Education
With a Creative Edit, the Wisconsin Governor Raises School Funding. For 400 Years.
It took only a few snips of creative editing for Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin to push through a long-term boost to public education funding.
And by long term, we mean long term.
As in, for the next 400 years.
On Wednesday, Mr. Evers, a Democratic former teacher and state superintendent, took advantage of a quirky, Wisconsin rule that has long given governors a partial veto, allowing them to amend laws with some editing trickery.
Governor Evers raised the amount that school districts could generate through property taxes by an additional $325 per student each year. In the original budget, the increase was allowed through the 2024-25 school year.
But with the slash of a hyphen and the snip of a “20,” Mr. Evers changed 2024-25 to the year 2425.
State Republicans, who have made an art of blocking Governor Evers’s agenda, quickly condemned the veto, which also rejected a Republican tax cut plan that included relief for top-income brackets.
“Legislative Republicans worked tirelessly over the last few months to block Governor Evers’s liberal tax and spending agenda,” Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the State Assembly, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, because of his powerful veto authority, he reinstated some of it today.”
Mr. Evers — who won his first term in 2018 in part by arguing that the incumbent, Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, had not spent enough on schools — announced the changes without a hint of irony.
The new budget “ensures school districts have a level of budgeting certainty that they have not experienced” since cuts made after the Great Recession, his office said in a news release, adding that the revenue adjustments would continue “effectively in perpetuity.”
Over time, Wisconsin voters have whittled away at the state’s unusual veto authority. In 1990, voters took away the “Vanna White veto,” which had allowed governors to strike individual letters in words to create new words. In 2008, voters rejected the “Frankenstein veto,” which had involved combining parts of two or more sentences to create a new sentence.
Because Mr. Evers’s veto eliminated only entire words and digits, without combining two or more sentences to create a new sentence, it appeared to be legal, said Rick Champagne, director of the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan agency that provides research and legal advice to state lawmakers.
“Governor Evers’s veto does adhere to the constitutional requirements for a partial veto,” he said in an email.
The law could be challenged or appealed.
In 2017, Mr. Walker, the former governor, executed what came to be known as the “thousand year veto” by striking the figures “1” and “2” from the date “Dec. 31, 2018,” — changing the date to “December 3018.” The edit, to a law involving school districts and energy efficiency projects, was challenged in court, but upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court on the grounds that the challenge was not brought in a timely manner.
“We have no case law on the legality of a partial veto that would affect law spanning centuries,” Mr. Champagne said.
Nationally, Wisconsin sits in the middle of the road when it comes to public-school funding. Adjusting for local costs, Wisconsin spent about $15,000 per student in the 2019-20 school year, in line with the national average, according to the Education Law Center.
The new budget does not automatically increase the state’s spending each year. Rather, it allows school districts to raise their total revenue amount — which comes from a combination of state aid and property taxes — by $325 per student every year, the largest increase to the revenue limit in Wisconsin in more than a decade. If the Legislature does not increase state aid in future years, school districts would have the authority to raise property taxes.
Predictably, there was little agreement about whether this was a good thing.
Tyler August, a Republican and majority leader of the State Assembly, called the governor’s move an “irresponsible veto that would blow the roof off of property taxes,” adding, “Taxpayers need to remember this when getting their tax bills this December.”
But Dan Rossmiller, the executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the change, while “certainly appreciated,” may not be enough to keep up with the rate of inflation for some districts.
“I wish the amount would have been higher,” he told the news outlet.
Education
Four Fraternity Members Charged After a Pledge Is Set on Fire
Four fraternity members at San Diego State University are facing felony charges after a pledge was set on fire during a skit at a party last year, leaving him hospitalized for weeks with third-degree burns, prosecutors said Monday.
The fire happened on Feb. 17, 2024, when the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity held a large party at its house, despite being on probation, court documents show. While under probation, the fraternity was required to “demonstrate exemplary compliance with university policies,” according to the college’s guidelines.
Instead, prosecutors said, the fraternity members planned a skit during which a pledge would be set on fire.
After drinking alcohol in the presence of the fraternity president, Caden Cooper, 22, the three younger men — Christopher Serrano, 20, and Lars Larsen, 19, both pledges, and Lucas Cowling, 20 — then performed the skit, prosecutors said.
Mr. Larsen was set on fire and wounded, prosecutors said, forcing him to spend weeks in the hospital for treatment of third-degree burns covering 16 percent of his body, mostly on his legs.
The charges against Mr. Cooper, Mr. Cowling and Mr. Serrano include recklessly causing a fire with great bodily injury; conspiracy to commit an act injurious to the public; and violating the social host ordinance. If convicted of all the charges, they would face a sentence of probation up to seven years, two months in prison.
Mr. Larsen himself was charged. The San Diego County District Attorney’s office said that he, as well as Mr. Cooper and Mr. Cowling, also tried to lie to investigators in the case, deleted evidence on social media, and told other fraternity members to destroy evidence and not speak to anyone about what happened at the party.
All four men have pleaded not guilty.
Lawyers representing Mr. Cooper and Mr. Cowling did not immediately respond to messages requesting comment on Tuesday. Contact information for lawyers for Mr. Serrano and Mr. Larsen was not immediately available.
The four students were released on Monday, but the court ordered them not to participate in any fraternity parties, not to participate in any recruitment events for the fraternity, and to obey all laws, including those related to alcohol consumption.
The university said Tuesday that it would begin its own administrative investigation into the conduct of the students and the fraternity, now that the police investigation was complete.
After it confirmed the details, the dean of students office immediately put the Phi Kappa Psi chapter on interim suspension, which remains in effect, college officials confirmed on Tuesday.
Additional action was taken, but the office said it could not reveal specifics because of student privacy laws.
“The university prioritizes the health and safety of our campus community,” college officials said in a statement, “and has high expectations for how all members of the university community, including students, behave in the interest of individual and community safety and well-being.”
At least half a dozen fraternities at San Diego State University have been put on probation in the last two years, officials said.
Education
Video: Several Killed in Wisconsin School Shooting, Including Juvenile Suspect
new video loaded: Several Killed in Wisconsin School Shooting, Including Juvenile Suspect
transcript
transcript
Several Killed in Wisconsin School Shooting, Including Juvenile Suspect
The police responded to a shooting at a private Christian school in Madison, Wis., on Monday.
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Around 10:57 a.m., our officers were responding to a call of an active shooter at the Abundant Life Christian School here in Madison. When officers arrived, they found multiple victims suffering from gunshot wounds. Officers located a juvenile who they believe was responsible for this deceased in the building. I’m feeling a little dismayed now, so close to Christmas. Every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever. These types of trauma don’t just go away.
Recent episodes in Guns & Gun Violence
Education
Video: Biden Apologizes for U.S. Mistreatment of Native American Children
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transcript
transcript
Biden Apologizes for U.S. Mistreatment of Native American Children
President Biden offered a formal apology on Friday on behalf of the U.S. government for the abuse of Native American children from the early 1800s to the late 1960s.
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The Federal government has never, never formally apologized for what happened until today. I formally apologize. It’s long, long, long overdue. Quite frankly, there’s no excuse that this apology took 50 years to make. I know no apology can or will make up for what was lost during the darkness of the federal boarding school policy. But today, we’re finally moving forward into the light.
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