(The Center Square) – Milwaukee Public School’s new tax increase will almost certainly put Milwaukee among the biggest spenders in the country.
Voters narrowly approved the $252 million-a-year property tax hike last week.
School leaders have not yet said just how they will spend the money. They say both a new budget and a new facilities master plan are coming.
Quinton Klabon with the Institute for Reforming Government said depending on how much MPS spends, the city’s schools could be a top 50 spender.
“We do know that MPS budgeted $1.5 billion for this year against 66,864 students, between $21,000 and $22,000 per student, and next year they likely will add to that,” Klabon told The Center Square. “That vaults Milwaukee into the conversation with some of the highest spending big districts in the nation, up there with Detroit and Seattle once accounting for cost of living. If Milwaukee becomes a top-10 spending district, we simply must expect substantial improvement, no matter the challenges.”
Milwaukee Public Schools continue to have some of the worst reading and math scores in the entire state and have the worst racial-learning gap in the country.
In addition to that, MPS has one of the worst graduation rates in the state. Just 65% of students graduated from MPS in four years in 2023.
“In 2021, Milwaukee had the 2nd-lowest graduation rate of the 500 biggest districts in America. With its newfound resources, MPS should never be near-last again,” Klabon said.
MPS Superintendent Keith Posley last week said the district intends to spend its tax increase money on art classes, music classes, gym classes, lower class sizes, and more student supports.
He said that without the tax increase, MPS would be forced to make broad cuts.
Posley also said MPS is looking at a fiscal cliff because of Republican state lawmakers, and not MPS’ spending.
Klabon disagrees there.
“MPS has a compelling message that state and especially federal legislators should find a way to fund special needs students more,” Klabon said. “But MPS smuggling its way into the broader conversation about Wisconsin school funding is not backed up by the facts. In 2020, 74% of MPS’ revenue came from the state and federal governments. Of the nation’s 200 biggest districts, that was the 21st-highest percentage. Wisconsin is much more generous to Milwaukee than the states of similarly poor districts like Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Oklahoma City are to them.”
Critics of the MPS tax hike pointed out that Milwaukee Public Schools got record amounts of money from the state and the federal government during the coronavirus, but yet was crying poor to lawmakers.
Klabon said taxpayers and MPS families will get a better sense of where the new money will be spent when MPS unveiled its budget proposal for next year at the end of this month.
