupil to a school or program in which the pupil would receive less than 50% of his or her instruction from a licensed teacher who is present in the same room as the pupil.
• Effective July 1, 2002, transfer the programs, duties, appropriations, and staff, excluding the executive director position, of the TEACH Board to DPI.
• Require state agencies to reduce their GPR-funded printing costs by 10% in 2002-03, based on 2000-01 actual printing expenditures.
• Require DOA to review each proposed contract for contractual services in excess of $150,000, or which DOA estimates would require an expenditure in excess of $150,000, to determine whether the expenditures under the proposed contract would be efficient and cost effective.
• Incorporate the provisions of 2001 Assembly Bill 771 and provide $214,300 PR and 3.0 PR positions in 2002-03 for a 22-member Wisconsin Tribal-State Council, which includes the State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
• Include the provisions of AB 493, which would create a program (to be called "Renew Wisconsin") under which the Governor would establish for each state agency in the executive branch of state government a committee to conduct periodic performance evaluations of the operations of the agency, to review the statutes and rules that affect the operation of the agency and to provide a written report to the Governor and the Legislature regarding the committee's findings and recommendations.
• Repeal the general statutory provision allowing the appointment of executive assistants by state agency heads. Prohibit the appointment of any person to an executive assistant position following the effective date of the bill. Provide that any incumbent in an existing executive assistant position on the effective date of the bill may continue in that position, but specify that when that person leaves the position, no new person may be appointed to the position after the effective date of the bill.
• Effective July 1, 2002, delete all unclassified deputy secretary, executive assistant and division administrator positions in executive branch agencies, excluding the position of Administrator of the Division of Merit Recruitment and Selection in the Department of Employment Relations.
• Require that when an agency in the executive branch of government, as a consequence of across-the-board or other reductions required under the bill to previously authorized 2001-03 appropriation amounts, determines that it must impose a reduction in existing employees (layoffs), the agency must first layoff all unclassified employees in the agency (excluding the department head) before eliminating any classified service employees.
• Require that each state agency in the executive branch of government, in implementing appropriation decreases for fiscal year 2002-03 as required under this bill, shall ensure that any reduction in services made by the agency is equitably apportioned between residents of rural areas and residents of urban areas in this state.
• Reduce the remaining funding in compensation reserves in 2002-03, net of funding already removed for length of service payments, so that the resulting final level of funding for fiscal year 2002-03 is the same amount that is available for fiscal year 2001-02. Savings of $118.6 million from all funds.
• Effective January 1, 2003, require state employees insured under the state group health insurance program to contribute a minimum of $10 per month for single contract coverage and $20 per month for family contract coverage (and the net balance of any other employee-required contribution) under the current state group health insurance premium contribution formula.
• Specify that for permanent or project state employees with appointments between 0.50 FTE and 0.74 FTE, who are participants under the Wisconsin Retirement System, the state would contribute one-half of the normal state contribution for a full-time employee, commencing January 1, 2003, and the employee would contribute the remainder.
• Effective July 1, 2002, end state employer contributions to the income continuation insurance program for state employees and provide that any state employee electing to participate in the program must pay the entire monthly premium amount.
• Establish an early retirement incentive plan for certain Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) participants during the 2002-03 fiscal year.
• Modify current law qualified economic offer (QEO) provisions applicable to school district employers, as follows: maintenance of all conditions of employment; maintenance of provisions relating to permissive subjects of bargaining; binding arbitration authorized if employer's offer is not qualified.
• Teacher preparation time as a mandatory subject of bargaining.
• Require that the Legislative Audit Bureau conduct, at least once every five years, a management and performance evaluation audit of each large program in state government and direct that the required audit include an appraisal of all management practices, operating procedures and organizational structures related to the program being audited. This would have included the department's school aids programs.