Reading Time: < 1 minute

Our newsletters:

A great way to stay informed without feeling overwhelmed. 👍

The Wednesday Report
Wisconsin Weekly
Forward

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

In 2021-22, the latest year for which data are available, Wisconsin’s K-12 public school districts received an average of $16,859 in revenue per student, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.

That’s up from $16,017 in 2020-21.

Most of the funds are from state aids and local property taxes.

The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau provided a breakdown of the 2020-21 figures:

State aid: $7,537 (47.1%)

Local property tax: $6,530 (40.8%)

Federal aid: $1,421 (8.9%)

Other local revenue: $529 (3.3%)

A Republican-authored 2023-25 state budget approved by the Legislature and awaiting action by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would provide schools an additional $1 billion over the two years.

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

Google Docs Department of Public Instruction per student revenue

Google Docs Department of Public Instruction per student revenue 2020-21

AP News Wisconsin governor signs bipartisan bill designed to prevent Milwaukee bankruptcy

Wisconsin State Legislature State Aid to School Districts

Wisconsin State Legislature Public instruction

Does the US Farm bill ban products sold by Wisconsin THC and hemp businesses?

Did Rebecca Cooke serve as a political consultant for Kirk Bangstad?

Submit a tip!

Claims that are partially true or false cannot be checked. In addition, we are unable to check claims for which there are no credible, available sources to verify or dispute them.

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Scroll down to copy and paste the code of our article into your CMS. The codes for images, graphics and other embeddable elements may not transfer exactly as they appear on our site. *** Also, the code below will NOT copy the featured image on the page. You are welcome to download the main image as a separate element for publication with this story. *** You are welcome to republish our articles for free using the following ground rules.

Credit should be given, in this format: “By Dee J. Hall, Wisconsin Watch”
Editing material is prohibited, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and in-house style (for example, using “Waunakee, Wis.” instead of “Waunakee” or changing “yesterday” to “last week”)
Other than minor cosmetic and font changes, you may not change the structural appearance or visual format of a story.
If published online, you must include the links and link to wisconsinwatch.org
If you share the story on social media, please mention @wisconsinwatch (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram), and ensure that the original featured image associated with the story is visible on the social media post.
Don’t sell the story or any part of it — it may not be marketed as a product.
Don’t extract, store or resell Wisconsin Watch content as a database.
Don’t sell ads against the story. But you can publish it with pre-sold ads.
Your website must include a prominent way to contact you.
Additional elements that are packaged with our story must be labeled.
Users can republish our photos, illustrations, graphics and multimedia elements ONLY with stories with which they originally appeared. You may not separate multimedia elements for standalone use.
If we send you a request to change or remove Wisconsin Watch content from your site, you must agree to do so immediately.

For questions regarding republishing rules please contact Jeff Bauer, digital editor and producer, at jbauer@wisconsinwatch.org

Is annual funding for Wisconsin public school districts $16,000 per student?

by Tom Kertscher / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch
July 3, 2023

<h1>Is annual funding for Wisconsin public school districts $16,000 per student?</h1>
<p class="byline">by Tom Kertscher / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch <br />July 3, 2023</p>

<div class="wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:26% auto">
<figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img src="https://wisconsinwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Wisconsin_Watch_fact_brief-782x409.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-1278996 size-full" /></figure>
<div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<p><em><em><a href="https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/">Wisconsin Watch</a></em> partners with&nbsp;<a href="https://gigafact.org/">Gigafact</a>&nbsp;to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. <a href="https://wisconsinwatch.org/2023/05/how-wisconsin-watch-checks-claims-for-its-gigafact-fact-briefs/">Read our methodology</a> to learn how we check claims.</em></p>
</p></div>
</div>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Yes.</h2>
<p>In 2021-22, the latest year for which data are available, Wisconsin's K-12 public school districts received an average of $16,859 in revenue per student, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.</p>
<p>That's up from $16,017 in 2020-21.</p>
<p>Most of the funds are from state aids and local property taxes.</p>
<p>The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau provided a breakdown of the 2020-21 figures:</p>
<p>State aid: $7,537 (47.1%)</p>
<p>Local property tax: $6,530 (40.8%)</p>
<p>Federal aid: $1,421 (8.9%)</p>
<p>Other local revenue: $529 (3.3%)</p>
<p>A Republican-authored 2023-25 state budget approved by the Legislature and awaiting action by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would provide schools an additional $1 billion over the two years.</p>
<p><em>This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as <a href="https://twitter.com/WillFlandersWI/status/1674195479763070977?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">this one</a>.</em></p>
<p><strong>Sources</strong></p>
<p>Google Docs&nbsp;<a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CRg_I8tuLDvl4qAkHaThnMFc6mOHE3lE/edit?usp=sharing&amp;ouid=103415481944024101959&amp;rtpof=true&amp;sd=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Department of Public Instruction per student revenue</a></p>
<p>Google Docs&nbsp;<a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rDCN3U1h8jLIwJ2-zW--T0qmr9jeJ7Vb/edit?usp=sharing&amp;ouid=103415481944024101959&amp;rtpof=true&amp;sd=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Department of Public Instruction per student revenue 2020-21</a></p>
<p>AP News&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/milwaukee-bankruptcy-evers-wisconsin-3f0bee97658fa34fafbfe69c57680523" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Wisconsin governor signs bipartisan bill designed to prevent Milwaukee bankruptcy</a></p>
<p>Wisconsin State Legislature&nbsp;<a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lfb/informational_papers/january_2023/0028_state_aid_to_school_districts_informational_paper_28.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">State Aid to School Districts</a></p>
<p>Wisconsin State Legislature&nbsp;<a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lfb/budget/2023_25_biennial_budget/400_comparative_summary_of_budget_recommendations_governor_and_joint_committee_on_finance_june_2023_by_agency/public_instruction.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Public instruction</a></p>
<p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://wisconsinwatch.org/2023/07/is-annual-funding-for-wisconsin-public-school-districts-16000-per-student/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://wisconsinwatch.org&quot;&gt;Wisconsin Watch&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/wisconsinwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cropped-WCIJ_IconOnly_FullColor_RGB-1.png?fit=150%2C150&amp;amp;quality=100&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;</p>
&lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://wisconsinwatch.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=1280432&amp;amp;ga4=G-D2S69Y9TDB&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://wisconsinwatch.org/2023/07/is-annual-funding-for-wisconsin-public-school-districts-16000-per-student/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/wisconsinwatch.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

Is annual funding for Wisconsin public school districts $16,000 per student?

Our newsletters:

Yes.

Does the US Farm bill ban products sold by Wisconsin THC and hemp businesses?

Did Rebecca Cooke serve as a political consultant for Kirk Bangstad?

Latest stories

As federal courts battle over mandatory immigration detention, Wisconsin woman becomes a test case

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, GOP leaders announce deal on tax relief and school funding

Wisconsin Republicans look to Donald Trump’s die-hard fans to brighten their prospects in November

Tom Kertscher / Wisconsin WatchReporter