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Billionaire Walker donor pays no state corporate income tax
Beloit businesswoman prompted “divide and conquer” quote;
Her ABC Supply Company pays $0 state income tax
See the latest edition of WhoDoesNotPayTaxes?
New study says little doubt remains
that budget hurts kids and their schools
The evidence keeps piling up – the cuts to public education in the 2011-13 budget are not good for children, their schools, or their communities.
Two of Wisconsin's leading education professionals studied the impact of the budget and published a policy brief entitled, "Making Matters Worse: School Funding, Achievement Gaps and Poverty under Wisconsin Act 32." The findings were startling but not unexpected: Reductions in state aid and revenue limit authority – leaving school districts with $1.6 billion less revenue – are and will be devastating, especially for children from poverty.
James Shaw and Carolyn Kelly wrote the policy brief for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. It examined the impact of the budget on school funding, teacher quality, student learning, and property taxes. Shaw and Kelly are state educators with expertise in school reform and school leadership development.
The pair's key findings are:
- State budget cuts hit high poverty districts the hardest.
- High poverty districts have less state revenue to support the needs of children and taxpayers in high poverty districts pay taxes at increasingly higher rates.
- Reductions in employee compensation hit high poverty districts the hardest.
- Reductions in the size of the workforce hit high poverty districts hardest.
- Act 32 (the budget) increases funding gaps for poor and minority students.
In other words, “this study paints a grim picture of funding gaps in Wisconsin public education. … The reductions in state support for public education threaten to increase achievement gaps, and challenge Wisconsin’s constitutional and long-standing commitment to equal education opportunity.”
La Follette supports “A Penny for Kids”
Understanding the devastating impact of aid cuts to schools in the last state budget, Secretary of State Douglas La Follette, a candidate in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, recently endorsed “A Penny for Kids,” a one-cent increase in the sales tax to restore the cuts and begin a re-investment in our children and their futures.
“A Penny for Kids,” along with “Fair Funding for Our Future,” is at the heart of the reform campaign of Opportunity to Learn-Wisconsin. La Follette was speaking at a candidate forum in Stevens Point, April 19.
According to the Secretary of State, “A cut to education funding of this magnitude is deplorable. It is plain that the results are larger class sizes, fewer subject offerings, and a reduction in quality of education in our public schools.” He said would strongly support “A Penny for Kids”, which would increase funding for public schools and the state's university system through a one-cent increase in the sales tax.
Read the press release from Douglas La Follette
Superintendent Evers will introduce
funding reform plan again next year
When Opportunity to Learn-Wisconsin decided to endorse State Superintendent of Schools Tony Evers’ school-funding reform plan it hope he would make it part of his next budget. He has and the network is looking forward to standing with him for “Fair Funding for Our Future.”
Evers was recently the guest of Steve Walters on the WisconsinEye show, Newsmakers. They covered a wide range of topics, from the state’s entry in the new Race to the Top funding chase to Read to Lead to the politics of education is Wisconsin.
The State Superintendent said the damaging cuts in aid and revenue limit authority that limited the opportunities young people need to learn will continue next year. Evers said he “will again this fall recommend to the Governor and the Legislature a news school-funding plan to restore that aid.”
Watch the WisconsinEye broadcastGannett papers endorse IWF’s call for better tax enforcement
IWF’s effort to increase the state’s collection of delinquent taxes was featured in a collection of stories by Gannett Wisconsin Media, which publishes ten newspapers in the state.
The stories showed that the state collects only one-third of the one billion dollars owed by tax delinquents and is increasingly cutting deals with tax avoiders. One story focused exclusively on IWF’s Investing in Revenue report, which argued for greater investment in the Department of Revenue’s ability to catch tax cheats. An editorial endorsed IWF’s position.
The Gannett chain publishes the daily newspapers in Appleton, Fond du Lac, Green Bay, Manitowoc, Marshfield, Oshkosh, Sheboygan, Stevens Point, Wausau and Wisconsin Rapids.
For details, see:
The Oshkosh Northwestern Main Story
Story focusing on IWF's report
Editorial endorsing IWF's position
Small investment in the Department of Revenue can generate millions for critical public services
Feb. 27, 2012 — IWF’s newest report — Investing in Revenue — shows there are more than $900 million in taxes legally owed to the state but not collected. There are also several hundred million more in taxes that should be paid but haven’t been because of either deliberate or accidental misfiling or failures to file a tax return. One simple solution to Wisconsin’s revenue crunch is to invest in staffing needed for the state’s Department of Revenue (DOR) to access this large pool of uncollected tax dollars. Read how an investment of $12.5 million in resources for DOR can generate $100 million in additional revenue during this biennium. This is a net gain of $87.5 million that could be used to prevent more cuts to schools, health care and other programs.
See the full report
Read the press release
Opportunity to Learn Wisconsin kicks off statewide;
Campaign backs new funding system, restoring cuts
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From left to right, Jasmine Alinder, LaShell Drake, and Maria de Jesus Dixon discuss the merits of the State Superintendent's school-funding reform plan. |
The verdict is in: 20 years of neglect and a year of devastating cuts have left public school children throughout Wisconsin with fewer opportunities to learn and to succeed in life after school.
Those were the conclusions reached, March 24, 2012 at the kick-off statewide conference of Opportunity to Learn-Wisconsin (OTL-Wisconsin), a network of educators, students, organizations, school districts, and citizens.
More importantly, the 75 advocates gathered at the United Way of Dane County in Madison for the daylong sessions decided it was time to act and how:
- First, OTL-Wisconsin endorsed “Fair Funding for Our Future,” the school-funding reform plan of state schools’ superintendent Tony Evers, as sound education and public policy. The plan is politically viable and a powerful first step that makes long overdue changes to the Wisconsin’s 20-year-old funding system crisis.
- Setting itself apart from other efforts, however, OTL-Wisconsin has taken as its goal to push Sup. Evers, the Governor, and the Legislature to ─ at a bare minimum ─ restore the devastating cuts made to public schools in the last state budget and begin to reinvest in our public schools. The group endorsed a one-cent increase in the sales tax – Penny for Kids—to accomplish this. Read more...
Is Gov. Walker to Blame for Wisconsin’s Poor Economy?
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel used an opinion piece written by IWF’s Karen Royster and Jack Norman to frame a debate on that question Sunday, March 11, 2012.
IWF’s statement made the argument: “Walker is indeed to blame for the state’s poor growth.”
Journal Sentinel editorial writers made the opposite argument: “Walker can’t be blamed for state’s sluggish growth.”
[For what it’s worth, twice as many readers have Recommended IWF’s article to Facebook as have similarly praised the editorial writers’ position.]
New IWF tax expose: GE pays $0 state tax
General Electric has brought many good things to Wisconsin, especially good jobs. We just wish they’d pay income tax, as well.
Our latest tax newsletter provides the first national documentation of GE not paying income tax at the state level. GE has been become the national poster-child for corporate tax avoidance.
See all issues of WhoDoesNotPayTaxes?
Walker policies costing Wisconsin jobs
Gov. Scott Walker’s economic policies have caused so much job loss that Wisconsin is trailing the national pace of job creation.
That’s brought home by a new report from IWF, The Price of Extremism: Wisconsin’s economy under the Walker administration.
If only Wisconsin had matched the national pace of job creation since April, about 34,000 more families would have a breadwinner with a full-time job, the report says.
Wisconsin lags the national economy because of Walker’s “cuts only” approach to budgeting. His policies have pulled billions of dollars out of the state economy, the worst possible action he could have taken during a difficult economic period.
Walker’s cuts include:
- Cuts in state aid for important programs at the state and local level
- Cuts in aid to low-income families
- Cuts in take-home pay for hundreds of thousands of public employees
- Rejections of federal dollars.
The indirect ripple effects of these policies will alone cause the destruction of about 18,000 full-time jobs, according to IWF’s economic simulations.
The report also includes estimates of the impact on a number of individual counties.
Read The Price of Extremism: Wisconsin’s economy under the Walker administration
See the press release
How Gov. Walker’s policies impact your community — County-by-county breakdowns
The slash and burn economic policy is not working for Wisconsin
IWF wants to share with you a new document from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia showing economic growth across the United States from July 1 to October 1, 2011. The color code goes from dark green (high growth) to red (lowest growth.) The map summarizes current economic conditions in each state using nonfarm employment, average hours worked in manufacturing, the unemployment rate, and wage and salaries. Guess which state has dropped to the bottom since the budget went into effect on July 1, 2011?
This mapping reinforces the conclusion of IWF's recent report(see story above)on the impact of Governor Walker's economic policies. The IWF report, The Price of Extremism, shows why Wisconsin has lost more jobs than any other state in the country.
See the press release from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
