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Organizations representing school district administrators and school boards in Wisconsin have released a new analysis that estimates school districts in the state would face a budget gap greater than $300 million in the 2011-12 school year under the state budget proposed by Gov. Scott Walker, even after districts impose some of the employee concessions he has proposed.

The study, released by the Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance and the state Association of School Boards, is based on a survey of about 250 if the state’s 424 school districts. Administrators were asked what savings they would realize in the upcoming school year by requiring employees to pay more toward their retirement plans and health insurance premiums. Savings from wage limits included in Walker’s Budget Repair Bill were also included.

The governor’s budget lowers the revenue caps for school districts statewide by 5.5 percent; the caps limit the total amount of local property tax and state funding a district can receive in a year. In the survey, districts reported what gap they thought would remain after taking the savings into account.

In total, the roughly 250 districts said they would save about $120 million from higher retirement contributions, $44 million from higher health plan contributions and $82 million from wage limits. The Budget Repair Bill, currently barred by court order from taking effect until a legal challenge is resolved, would limit wage increases to inflation.

The remaining shortfall for the districts that responded to the survey would be about $150 million. Many of the state’s largest districts, including Milwaukee Public Schools, either didn’t respond to the survey or weren’t included in the results released. The associations estimate that statewide, the shortfall would be about $300 million.

In March, Walker released figures showing almost 80 percent of districts in the state could offset projected reductions in school funding under his budget by diverting about 10 percent of employee salaries to help the districts pay for their health insurance and pension plans. Some districts contested the figures, saying the figures overstated their savings.

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Dan Rossmiller, director of government relations for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, says the options available to districts to cover the projected $300 million shortfall include laying off teachers or support staff, delaying maintenance or the purchase of new textbooks, increasing students fees, increasing class sizes and cutting elective or extracurricular programs.

Long-time teachers are retiring, and the cuts will likely deter some people from entering the profession, he says. “We’re seeing a brain drain.”

Walker’s Budget Repair Bill would allow districts to increase their employees’ health plan and retirement contributions by removing the benefits from collective bargaining. Districts would be unable to make any changes until current contracts with unions expire.

But not all districts are going to be able to extract all the concessions needed to offset the reductions in state funding, Rossmiller says. “Not everyone is going to have the political will to extract all the concessions you theoretically could.”

Some already require their employees to make higher contributions to their health plans, he says. “All are starting from a little different point.”

Because the bill is being challenged in court, according to Rossmiller, districts are still under an obligation to continue negotiating with unions. But if the bill is allowed to take effect – retroactively back to March when it was passed – new contracts signed since then could be invalidated.

“It’s a really awkward situation,” he says.

Adding to the uncertainty, school districts are already working on their budgets for the 2011-2012 school year. Districts operate on fiscal years ending, like the state, in June and not in December like county and municipal governments in Wisconsin.

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