School budget cuts could mean layoffs
April 20, 2011 at 4:08 am in Hudson Star-Observer
Based on the proposed Wisconsin biennial budget, the Hudson School District could be facing a budget deficit of around $3.4 million dollars in the coming school year. Continue Reading
You will notice that the administration did not recommend any downsizing of the administration. The adminsitration is not exactly running on a skeleton crew. They have been upsizing their personnel count (and their compensation) ever since Superintendent Bowen-Eggebraaten got here. Now when the budget gets “bleak” (her word), you will note there are no cut backs required of the bloated administration.
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ummm – first the bill has to go into effect, second – the current contracts have to be honored. it will help prevent layoffs in negotiating the new contracts. common sense escapes you.
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Umm… it is due to Walker’s budget proposal to cut 5.5% of the budget of every school district in the state that is causing districts to need to lay off teachers and other employees. Common sense does not escape me, but the facts certainly escape you.
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Right, and unfortunately, the dems decided to hold up part of that plan in the courts. Again, use your critical thinking skills and realize that limiting collective bargaining is a tool for the local govt and school districts to manage with the loss in shared revenue. I know it might take a little research on your side, but there are actual statements and articles that point to that issue. Sorry, you may have to read something other than media matters or your union news letter.
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Collective bargaining is a separate issue from Walker’s budget plan to cut school funding.
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Caroline – it is part of the Budget Repair Bill, not the budget that is in congress now. I think you are getting yourself confused. You may need to reorg your talking points.
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Walker’s budget repair bill was to prevent state employee lay-offs – not local employees at the local level. The state can’t payout shared revenue dollars it doesn’t have. This is what the unions and Dems don’t understand – there is NO MONEY. They can cry all they want on the supposed tax credits given to the rich, (ie. Koch, and whoever else has a dime more than they do) but the fact is there’s not enough rich to satisfy the liberals or the unions – and no matter how much money they take from someone who they think is rich, it’ll never be enough to make someone claiming to be poor happy. Socialism has failed every time its been tried, but some people just can’t get that through their thick skull no matter how many times they get elected.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Your missing the point caroline – it doesn’t matter what the profession is – if it is part of a public union, then it becomes the cornerstone of socialism. Here’s a novel thought – try to look at public service with a freedom point of view. The path we’ve taken to this point shows how poor the choices we’ve made have been.
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No, you’re missing the point. The more people you lay off (whether they’re public employees, union members, or not), the more people will require government services, therefore costing tax payers more. People like the Koch brothers want to make themselves richer by busting unions so they don’t have to pay a living wage to their workers, and they’re convincing people like you that by giving them (the Kochs) tax breaks, they’ll create more jobs.
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Name one public union employee that funds themselves. There’s not one public employee that isn’t a burden to society in one form or another. You’ve got two choices here – either continue to expand socialism which will make everyone poor OR promote more capitalism where you get to have some rich and middle class people as well as some poor.
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Smovet,
Finally you’ve stated the underlying premise behind all the attacks.
Firstly, I think you’re mis-applying the term “socialism”, which strictly speaking refers to a system where the government owns the means of production (companies) and controls the means of distribution/allocation of resources. Funding public employees from taxes is not socialism.
Your second point, that public employees area burden is flawed. You are implying that the public employees only take from the public, but you need to allow for the fact that they contribute their services and talents back for the greater good of the society which pays them. Police are expensive, but they help protect property rights and curb crime, fire departments cost a lot, but putting out fires is pretty useful. Education is a harder sell because the product (more educated students) is intangible, and because the curriculum may threaten people’s values and beliefs.
Simply put, society pays public workers because the jobs those workers do improve our lives. I know you know this argument, but I think it’s important to see that there is a large difference between a government which taxes its citizens to pay for services and one which owns everything.
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One Guy – how am I mis-applying the term “socialism”? You’ve defined it very well and then state how forced funding of it doesn’t apply. Does or does not government vastly own the means of production and control of education? How much more difficult can government make it for a private school to remain in operation, much less try and start a new one.
Your reference of using the “common good” as reason to have public employees should only be used with the services that the public as a whole can’t provide by some other means. Law enforcement is an exception, fire fighters are not (in my view) – normally in smaller communities they are volunteers. The fire equipment should be purchased by taxes, but the service call should be billed to the persons who receive the service.
You can always use the common good as an excuse to expand the use of public employees. Why not add plumbers, or electricians? Why not make the person who works behind the counter at McDonalds a public employee? They work for the “common good” too – they make money so they can first pay taxes and then if anything is left they can buy what they’d like.
I’m going to stand by my comment that public employees are a burden on society as they place taxes on everyone whether they use the service the employee provides or not.
Per the online dictionary, “socialism” is also defined as;
(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
I think that wraps it up pretty well…..
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i agree with you. however, limiting the collective bargaining portion is to help the local govt and school districts manage their budgets when negotiating NEW contracts.
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You are correct sbrown – but the reason for the limitation on collective bargaining was to help offset the reduction in shared revenue coming from the state back to the local municipalities and school districts. They gave us a tool to use against the unions, but kept the higher portion of money that tool was suppose to save us in expenses. So I guess you could say we paid the state for a tool to control our labor costs.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter – if you hate Koch so much, tell us where you think you could make up the amount of taxes they pay should they decide to move to another state? If every one of those “RICH” people you despise so much should decide to move, who are you going to get taxes from then? Your public employees would be lucky to make minimum wage and have any benefits.
If I were you, I’d send Koch a thank-you card!
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Sorry there sbrown – didn’t mean to accuse you of being against Koch. I was pointing that comment more at caroline..
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Hot debate. What do you think?
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How about we downsize Superintendent Mary Bowen-Eggebraaten?
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Is the superintendent still getting a 5.4% raise and the other administrators still getting a 4.8% raise? I’d rather see us keep the people who actually spend time with our students.
I wonder who we could keep if the administrators agreed to freeze their pay and give up their scheduled raises.
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Imagine how much the state would save if all the administrators in the state forgo their raises this year and agreed to a 1 year pay freeze? Or, maybe just the superintendents and principals? Just a thought, but I bet it would be a lot of money!
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