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State representative outlines uncertain budget, lists education bills affecting Holmen
Summary
State Rep. Steve Doyle told the Holmen School District board that the state budget process has removed many of the governor’s education proposals and listed several pending education bills; he and board members focused especially on special education reimbursement and how proposed changes would affect district finances.
State Rep. Steve Doyle, D-La Crosse, briefed the Holmen School District Board on the state budget process and pending education legislation, saying parts of Gov. Tony Evers’s education agenda have been removed by the Legislature’s budget committee and that school funding outcomes are still unsettled.
Doyle told the board that the Joint Finance Committee has voted to strip many policy-related items from its early budget package and that “we do know what’s not in the budget” even though final numbers are not yet set. He quoted former President Joe Biden to describe the relationship between budgets and values: “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I will tell you what you value.”
The update matters because several governor-proposed education items — including a proposed $3.1 billion increase in general and categorical aid, funding for student mental health, expanded reading improvement funds, and a proposal to fund universal free school breakfast and lunch — were reduced or removed in the early Joint Finance actions, Doyle said. He warned that some items removed early in the process cannot be restored later and said the committee removed roughly 612 items it categorized as policy.
Doyle reviewed a set of education bills currently moving through the Legislature and described whether they had passed either house. He said Assembly Bill 1 (which would change Department of Public Instruction report-card measures) was passed by the Legislature and vetoed by the governor. He also said bills requiring cursive instruction (AB 3), additional civics instruction for graduation (AB 4), online publication of textbooks and curricula (AB 5), and requirements on operating-expenditure shares for classroom spending and limits on administrator pay (AB 6) have advanced in the Assembly but face split votes and had not cleared both houses at the time of his presentation. He noted other bills on gender participation in athletics (AB 100), name use without parental permission (AB 103), and academic and career planning reporting requirements (AB 10166) had similar status notes.
Board members pressed Doyle on special-education funding. A board member told Doyle that districts are asking the Joint Finance Committee to increase general special-education categorical aid to a 60% reimbursement rate “at a sufficient level.” Doyle confirmed the governor proposed the 60% target for general special-education aid and a 40% proposal for high-cost special-education aid, but said many items were still undecided in the budget process.
Doyle provided more technical detail on high-cost special-education aid: a district qualifies for that aid only when a student’s additional nonadministrative special-education costs exceed $30,000; the legislative fiscal bureau estimated the actual reimbursement rate for high-cost aid in 2024–25 at about 25.9%. He added that Holmen’s data over the past 11–12 years show only occasional high-cost awards and that increasing high-cost aid alone would not substitute for raising the general special-education reimbursement to 60%.
Holmen board members said the district currently transfers roughly $7 million from its general fund each year to cover special-education expenses and estimated a 60% general reimbursement would yield about $2.5 million to $3 million annually in additional revenue for the district. Doyle asked the board to share district-specific data; a board member offered to send Holmen’s figures for his use in budget debate.
Doyle also urged local, one-on-one advocacy for schools — phone calls, emails and personal contacts with members of the Joint Finance Committee — and explained that what comes out of Joint Finance typically becomes the budget and is unlikely to be amended on the floor.
Board members and Doyle agreed the budget timetable remained uncertain: the Joint Finance Committee was scheduled to focus on major items in June, and Doyle said final budget action might slip past the usual June deadline depending on negotiations between the governor and legislative leaders.
Looking ahead, Doyle encouraged the district to provide data to him or committee members to influence budget deliberations and thanked the board for the chance to present.
