Superintendent Pat Herdrich discussed at the January 11 School Board meeting the possibility of suing the State of Wisconsin with the basis of the lawsuits being the large number of unfunded mandates. As reported by the Daily News:

The West Bend School District is considering suing the state.

    Superintendent Pat Herdrich told school board members when they met Monday that she and an administrator from another school district met with an attorney in Madison to discuss a lawsuit against the state over the growing disparity between educational mandates and available funding.

    School board members were aware she met with an attorney, Herdrich said, and the information she provided at Monday’s meeting was strictly an update.

    The potential suit would seek that the state legislature not issue any new mandates for K-12 education unless funding from the state would support the requirements and that current mandates be reexamined unless adequate funding can also be provided.

There are many unfunded (or underfunded) mandates, which includes a wide variety of items such as busing, number of credits needed for specific classes, the Youth Options program, testing requirements and a large number of mandates for disabled, economically disadvantaged and English as a Second Language students.  West Bend School District applied thru DPI for a number of waivers of specific mandates earlier in the year and was turned down on all of them.

There was a lawsuit filed in 1995 by 104 school districts in the state, Vincent v Voight and the Supreme Court issued its ruling in 2000. This lawsuit was based on inequity in the school funding formula and how State Equalization Aid is distributed.  The plaintiffs lost the lawsuit, and the court upheld by a 4-3 vote that the current system is constitutional. The court did however address that the State has the obligation to provide an equal opportunity for education to all students and specifically addressed 3 populations, that the system must take  “into account districts with disproportionate numbers of disabled students, economically disadvantaged students, and students with limited English language skills.”

Many people think that though the courts upheld the funding formula as constitutional, there may be a basis for a new lawsuit based on the difficulties schools are having funding education for the 3 student populations described above.  The number of these students has climbed dramatically since the Vincent v Voight lawsuit, but the funding has not kept up.  Categorical aid per pupil (for Special Education, etc)  has dropped significantly over the years, requiring school districts to shift increasing numbers of dollars from their general fund budget to pay for that programming. Approximately 12% of West Bend School District students are categorized as Special Needs.  According to the budget report presented at the annual meeting, over 10% of General Fund expenditures go toward Special Ed Transfer/Non-program transactions. (The General Fund provides for the majority of school district’s expenditures and instructional budget).