By Brandi Makuski

One area groups claims public schools will be getting the short end of the stick when it comes to state funding.

School Funding Reform for Wisconsin, a Stevens Point- based organization working to change the process used in determining school funding, says state leaders are over-reaching when it comes to implementing a school voucher program.

“Parents are reacting strongly and negatively to the shocking statewide voucher expansion deal reported by media and referenced by GOP legislators over the last 36 hours,” the group said in a press release Friday. “These reports indicate that rather than a compromise that invests in public schools and limits voucher expansion, all 424 Wisconsin school districts will be subject to a competing network of taxpayer-funded voucher schools – a far broader geographic reach than Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed expansion into nine school districts.”

Legislators last week agreed to delay a scheduled vote on school vouchers in an effort to hammer out a more palatable compromise before the budget needs to be finished this week.

Expanding the school voucher program would give public money to families to help pay for private school educations in districts with more than two failing schools.

“In Stevens Point, we have approximately 1,000 students enrolled in parochial schools who are not included in our school district’s state aid calculation,” said Jeri McGinley, from School Funding Reform for Wisconsin.

“When the caps come off – and they will – those vouchers alone will have a devastating impact on our school district’s budget, property taxes, and opportunities to learn for our more than 7,400 students,” she added.

Gov. Scott Walker said Friday that a proposed compromise on the voucher program is “pretty close to completed.”

Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal would let children with special needs use about $14,000 in taxpayer funding to attend private or charter schools. The amount is more than twice that for school choice participants.

One compromise of the voucher expansion program includes a $150 bump in per-pupil funding; an increase over Governor Walker’s original increase of zero dollars. The governor had originally allocated $129 million in “school funds” to finance property tax reductions.

McGinley said local parents weren’t buying the compromise, calling the $150 boost “bread-crumb level” spending that followed $550 per-pupil cuts of the 2011-13 state budget.

“Voucher schools will apparently enjoy a per-pupil funding increase of $558 under this last-minute plan. The plan eventually ties voucher and public per-pupil increases together, but public school parents are wondering – why not start now?”

So far the compromise involves expanding the vouchers to every district in the state but with enrollment caps of 500 next school year and 1,000 after that. Walker’s original plan would have allowed vouchers in only nine cities and there would be no enrollment caps after two years.

The deal would also tighten income eligibility, limiting new enrollees to students from families earning up to 185 percent of the poverty rate instead of 300 percent as Walker wanted.

State superintendent Tony Evers, the state teachers union, school boards association and other groups- including School Funding Reform for Wisconsin- have all objected to the plan as being too expansive despite the enrollment limits.

“When we’re talking about statewide expansion of voucher schools we’re  talking about moving into communities that don’t want or need them, and in most  cases are downright outspoken in their opposition to them,” said Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council. “We’re talking about diminished resources for students in our neighborhood public schools while private voucher schools essentially get a blank check at taxpayer expense with zero accountability.”

If lawmakers are not able to find a compromise in time for the budget vote, the voucher expansion could come back as a separate bill.