State Representative Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) released the following statement in response to the Joint Finance Committee’s actions on June 12, 2025:
“The Joint Finance Committee Republicans’ action yesterday – passing an education budget motion that increases spending on private education by $30 million, but includes only 37.5% special education funding for public schools, and refuses to increase general aid to public schools by a single dime – would make life tangibly harder in Wisconsin. The result would be more rural school closures, more referendums, and more economic instability. They took this action amid unknowable federal chaos from the Trump Administration and delayed their public meeting by five-and-a-half hours – conveniently missing the majority of the Thursday news cycle.
“Their budget motion is a staggering betrayal of Wisconsin kids and of democracy.
“After 16 consecutive years of failing to keep up with inflation, abysmal special education funding, a ballooning private voucher scheme, and growing referendums just to keep the lights on in our public schools – while just sitting on billions of taxpayer dollars – Wisconsin literally can’t afford another round of these shenanigans.
“This motion, if passed in a budget bill, would be the worst education budget in my adult lifetime. We go into this budget with a $4 billion surplus: that surplus belongs to our kids – not to the ultra-rich.
“Enough. The stakes are too high. Unless GOP leadership makes an immediate U-turn and goes back to the drawing board to add our shared priorities back to the proposal, I will be forcefully opposing the budget and working with my colleagues to meet it with the opposition it deserves. If the final budget looks like this motion, no elected leader should support it in any way.”
