Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

School district finance has been a consequential issue in the State of Wisconsin since the passing of the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill of 2011, commonly referred to as Act 10. Act 10 has significant implications for the variations of school district revenue provided by the State and the cost of core education. To illustrate its impact, this bill has curtailed state aid to school districts by about $900 million for two years after its passing (Malin, 2012). About 10 percent of school districts either received less state aid , while other school districts received more state aid which perpetuated the already widening gap in school funding in Wisconsin (Beck, 2016). It is subsequently predicted that Act 10 would have effects on the amount of state revenue allocated to school districts and their spending in relation to education costs. With that, our research questions are as follows: 1) How has Act 10 affected equity of state revenue in Wisconsin? 2) How has Act 10 affected education costs in school districts in Wisconsin?

Using the longitudinal demographic data that spans seven consecutive years from 423 school districts in Wisconsin, we utilized the Interrupted Time Series (ITS) model because Act 10 has influenced every school district in Wisconsin since 2012. The analysis shows that the inequity level of state revenue across school districts has worsened despite the proportion of state revenue increasing after Act 10. In addition, this study demonstrates that Act 10 caused the proportional decrease of the core education cost by 1%. Our third result demonstrates that Act 10 exacerbated the inequity level of the core education cost between school districts. This finding advocates the concern that Act 10 would worsen the unequal distribution of the state revenue and the gap of spending in core education. The findings of our analysis has implications for state level policy and educational equity in the State of Wisconsin. In the era of post Act 10, the levels of inequity still prove to be significant in regards to state allocated revenue to school districts, therefore state level policy needs to be evaluated in order to address the levels of inequity. Future policy surrounding state revenue allocated to school districts should plan to provide a more equitable distribution of funding.