"My name is Don Quixote, the man of La Mancha."

That's how Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett introduced himself to legislators at a hearing last week in Madison.

Like the fictional character who tilted at windmills, it was clear the mayor had little chance of getting anywhere in his drive for property tax help for Milwaukee as part of an agreement on school issues reached by Gov. Jim Doyle and Assembly Speaker John Gard.

The agreement, which is expected to come to a vote in the Legislature this week, would increase the limit on how many students could use vouchers to attend private schools in the city from less than 15,000 to 22,500; increase the accountability rules for voucher schools; and increase statewide spending to promote smaller classes for young students.

But help for Milwaukee property taxes is not on board.

Barrett's failure to get the tax help comes even though almost everyone agrees that he's right on a lot of points.

It really is true that, for this year, every student who attends a private school in Milwaukee using a publicly funded voucher costs Milwaukee property-tax payers $2,858, while every student attending Milwaukee Public Schools puts $1,816 on the property tax bill. The reason is that the state pays a larger part of the bill for MPS students than for voucher students.

It really is true that, in effect, every time a student chooses to use a voucher to go to private school instead of going to MPS, the state school fund comes out $3,000 ahead - in effect, helping every district in the state - while the Milwaukee property tax bill goes up about $1,000.

It really is true that students attending voucher schools are the only publicly funded students in the state who aren't counted in the complex state school aid formula, which has the effect of reducing school aid to Milwaukee.

Just last week, the state's non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau said that if the voucher program now had 7,500 more students and they all would have attended MPS, school districts statewide would gain more than $60 million in additional state aid while property taxes in Milwaukee would go up more than $11 million. And the bureau forecasts that an increase in voucher enrollment of 2,000 this September, which is what the Gard-Doyle agreement calls for, would mean either a $6.5 million cut in state aid to MPS (which might well have fewer students to offset some of that) or an increase possibly as high as that in property taxes.

The politics of vouchers

No one has disagreed that Barrett's recommendations would still leave state government ahead as enrollment in the voucher program increases, and school districts would still be unharmed. Barrett's main proposal is that the state pay for the number of increased students in the voucher program, above the current cap of 14,750, in a way that would leave Milwaukee taxpayers no worse off than if those students went to MPS.

Yet Barrett doesn't appear to be getting anywhere.

Some of that is due to a strong general feeling among out-state legislators that Milwaukee gets a lot of state aid now, more than almost any other school district on a per-student basis. That's because the formula for state aid is based largely on property wealth and Milwaukee has such deep poverty. But anything that involves more financial help for Milwaukee on anything related to schools is an unpopular matter to many in the Capitol. And if it would reduce money for other districts, it is regarded as totally unsalable.

Partisan politics - and the history of who has and has not supported the voucher program - play a big role also.

With some exceptions, the voucher program has been supported almost from the start by Republicans, many of them from rural areas. Democratic legislators representing Milwaukee - with some exceptions - have not supported the program.

In 2001, when Republicans on the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee moved to increase the state's share of voucher funding from 55% to two-thirds, the proposal died on an 8 to 8 vote along straight party lines. Two Milwaukee Democrats, then-state Sen. Gwendolynne Moore and then-state Rep. Spencer Coggs, voted against it. Coggs, now a state senator, said in a recent interview that the increase was tied to other things the Democrats didn't support.

The two-thirds funding of vouchers would have meant that the state's share of the bill for the program would be about $10 million more this year than it actually is.

In recent cycles of legislative elections, the state teachers union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, has campaigned against some out-state Republican incumbents with mailings claiming that those legislators were taking money away from schools in their own districts and sending it to support voucher schools in Milwaukee and charter schools in Milwaukee and Racine.

The accuracy of such statements was a matter of heated debate. A strong case was made that the schools actually saved those districts money.

Partisan backlash

What is not in debate is that Republicans took great offense, saying they were attacked for trying to help Milwaukee, and they continue to be upset.

Gard says Barrett's concerns about the impact on Milwaukee of the current voucher funding formula are legitimate, but:

"He's part of a party that has demonized people for helping Milwaukee. You just can't erase history like that."

Both Doyle and Gard, as well as leaders of the voucher movement, say Barrett's concerns should be taken up in the state budget process coming a year from now. Doyle said he intends to put changes in the formula in the budget then, assuming he is re-elected in November, but he said he could not hold up agreement on the voucher cap now over the issue.

State Sen. Tom Reynolds, a West Allis Republican who may hold the deciding vote on whether the voucher agreement is approved, said Sunday that he is seeking a way to keep an increase in voucher students from increasing Milwaukee property taxes. Reynolds said he was waiting for answers to questions he posed to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau on how that might be done, and would consider Barrett's ideas on the subject. If Reynolds does turn out to be the pivotal vote, his stand could influence whether the tax issue is given further consideration this week.

Meanwhile, Barrett pushes on.

"I believe so passionately that if you're going to have an education program, it has to be fairly financed," he said Friday. He told legislators earlier in the week that if they wanted the voucher program to succeed, they needed to change its financing or risk a taxpayer rebellion.

The Joint Finance Committee is scheduled to take up the agreement today, and the chance for Barrett to score points there seems slim. But at week's end, he said, "I ain't giving up."