Welcome to the Fair Aid Coalition 

The Fair Aid Coalition (FAC) was established in 1981 to ensure that all Wisconsin public school students, regardless of where they live, receive some state support. Coalition membership is comprised mostly of lake area, K-8, Union High School, and suburban school districts that receive little or no state support through the state school aid formula. Given the complexities of Wisconsin’s system of school finance, the FAC mission is to raise awareness among legislators and other state policy makers of the special needs and concerns of high property value school districts.

The current FAC priority is to ensure that no public school in Wisconsin receives less than $1000 per student through the school funding formula. The average statewide per pupil general aid support in 2017-18 is $5,168. The lack of state school aid support means that high property value districts are overly dependent upon their local taxpayers. More often than other districts, they have been forced to either cut programs and staff or go to the voters with a referendum in hopes of maintaining existing programs. The dilemma is particularly acute in many small, lake area school districts that have been facing declining enrollments over a prolonged period and find they have few places left to make cuts should a referendum not pass. Superintendent Tony Evers in his Fair Funding for Our Future proposal also acknowledges that the state should be providing a minimum level of state school aid to every public school pupil, regardless of where they live.

FAC member school districts also support maintenance of the school levy tax credit, increased categorical aid support, and local revenue limit flexibility.