(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has launched a public platform for accessing transparent and easy-to-understand school finance data statewide.
Through the online Wisconsin School Finance Public Reports, viewers can access year-to-year and district-by-district data on school district referenda, tax levies, debt service payments and debt balances, and revenue and cost reports.
The platform, as mandated by 2021 Wisconsin Act 89, can be accessed free of cost.
“This new tool will increase fiscal transparency and help Wisconsinites understand how their districts and schools operate financially,” DPI Superintendent Jill Underly said in a statement. “Building on our existing publicly available data systems, the WiSFPR dashboard will enhance the accessibility of our educational data to the public.”
Although the DPI’s advisory committee initially recommended including voucher-related funding data, the final dashboard excludes private school financial information following opposition from conservative advocacy groups and a rejection from the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee in 2023.
The portal uses financial data collected from all public school districts statewide, including county children with disabilities education boards and independent charter schools.
Taxes are broken down into different categories, like general operations to run the schools, paying off debt, building or expanding schools and community service.
The dashboard then reports t levies using equalized property values and mill rates, meaning levy rates are measured only by how much a certain district is taxing per $1,000 of property value.
While equalized levy rates and financial data have long been used in internal state reporting, the WiSFPR dashboard marks the first time they’ve been made publicly accessible in an accessibly, user-friendly platform.
Tax incremental financing districts are excluded from the reports.
Sen. Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, previously lauded the bill mandating the platform’s creation after its signing by Gov. Tony Evers.
“This is about transparency and access, and about every taxpayer, parent, teacher, reporter, and school board member who has at one point or another found our school funding data difficult to comprehend,” Felzkowski said in a statement. “Every member of the public should have the opportunity for an informed discussion about school spending with their school’s leadership.”
The dashboard marks another stride by DPI towards public financial transparency, and comes in light the DPI’s announcement that Milwaukee Public Schools would be losing state aid for missing the end-of-May deadline for last year’s financial report.
“Meeting key deadlines is critical to ensure the DPI can accurately and efficiently calculate general aid estimates for school districts across Wisconsin,” Deputy State Superintendent Tom McCarthy previously said in a statement.
Although DPI didn’t specify the amount of state aid that would be withheld from the district, MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius announced the 2023-24 year financial report was submitted by June 18.
The district’s financial data was available to view on the WiSFPR dashboard at the time of publication.
