The property tax and school funding package negotiated between Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) passed the Assembly Wednesday night in a bipartisan vote, but died in the Senate after three Republicans joined all the Democrats in voting against the measure.

After the failed Senate vote, Evers criticized the legislators, and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the presumptive Republican gubernatorial nominee, for killing his deal.

“Wisconsin’s kids and schools aren’t going to get the investments they desperately need this year because Tom Tiffany and a few Republican and Democratic lawmakers chose to blow up a bipartisan plan to invest in our K-12 schools, lower property taxes, and help working families afford rising costs, all because they’d rather do what’s best for the next election than what’s right for the people of our state,” Evers said. “So many Wisconsinites feel left behind, frustrated, and disillusioned by politics these days because they think a lot of politicians in the Capitol are only here to serve themselves. And, today, they’re right.”

But Senate Majority Leader Diane Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said that if her caucus wins a majority in November, they will work to deliver relief to Wisconsinites with a better process.

“If Democrats are in the majority, I promise we’re going to steer a course to a Wisconsin in which our economy works for everybody, where schools are sufficiently funded and health care is affordable and accessible, and those decisions will be made out in the open,” she said. “And we will have robust discussions, and let’s be honest, arguments. What’s happening today is so reckless, so completely reckless. If we are in the majority, we will lead with compassion, strength, tolerance, collaboration and fiscal responsibility that brings security, not bankruptcy, to future generations.”

The late Wednesday night votes followed more than nine hours of deliberation. Although Democrats in both chambers had panned the bill, 10 Assembly Democrats voted yes when the roll call arrived, after an amendment by Republicans that included disaster relief funds for parts of the state damaged during last year’s August floods and expanded a property tax cut for disabled veterans. The final Assembly tally was 61-32.

Despite the amendment, however, the Senate, meeting more than six hours after it was initially scheduled to convene, voted 18-15 against the bill. Republican Sens. Rob Hutton, Steve Nass and Chris Kapenga joined the entire Senate Democratic caucus in opposition.

Assembly Republicans talk up deal

The  funding package announced this week by Evers, Vos and LeMahieu, all of whom are retiring this year, was held up for hours Wednesday afternoon while lawmakers worked to get enough votes in the Senate. 

During hours of debate in the Assembly Wednesday morning, Republicans were self-congratulatory about their bipartisan deal-making and appeared poised to pass the bill on a largely party line vote. But in the Senate, where Republicans hold a slimmer majority, Kapenga (R-Delafield) and Nass (R-Whitewater) signaled their opposition to the bill from the start, forcing the authors to try to persuade the two Republican holdouts or peel off Democrats.

Tiffany also opposed the bill and was in contact with state lawmakers about their votes this week.

Democratic lawmakers, frustrated that they were left out of the negotiating process while Evers made a deal that could give a lifeline to an Assembly Republican caucus — which polls show could be on the cusp of losing their majority  next year — criticized the deal-making process and complained that it was a “Band-Aid” solution for the structural problems facing the state’s schools and homeowners. 

“I know you’re all standing up and congratulating yourselves on giving more money to schools, and yes, that is good, but you don’t get a prize for boarding up a window that you broke in the first place,” Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay) said. “This proposal is a turducken. A turkey that was put together by a bunch of lame ducks, by a Republican Legislature that is too chicken to confront the structural affordability and education issues facing this state.”

Republicans meanwhile repeatedly touted the bipartisan nature of the deal, the special education funding and property tax relief that they say will return the state’s budget surplus to the people. Several of the chamber’s most vulnerable Republicans, including Reps. Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville), Pat Snyder (R-Weston), Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield), Benjamin Franklin (R-De Pere) and Shannon Zimmerman (R-River Falls), were repeatedly given the microphone to tout their support for the bill. 

“It is about compromise. It is about balance,” Zimmerman said. “This is balanced government that we’re witnessing here today. I applaud Gov. Evers for working with us to advance this, and what you’re hearing is, ‘but it’s not great.’ It’s not great today. I’ll take good.”

Republicans also frequently said the bills would help Wisconsinites manage the economic strains currently facing the state — without noting that the administration of President Donald Trump, through its tariffs and war in Iran, are largely the cause of that financial pressure. 

“I think that sometimes some of the arguments that I heard from the other side, people need to remember, we are not congressmen. We are not U.S. senators,” Franklin said. “We are state representatives. And the focus should maintain on the state of Wisconsin what we’re doing here.”

The legislation would have added $85 million to reimburse local school districts for the cost of special education in the current school year and $230 million for the 2026-27 school year. A Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo estimated the additional funding would raise the state’s reimbursement rate this year to 42.7% and for 2026-27 to 50%, but added that the actual rate “could be higher or lower,” depending on actual costs.

When Wisconsin’s 2025-27 budget was signed in July, schools were told they would get 42% of their special education costs reimbursed for the current year and 45% in 2026-27. But in November the Department of Public Instruction announced that special ed costs and enrollment had both increased, so the first round of payments would only cover 35%.

Along with the additional special ed funding, the bill increased state aid to public schools by $302.5 million. Because of state revenue limits on school districts, the new state aid “would provide property tax relief but not additional resources for school districts,” according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo.

The bill gave the state technical college system an additional $50 million in state aid starting in the 2026-27 school year, also to replace property tax revenue, not increase trade school budgets.

The legislation included a $300 state income tax rebate for individual taxpayers whose state tax bill was at least that much in 2024.

It also would have made tip income and overtime pay exempt from state income taxes, mirroring federal tax policies that have been enacted under President Donald Trump.

On the Assembly floor, Democrats argued that the package would turn the current surplus into a budget deficit within three years, that the tax rebates would barely be a drop in the bucket for struggling Wisconsinites and that the poorest residents of the state would get no relief. 

Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland) noted that for the median homeowner in Wisconsin, the property tax relief would amount to just $8.91 per month. 

“That’s less than two gallons of gas today,” Stroud said. “Who knows how much gas will cost by then?”

Republicans repeatedly touted the bipartisan nature of the negotiations between Evers and Republican leadership, mocking the Assembly Democrats for not being kept in the loop while accusing them have having a “meltdown,” a “temper tantrum,” “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and putting a “knife” in Evers’ back for not supporting the deal. 

“Let’s find a consensus, because the people of Wisconsin expect us to do better than to just stand up and shake our fists,” Vos said. “Maybe today, some of [the Democrats] will be persuaded by their own governor. Believe it or not, I actually was, and I feel like I’m probably a more harsh critic than the people on the left. So if people on our side are willing to listen and compromise, why can’t you? Why can’t people on the left just one time put aside politics and say, ‘let’s do the right thing.’”

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On his way out of office, Gov. Tony Evers has negotiated a school funding and tax cut bill with his fellow retirees, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Call it a retirement celebration for three soon-to-be-ex politicians. Evers is promoting a big bump in school funding in the “blockbuster” deal and urging Democrats to vote for it. But the most joyful celebrants of this sudden windfall are Republican legislators, who have taken to calling it the “big, beautiful, bipartisan bill” —  a not-so-subtle echo of Trump’s triumphant name for the massive tax cut and spending bill he jammed through Congress.

Wisconsin Democrats are less than thrilled. On the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, the “blockbuster” proposal passed on a straight party-line vote, as Erik Gunn reports, with all of the Republicans on the committee voting in favor and all the Democrats voting against it. The bill is not so much a blockbuster as a budget-buster, said Joint Finance Democrats Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay), Kelda Roys (D-Madison) and Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha). 

The problem with the legislation, according to its critics, is that it consists largely of one-time expenditures – including a temporary infusion of cash to schools and $300 checks to be mailed to Wisconsin state taxpayers — that will drain state coffers of about $2.9 billion after the whole package of proposals is paid out. While it effectively erases the state’s budget surplus, it won’t fix the structural problems with the way the state consistently underfunds schools and leaves property taxpayers to pick up the bill, or with the growing drain created by an expanding system of taxpayer-subsidized private schools, which will also get more money through this deal. Meanwhile, it creates the very real possibility that new legislative leaders and a new governor will be staring at a nearly $3 billion revenue hole when they begin to work on the next state budget, in an uncertain economic time.

The plan does include a burst of state funding for special education – sorely needed and, as Evers underscores, a big boost from current levels to a projected 50% reimbursement in the final year of the current budget cycle to school districts across the state. Evers’ office put out a comprehensive list of school districts and the millions in new money they will receive. The deal also allocates $350 million to bring down property taxes. And it eliminates taxes on tips and overtime, in keeping with Trump’s new federal policy. These are all popular proposals, and they provide a shot of relief to stressed and strapped school districts and taxpayers.

But advocacy organizations you would expect to embrace the governor’s move to increase funding for special ed have come out against the deal. 

“People with disabilities depend on programs and services that get state and federal funding,” Sydney Badeau, chair of the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities, said in a statement on the deal. “Spending down Wisconsin’s savings and reducing income when the state is already not providing enough funding to cover actual costs means there will be even less money next budget to pay for the programs people need. Less savings and less income means budget cuts next cycle at a time when many state programs, services, and infrastructure need more investment.”  

Kids Forward, the statewide antiracist policy center, also opposes the deal, saying it “relies on one-time money to paper over long-term challenges, all while legislators preparing to leave office pass the responsibility — and the blame — onto future lawmakers and families across Wisconsin.”

Meanwhile, Republicans are already turning the deal into campaign talking points on their most challenging issue – affordability

“Folks need help now,” declared Joint Finance Committee Co-Chair Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam), adding that inflation has been a problem “for at least five years,” a spin on voters’ cost-of-living worries that conveniently avoids the Trump administration’s responsibility for surging gas prices and massive healthcare cuts, which are dragging down state Republicans as they campaign this year.

Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) touted the deal in a Tuesday press conference, saying Republicans have always been better stewards of the economy, and it was because of their wise leadership that Wisconsin built up a budget surplus in the first place (mostly by abandoning the state’s obligation to fund public schools). Now, she declared, it’s time to give all that money back to the taxpayers – “it’s their money” and rightfully belongs to individuals, she said, not “progressive politicians in Madison.” This is the drown-the-government-in-the-bathtub philosophy at work – defund schools and hand out checks to individuals. It works best if you are extremely wealthy and don’t mind trading in public education and other forms of public infrastructure for a pay-as-you-go system where you spend your own cash for private education, private health care and private security.  

Nedweski rolled directly into campaign mode, declaring that the benefits to taxpayers in the deal “would all be at risk” if the Democrats win control of the Legislature next year.

Without a doubt, Evers has handed Republicans a massive election-year gift.

Democrats, if they do manage to win legislative majorities – which has seemed more and more likely as Republicans flee the Capitol in droves, including some who represent key, swing districts — would be in a much stronger negotiating position than Evers is now. Instead of a one-time boost in school funding and a flurry of tax-rebate checks, they could recommit to guaranteed state funding for public education, as a lawsuit brought by students, parents and teachers argues they must under the state constitution. 

Now, as the national economy is in turmoil, they will confront the next budget cycle with a looming $2.9 billion hole – the budget surplus blown by a bunch of guys who are heading out of office and won’t have to worry about what comes next.

It was one thing for Evers to wrangle with Republicans and try to claw back funding for schools when the GOP-led Legislature was single-mindedly determined to block his every move. It’s a different matter to trade away the bulk of the state’s budget surplus now, in the waning days of his term, with everything up in the air.

The lack of communication between Evers and members of his own party has rankled Democrats for a long time. But the deal he is pushing to a reluctant Democratic caucus and delighted Republicans is a blow both politically and, more importantly, to the future health of the state. 

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With Republicans touting it as a bipartisan deal, the $1.8 billion special education funding and tax cut bill negotiated by a pair of GOP leaders and outgoing Democratic Gov. Tony Evers passed the Legislature’s budget committee on a 12-4 vote Tuesday, with no Democratic support.

The Joint Finance Committee’s Democrats charged the bill didn’t do enough for schools or taxpayers while spending down the state surplus for short-term benefits.

About 20 minutes after the committee vote, Evers’ office sent out a press release in which the governor called on the Legislature to swiftly pass the measure he’s been calling a “blockbuster” since it was unveiled Monday. The Legislature is scheduled to meet Wednesday in a special session to debate and vote on the measure.

Attached to the email was a table listing more than 50 Wisconsin school districts and the additional special education money they’ll receive from the state if the deal passes.

The legislation will add $85 million to reimburse local school districts for the cost of special education in the current school year and $230 million for the 2026-27 school year. A Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo estimates the additional funding will raise the state’s reimbursement rate this year to 42.7% and for 2026-27 to 50%, but added that the actual rate “could be higher or lower, depending on final prior year aidable costs.”

When Wisconsin’s 2025-27 budget was signed in July schools were told they would get 42% of their special education costs reimbursed for the current year and 45% in 2026-27. But in November the Department of Public Instruction announced that special ed costs and enrollment had both increased, so the first round of payments would cover 35%.

Along with the additional special ed funding, the new bill will spend $302.5 million on state aid to public schools. Because of state revenue limits on school districts, the new state aid “would provide property tax relief but not additional resources for school districts,” according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo.

The bill gives the state technical college system an additional $50 million in state aid starting in the 2026-27 school year, also to replace property tax revenue, not increase trade school budgets.

The legislation includes a $300 state income tax rebate for individual taxpayers whose state tax bill was at least that much in 2024.

It also would make tip income as well as overtime pay exempt from state income taxes, mirroring federal tax policies that have been enacted under President Donald Trump. While the federal exemptions expire at the end of 2028, the state exemptions don’t have a sunset.

So far, lawmakers in Evers’ own party have greeted the measure coolly. Finance committee Democrats on Tuesday welcomed the increase in special education money but said it wasn’t sufficient to meet the needs school districts have for more resources.

“I’m a no on this plan, not because I don’t appreciate education funding,” said Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay), a former teacher, during the JFC’s hour-long discussion before the committee vote.

“I want our schools to get the predictable, reliable, education funding, indexed to inflation that they deserve without having to sue all of us,” Andraca said, referring to a pending lawsuit challenging the state’s school funding formula.

But State Rep. Mark Born, the JFC Assembly cochair, said the measure deserves to be enacted.

“There’s really nothing negative in the bill,” Born told the committee. “The bill gives money to special education, right? The bill gives lasting property tax relief to taxpayers of Wisconsin. The bill gives lasting income tax relief to the taxpayers of Wisconsin. And yes, the bill also gives a one-time immediate rebate check to taxpayers in Wisconsin. The bill actually helps people now.”

Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) and Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) both made  pointed references to the bill as the product of three retiring elected officials — “three lame ducks,” in McGuire’s words. Along with Evers, a Democrat, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, both Republicans, are leaving office at the end of 2026.

None of the Democrats named Evers in their criticism of the bill, while Republicans touting the legislation invoked the governor several times.

“I think what we have before us is really balanced governing,” said Rep. Shannon Zimmerman (R-River Falls). “Gov Evers, working with majority party leadership, came together. Nobody got everything they wanted, but there’s a lot of good in this bill.”

Democrats emphasized what they said were the bill’s inadequacies, such as not guaranteeing “sum-sufficient” special ed funding that would fully meet the actual cost. Instead it designates a “sum-certain” amount, meaning there is a limited pot of money available, regardless of expanding need.

“It fails our schools,” said McGuire. “Our schools aren’t going to be getting the resources fully that they need. They’ve been struggling for 15 years under legislative Republican leadership.”

Roys — who is seeking the Democratic nomination to run for governor — referred to the presumptive Republican gubernatorial nominee’s opposition to the deal, although in support of a contrasting policy agenda.

“I find myself shocked to be with Republican Tom Tiffany,” Roys said. “Shocked to be agreeing with Republican [Sen.] Steve Nass, that this is a deal that does not help us fix the significant long-term structural problems we have — namely the way that we have robbed our children of their futures in defunding public education.”

Roys and McGuire both predicted a coming economic shakeup. 

“There’s a presumption that this bill has, and that is that Donald Trump’s economy will succeed,” McGuire said. “And I think that I am among the 70% of Americans right now who do not believe that that’s true.”

Wisconsin, he argued, should prepare for a future that includes an economic downturn in the next six or nine months rather than spending too much of the state’s projected $2.37 billion surplus.

Born mocked those concerns. “We cut taxes again and you say, ‘Oh, you’re going to break us. You’re going to be bankrupt. Structural deficit. Oh my goodness. The sky is falling,’” he said. “Oh, next budget. More surplus, more Republican leadership on the budget, more partnering with our private sector partners to grow Wisconsin’s economy.”

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Gov. Tony Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) — Wisconsin’s three leaders all of whom are set to retire this year — announced a $1.8 billion deal Monday to provide additional funding to Wisconsin schools for general aid and special education and tax relief in the form of rebate checks, property tax cuts and the elimination of taxes on tips and overtime. 

The deal is the culmination of months of negotiations on how to use the state’s projected surplus to provide additional funding to schools and tax relief to Wisconsinites.

Negotiations kicked off at the beginning of this year after the general fund surplus was projected to be $2.37 billion at the end of the biennium, June 30, 2027 — about $1.5 billion higher than expected. However, they fell apart as Evers and Senate and Assembly leaders argued over the form that a proposal should take and a deal was not reached before the end of the regular legislative session. 

According to a Department of Administration and Department of Revenue memo released Monday, the state’s general fund tax collections are tracking between $300 million and $350 million above the January estimates. 

Evers said the school funding was the biggest win in the bipartisan agreement. The deal includes $300 million for special education funding and $300 million for school general aids. 

“I think money for schools, that’s obviously the most important thing for me, but again, we’re in a position to actually compromise and have Republicans and Democrats, at least in the leadership level, getting something done,” Evers said. 

Evers spoke to reporters during a visit to Barneveld middle and high schools where he spoke to students and staff about their mental health initiatives on Monday morning. He was there to highlight investments that have been made in schools. He noted that Barneveld is a good school district and said the deal reached by him and lawmakers would “make them an even better” one. 

About $85 million will be used to guarantee schools get 42% of their special education costs reimbursed for the 2025-26 school year and the remaining funds will be used to guarantee a 50% reimbursement rate in 2026-27. 

The 2025-27 state budget promised a 42% special ed reimbursement rate in the first year of the budget and a 45% rate in the second year, but the funds set aside were not adequate to meet those rates. 

The state’s special education reimbursement is currently a “sum certain” appropriation, meaning that there is a fixed pot of money available for the costs. If schools’ costs exceed the amount set aside, then the rate of reimbursement is lower. A change to a sum sufficient appropriation would ensure that the amount available is enough to cover the promised rates. 

Evers said negotiations couldn’t get to a sum sufficient appropriation for special education funding, but that negotiators used figures that should get the state to the promised rates. 

“Next budget people have to ensure that it is sum sufficient, but we did not get across that bridge, unfortunately,” Evers said. “Look, we know what the numbers are, so it’s going to be 50[%].”

The deal will also increase funding for pupils participating in the choice, charter, special needs scholarship  and open enrollment programs by $16 million. 

The investment into general school aids comes after lawmakers declined to provide any new funding in the 2025-27 state budget and property taxpayers across the state saw increases in December. The $300 million is intended to help buy down school property tax levies, although the amount will not completely cover the $325 per pupil in additional school revenue limit authority that school districts have as a result of a previous Evers budget veto.

The agreement also includes $50 million meant to serve as property tax relief aid for the Wisconsin Technical College System beginning in 2026-27. 

The Wisconsin Association of School Boards said in a statement that it was encouraged by the deal’s investments in special education and general aids, but cautioned that it would not completely fix schools’ financial issues.

“While these resources are important for public schools struggling with a declining level of state investment, it will not solve the longer-term problem,” WASB said. “The state has shifted away from providing inflationary increases in spendable resources for schools for 17 years. One state surplus deal cannot reverse that trend by itself.”

The Joint Finance Committee is scheduled to take up the proposal on Tuesday, and it’s expected that the full Assembly and Senate will take up the proposal on Wednesday in a special session. Ever signed an executive order for the session Monday afternoon. 

Vos said in a statement that legislators would be sending the surplus  “back to help families with the pressure of increasing costs, reward hard work, and to continue investing in schools to help stabilize rising property taxes.”

LeMahieu said Repiblicans’  top priority was to send the surplus back to “hardworking taxpayers across the state.” 

“This deal will provide immediate relief with $600 in surplus refund payments and provide permanent property and income tax relief for Wisconsin families,” LeMahieu said. 

The deal will also provide $300 tax refunds for individuals and $600 refunds for married joint filers. Tax relief in this form was originally a Senate Republican proposal, though they had proposed rebates of $1,000 for married joint filers and $500 for individuals.

The deal also includes the elimination of taxes on tips and overtime — two proposals that Evers initially vetoed. The proposal will align state with federal law, though the state proposals differ as they are permanent changes rather than having a sunset date in 2028. 

Evers expressed confidence that there are enough votes to get the deal through both houses and to his desk. 

“I need a majority of each house, and whether that’s all Democrats, all Republicans or a mix, I don’t care,” Evers said. “I think it would be hard for anyone to say I’m not in favor of this…[when] as a result, my local school district gets screwed. I think that’s going to be a hard position for people to take.” 

It’s already clear that not every member is on board as Democratic and Republican Senate lawmakers express concerns and opposition to the deal in statements.

Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said in a statement that from her perspective there is no deal. She said her caucus needs to see the full details of the “expensive proposal” before they say more. 

“Three men who will not be in elected office next year have come up with this proposal which Senate Dems will be reviewing,” Hesselbein said. “Any proposal must pass both houses of the legislature and no one knows if Republicans have the votes to pass it.”

Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) has not responded to a request for comment. 

Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), who is also retiring this year, said in a statement that he “can’t support another bad deal cut by leaders that will never face the voters again.” 

With an open race for governor and control of the state Legislature up in the air, some expressed concerns about leaders deciding to spend down the surplus when they won’t be around to deal with the consequences next year. 

Democratic candidates for governor, Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) and former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan criticized the way lawmakers negotiated the deal and the contents of the deal. 

“Budgets are difficult to negotiate and demand tough decisions, and that’s why I believe they must be done in public with input from Wisconsinites. It’s very disappointing that this one wasn’t, and we should expect all candidates for governor to commit to an open process,” Brennan said. “I’m all for putting money back in people’s pockets, giving our schools a much-needed boost, and providing some property tax relief, but this deal misses the mark in many other ways. It does nothing to address the cost-of-living crisis that is still crushing Wisconsin families on things like child care, health care, and gas and utility prices.” 

Roys said the leaders had come to a “backroom” deal.

“This latest deal is the height of fiscal irresponsibility,” Roys said. “It spends a projected ‘surplus’ before it’s in the bank, even though that projection was estimated before Trump’s attack on Iran that disrupted our economy and caused gas prices to skyrocket. It gives a little one time money to public schools while permanently cementing unfairness in our tax structure. Worst of all, it blows nearly a billion dollars on an election year gimmick to send out rebates, squandering the ability of a new Democratic majority to make the long-overdue investments in our kids that they deserve.”

The critique on the transparency in the negotiation process comes after Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, who is also campaigning for the nomination, was recorded saying she would craft the state’s next budget “behind a curtain.”

Evers told reporters that the negotiations with lawmakers was typical process.

“Well, sometimes you do things behind the curtain,” Evers said. “Leadership both from my staff and others on the other side met on a regular basis, and we kept others informed about that. Now, if… [Roys is] angry because we didn’t involve every legislator prior to, that doesn’t happen with a regular budget, too. So if she’s going to be governor, she needs to get used to it.” 

He continued: “If she’s not going to support it, my question would be, ‘How do you run for governor of the state of Wisconsin and say to your schools, well, you know, this money of 42% and 50% for special education, I’m against that?’ That’s a tough one to run against.”

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