Conservative
Type 40
Signatures not withstanding, Walker will not lose his job.
It's Working in Walker's Wisconsin by Christian Schneider, City Journal Winter 2012
It's Working in Walker's Wisconsin by Christian Schneider, City Journal Winter 2012
The unions battle against Walkers reforms has rested on the argument that the changes would damage public services beyond repair. The truth, however, is that the reforms not only are saving money already; theyre doing so with little disruption to services. In early August, noticing the trend, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that Milwaukee would save more in health-care and pension costs than it would lose in state aid, leaving the city $11 million ahead in 2012despite Mayor Tom Barretts prediction in March that Walkers budget makes our structural deficit explode.
Once the reform limited collective bargaining to wage negotiations, districts could eliminate that requirement from their contracts and start bidding for health care on the open market. When the Appleton School District put its health-insurance contract up for bid, for instance, WEA Trust suddenly lowered its rates and promised to match any competitors price. Appleton will save $3 million during the current school year.
According to a report by the MacIver Institute, as of September 1, at least 25 school districts in the Badger State had reported switching health care providers/plans or opening insurance bidding to outside companies. The institute calculates that these steps will save the districts $211.45 per student. If the states other 250 districts currently served by WEA Trust follow suit, the savings statewide could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.
Madison School District Superintendent Dan Nerad predicted that 289 teachers in his district would be laid off. Walker insisted that his reforms were actually a job-retention program: by accepting small concessions in health and pension benefits, he argued, school districts would be able to spare hundreds of teachers jobs. The argument proved sound. So far, Nerads district has laid off no teachers at all, a pattern that has held in many of the states other large school districts. No teachers were laid off in Beloit and LaCrosse; Eau Claire saw a reduction of two teachers, while Racine and Wausau each laid off one. The Wauwatosa School District, which faced a $6.5 million shortfall, anticipated slashing 100 jobsyet the new pension and health contributions saved them all.
71 percent of Wisconsinites believe that the states public schools have either stayed the same or improved over the previous half-year. More than three-quarters of Wisconsinites expect the states economy either to get better or to stay the same in the next year, up from 60 percent during the height of the union tumult in March.