Milwaukee Public Schools loses $81 million in state aid, board recall goes full steam ahead

Milwaukee Public Schools will lose $81 million in state aid due to district mismanagement, and citizens are ready for new leadership.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction estimated an $81 million reduction in education funds for MPS, largely due to the district’s own reporting errors.

According to Milwaukee’s Democrat state senator, the district has been overfunded for years.

The scandal came to a head in June when MPS failed to submit crucial financial data to the state. Superintendent Keith Posley resigned in the fallout, and Comptroller Alfredo Balmaseda was fired.

The district scrambled to get its affairs in order, but state Sen. John Jagler, R-Watertown, described their corrective action plan as “laughable.”

“It looked like something that an intern threw into ChatGPT saying, ‘Give me a plan to clear up our finances,’” Jagler quipped.

Now the school board must deal with the reality of losing millions in funding, though board Vice President Jilly Gokalgandhi downplayed the impact of the loss.

“Just to put it in a little bit of perspective, it is less than 1% of our total budget,” Gokalgandhi told local media. “You heard [acting Chief Financial Officer] Todd Gray last night say that we are going to be able to look across the board to minimize that impact.”

MPS’s budget for the 2024-25 school year is about $1.5 billion.  

Still, local parents and community members have decided it’s time for district leadership to go.  

A grassroots group – Recall MPS School Board Collaborative – is organizing a recall campaign against Gokalgandhi, as well as board President Marva Herdon and members Erika Siemsen and Missy Zombor.  

“It’s not daunting at all, because the community wants this,” said the Collaborative’s leader, Tamika Johnson. “We’ve been very successful so far and we have more people volunteering to get the job done because they too want a change.”  

Although they’re starting with just four of the eight board members, Johnson said they’re aiming for a complete overhaul. “If it were up to us, we would swipe every last one,” she said, “except for about two of them on the board.” 

According to organizers, the campaign is well on its way to collecting the necessary 63,000 signatures by Aug. 13.