(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s state superintendent says the state knew about Milwaukee Public School’s fiscal problems before last spring’s tax hike vote but decided to stay quiet.
State Superintendent Jill Underly was on UpFront over the weekend. She said the Department of Public Instruction knew Milwaukee was late with those still-incomplete financial reports and knew the city’s school districts could lose millions of dollars because of it. But she said the department didn’t want to “interfere” with MPS’ quarter-billion-dollar tax hike question in April.
“We’re focused on getting MPS back into compliance,” Underly said. “And we have not interfered in referendums in the past. So, I can’t imagine if I started weighing in on local school district referendums what repercussions that would have, how school boards would feel about that, how superintendents would feel about that,” Underly said.
Unelry said DPI should get credit for going public with MPS’ fiscal problems in May.
“The thing is, we pushed to make this public,” Underly added.