Washington Island Talk

I had the pleasure this week of visiting Washington Island to meet with community members and give a presentation on local education issues and other state matters.

As for the education portion of the event, most of the discussions revolved around the state's school funding formula and such related items as revenue limits, mill rates and declining enrollment.

The Washington Island School District is certainly unique among the state’s 420 school districts. As the smallest K-12 district, it is particularly susceptible to declining enrollment, which makes school funding challenging.

Wisconsin’s school funding formula attempts to make the mill rates relatively equal among the state’s school districts. Because of their very high property values, Washington Island, along with Gibraltar and Sevastopol, are among the 20 districts that receive no state aid through the equalization formula.

While property values are high, there is a great deal of poverty on the island.

We have made some movement toward providing more state funding to these districts that receive nothing in the equalization formula. They now get $660 per student in categorical aid.

I had a motion included in the 2019-21 state budget that would have set a minimum level of state aid for all students, but the governor used his partial line-item veto power to instead expand eligibility for supplemental per-pupil aid for all districts.

The Joint Finance Committee didn't include my identical motion in the 2021-23 budget because they feared the governor would do the same thing again.

Washington Island is a close-knit and involved community, so the discussion was great. I look forward to meeting with other communities in the months ahead.

Healthcare Stability Plan 

I am proud that the 2021-23 state budget aims to lower health insurance premiums for a large group of Wisconsin residents. 

We were able to carry out that objective by increasing the cap on the Wisconsin Healthcare Stability Plan from $200 million to $230 million.

The Wisconsin Healthcare Stability Plan, which was authorized in July 0f 2018, is a state-operated reinsurance program that is intended to reduce premiums paid by individuals who purchase health insurance through the marketplace. Reinsurance payments reimburse insurers for a portion of the total annual claims for people with high expenses.

According to the state Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, health insurance premiums in 2019 were 10 percent lower than they otherwise would have been without the reinsurance program. 

Without the stability plan, rates in the individual marketplace were expected to increase by 9 percent in 2020. However, those rates ended up going down by about 3.2 percent.

It is vital that our communities have access to reliable and affordable health insurance and I am glad the state budget is helping us make considerable progress in that area.

Main Street Grants

The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. is now accepting applications for the Main Street Bounceback Grants program.

The initiative provides $10,000 grants to new and existing businesses and non-profit organizations that are moving into vacant properties in our state’s downtowns and commercial corridors.

Funds can be used to pay for operational expenses, leases and mortgages or other business costs related to newly-opened locations.

Businesses and nonprofits that are interested in learning more about the program should click on this link.