‘Operating within a broken system’

GREEN BAY – Nineteen plaintiffs from across the state, including the Green Bay Area Public School District (GBAPS) and the Green Bay Education Association (GBEA), filed suit against the Wisconsin State Legislature and its Joint Committee on Finance Monday evening for failing to adequately fund public schools across the state.

Led by the Wisconsin PTA, the plaintiffs include students, parents, advocates, educators, school districts and community members asking the court to hold the legislature accountable for not meeting its constitutionally mandated obligation to provide all children with an equal opportunity for a sound basic education.

“A free and uniform public education is fundamental to our democracy,” said Jeff Mandell, president and general counsel at Law Forward, the firm representing the plaintiffs. “When schools are underfunded, students lose opportunities and communities suffer. Supporting public education isn’t just good policy — it’s a legal and moral obligation. We have asked the court for nothing more than to hold the Legislature responsible for fulfilling its constitutional obligation – so that every Wisconsin kid has the same opportunity for education regardless of their ZIP code, background or socioeconomic status.”

“Fundamentally, this lawsuit is about fairness, sustainability and ensuring every child in Wisconsin has access to higher quality public education,” said GBAPS Board of Education President James Lyerly. “The lawsuit asserts that the current funding process violates the state constitution in that it doesn’t adequately fund public education, and that is required by the constitution. At its heart that’s what this is about.”

District-per-pupil spending is determined in Wisconsin’s school funding system based on what districts spent per pupil in 1993.

Until 2010, per-pupil funding was increased annually based on inflation, but since 2010, the state statutory increase has been “minimal and unpredictable,” a Law Forward press release said.

According to that press release, funding for public schools “has not even attempted to keep pace with inflation, nor has it taken into account the rising numbers and costs of educating high needs students, namely students with disabilities, students experiencing poverty and students who are English language learners,” over the past 16 years.

This is especially true in Green Bay, where despite being the third largest school district in the state and serving students with a wide range of needs, GBAPS has one of the lowest per-pupil spending limits in the state of Wisconsin. Lyerly said the funding model doesn’t account for changes within the district since it was set in 1993.

“At that time, we were locked into the lowest tier because we were fiscally conservative and the needs of the Green Bay School District at that time were different,” Lyerly said. “When you look at the couple of decades that have passed, Green Bay has changed and that system feels arbitrary, being funded at a level due to decisions that were taken in 1993… If we were able to spend just the average of the school districts in Wisconsin, it makes up for our deficits.”

“The amount that we are allowed to spend on student education has become more and more disconnected from the cost of educating the students,” Lyerly said.

Had the revenue limits kept pace with inflation after 2010, the complaint says school districts would receive an additional $3,380 in revenue per-pupil today.

But because state funding has not kept up with rising costs, districts across the state have struggled to make ends meet.

“I’ve been on the board for four years, and every one of those four years we have struggled to operate within our means from a budget perspective,” Lyerly said, “We consolidated and closed seven schools, we’ve cut our budgets… to try to make up for a systemic lack of funding from the state legislature.”

And when cuts aren’t enough, GBAPS and other districts across the state have had to rely on local referendums to fund basic school operations, whereas referendums had previously been used to fund unique or capital projects.

“In 2017, we had to do an operational referendum that has helped bridge that gap for the last 10 years and it expires next year,” Lyerly said. “We had a capital referendum the same year. We’ve had a capital referendum in 2022, we had a capital referendum in 2024 and most of those referendums were addressing deferred maintenance of our facilities because we cannot maintain our facilities based on the amount of money that is provided by the state. That’s what’s unsustainable… We are proud of the fact that our community has time and again supported the local school system by passing referendums, but it’s unsustainable. We feel like we have taken all of our opportunities to be fiscally responsible when we are operating within a broken system. It’s been frustrating.”

“It’s the legislature’s responsibility to properly fund public schools, but because they refuse to do so, it’s unfairly falling on the backs of local taxpayers…” Lyerly said. “We can’t keep doing this, and neither can other communities – it’s simply unsustainable. It’s past time for the Legislature to relieve school districts – and taxpayers – of this financial burden and start contributing what they are constitutionally obligated to pay for public education.”

In filing suit against the state legislature, the plaintiffs hope to see the school funding system reformed.

“We have advocated, we have testified in front of the finance committees, we have rallied, we have written letters and we see this lawsuit as a responsible tool that we can use to help Wisconsin correct its broken school funding system…” Lyerly said. “There are multiple aspects of the funding system that are unconstitutional and we want the court to compel the Legislature to act and to reform that system so that it is constitutional and it does provide adequate funding for public schools.”

The case was filed in Eau Claire County Circuit Court. After filing, the court will assign a judge, and the defendants will have 45 days to answer. 

The plaintiffs bringing the case include Adams-Friendship Area School District, School District of Beloit, Eau Claire Area School District, Green Bay Area Public School District, Necedah Area School District, Beloit Education Association, Eau Claire Association of Educators, Green Bay Education Association, Necedah Area Teachers Association, Wisconsin Public Education Network, Wisconsin PTA, Avi Miller (Student, Eau Claire Area School District), Chris Hambuch-Boyle (Community member, Eau Claire Area School District), Julie Stridde (Parent, Necedah Area School District), Dr. Leah Hover-Preiss (Teacher and parent, Adams-Friendship Area School District), Joshua Miller (Parent, Eau Claire Area School District), Merrik Moore (Student, Adams-Friendship Area School District), McKenna Rounds (Student, Beloit School District) and Shane McDonough (Teacher and parent, Green Bay Area Public School District).