WUWM Students arrive at Clemens Elementary on MPS s first day back to in-person school during the 20-21 school year.
The Milwaukee Public Schools board is set this week to approve its $1.3 billion budget for next school year.
There’s a lot of financial uncertainty right now, because the state budget is still in the works and MPS doesn’t know whether families who left the district during the pandemic will come back.
But a budget analysis from the Wisconsin Policy Forum finds there is also reason for optimism. MPS is expecting $731 million in federal COVID-19 relief money, which is available for use over the next three years. And, voters approved a tax referendum in April 2020, which provides an additional $77 million for the next fiscal year.
A new report shows federal funding and new revenue providing financial relief after an uncertain year. //end headline wrapper ?>Get a daily rundown of the top stories on Urban Milwaukee
A yard sign in front of a home in Madison encourages residents to vote for a referendum Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020. Angela Major/WPR
The budgets school districts put out each spring are always intended to be a best guess, subject to change depending on what the state ends up providing in per-pupil aid and other funding and how many students are enrolled at the district the following fall.
This year is even more uncertain, though.
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Miller criticizes MCP for not providing busing.
MPS receives state transportation funding but does not share or distribute any of it to MCP or any of its charter schools.
Miller states, “Misleading data and fuzzy math were used by Schlifske when he claimed that ‘MPS operates on per-pupil funding of $14,568.’ This is simply not true. The actual number is much less. Opponents of public education arrive at that figure by dividing the total budget of MPS by the number of students.”
MPS is projecting an enrollment of just over 71,000 students (which includes 7,500 MPS Charter school students) next year and an overall budget of $1.3B. Dividing that total budget by the number of students yields an annual sum of more than $18,000 per-pupil, not $14,568, as Miller implies.
Correction: An earlier version of this article reported that evictions filings rose in Milwaukee last year. Filings were somewhat lower in 2020.
Affordable housing has long been one of Milwaukee’s greatest challenges. Recent Wisconsin Policy Forum research has found thousands of households spend more than they can afford on rent, evictions are all too common, and homeownership has declined at an alarming rate. Stark racial disparities show that these issues are particularly challenging for the city’s Black and Hispanic populations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated Milwaukee’s housing affordability challenges. While the economy has begun to rebound, preliminary data show total employment in the Milwaukee metro area remained down 7.1% in February 2021 compared with February 2020. Reduced employment has increased the number of households struggling to pay for basic needs such as rent, mortgages and home maintenance.