Earlier this week, the Chicago Bears’ all-pro defensive end Julius Peppers was asked whether his eight quarterback sacks last year were a disappointment. With a rejoinder worthy of Yogi Berra, Peppers answered, “I don’t like to put a number on stats.”
Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s critics are also loath to put numbers on stats — numbers that show his public-sector collective-bargaining reforms are benefiting the state. Wisconsin is replete with examples of cities and school districts that are reforming their finances to finally balance their books — and doing it without significant cuts to services.
Recently, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted that under Walker’s plan to require greater health-care and pension contributions from government employees, the City of Milwaukee actually comes out $11 million ahead — contravening Mayor Tom Barrett’s March prediction that Walker’s budget “just makes our structural deficit explode.” Barrett, who lost to Walker in the 2010 Wisconsin gubernatorial election, refuses to give the governor any credit for helping him balance his city’s books, instead complaining that Walker’s plan to curb collective bargaining went too far.
Yet many governments are putting the collective-bargaining rollback to good use. In suburban Milwaukee, the Brown Deer school district is implementing a plan to allow performance pay for its best teachers. “No Wisconsin public-school district has ever had the opportunity in any of our lifetimes to even think about these things,” said Brown Deer Public Schools finance director Emily Koczela in an interview with a local television station. “We’re looking at understanding what effective teaching is, how to measure it in the children’s point of view, and how to reward teachers that consistently turn in a performance that’s better than the norm,” added Koczela.
In Appleton, the collective-bargaining reforms allowed the school district there to save $3 million by bidding for health care on the open market. Previously, the district had been required to purchase health insurance from WEA Trust, which is affiliated with the state’s largest teachers’ union. When the Appleton School District put their health-insurance contract up for bid, WEA Trust magically lowered their rates, saying they would match any competitor’s price — a sign they had been fleecing local taxpayers for years.
Other governments are implementing similar reforms. In Manitowoc, County Executive Bob Ziegelbauer altered overtime procedures for county employees, saving taxpayers $100,000. After dealing with a $400,000 deficit last year, the Kaukauna School District expects to see a $1.5 million surplus once they implement performance pay and benefit reforms.
In February, if you had told a public-school teacher that Walker’s reforms were actually a job-retention program, they would have looked at you as if you’d just tried to stuff a live lobster down your pants. But all over the state, teacher jobs are being spared due to the increased benefit requirements in Walker’s plan. The Wauwatosa School District, facing a $6.5 million shortfall, anticipated needing to cut 100 teacher jobs — yet they were able to spare those teachers through shared sacrifice. “When students come to school in the fall, they’re going to see the same things, have the same teachers, and they’re going to see new things as well,” said Wauwatosa School District board member Phil Kroner upon passage of next year’s district budget.
Of course, Walker’s critics would rather not put a number on these statistics. During their recent failed attempt to take over control of the Wisconsin state senate through recall elections, Democrats and their union allies completely scrapped any mention of collective bargaining in their television ads. Mentioning the new union law would mean alerting voters to the plan’s successes. Instead, unions hoped voters would gobble up myriad scandalous ephemera. It didn’t work — Republicans won four seats, Democrats two, leaving the state senate in GOP hands.
In the end, statistics do matter. And in a year when Wisconsin is leading the nation in government innovation, it also makes sense that the state is home to the one statistic that should matter to Julius Peppers: Green Bay boasts one defending Super Bowl trophy.
— Christian Schneider is a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.
I live in the Kaukauna School District. I have two kids that attend Kaukauna public schools. I just want to come in here and let the liberals who might be browsing know that what's being reported here with regard to our district is 100% factual.
We went from a large deficit, to 1.5 million in surplus this year. We went from the specter of having larger class sizes and closing schools, to keeping all of the schools open, shrinking class sizes, and surpluses to the budget. Mostly because of changing health care from the corrupt WEA garbage mentioned above. Apparently unions love monopolies. They rail against big corporations, but they act not just like a corporation, but a hostile, monopolistic corporation.
I'd also like to add that before the budget repair bill passed, we faced a massive budget deficit just a couple years after a HUGE property tax increase went into effect to pay for the previously huge budget deficit the school faced.
One more anecdote for you regarding the Kaukauna school district. My daughter's 4k teacher was scheduled to make $85,000 pay, and $110,000 when you include her health and pension benefits. 4K is a grade that most school districts don't even have. And I hate to call this out, because the teacher is a very nice lady, and she's great with the kids, but let's get real here. Spending $110,000 a year for a 4K teacher, who comes in, helps the kids get the coats off, takes them potty, reads them a book, asks them what the weather is like outside, let's them play for a half hour, feeds them a snack, and then loads them on a buss (it was half days, so she basically did that with a morning and afternoon class) paying that much per class is INSANE! Totally. Completely. Insane.
In contrast the catholic school my daughter went to for 4k had an equally good teacher, smaller class size, and that teacher made less than $40,000 per year including benefits, and she had been working longer at the Catholic church than the 4k teacher was in the public school system.
And I will never shop at Bonobos.com, I will tell you that. These solve media things are the worst.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSorry, that should read her 3k Catholic school teacher, not 4k.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseQuite frankly the people here do not know what you talking about.
Scooter's "reforms" shifted the cost from the people that should be paying more, those who make over $250,000 per year to the employee who makes $40,000-$60,000 per year. Yet the affluent get a tax cut?
It is a MYTH that the rich re-invests that money to create jobs. Some do, but most do not. That $ to the rich is JUST a number on a balance sheet, which they really do not care about.
Walker is going to be recalled. His "reforms" are going to be repealed.
You will be sorry when your child comes home from school this fall and you will see how many EXTRA things you must pay for because of Walker's screwing of the common person.
Walker's "reforms" are going to STEAL over $3,000 out my pocket in 2011 alone.
That's $3,000 that I could spend in the local Kaukauna economy at say- Kaukauna Family Restaurant, or Larry's Piggly Wiggly, or any other Kaukauna business. So if I don't spend that money, what's going to happen to the business in Kaukauna?
It is going to dry-up. Then more people are going to be out of work. It will be fast spiral to the bottom.
See you on the unemployment line!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHey Phil,
$3,000 out of your union organizer pocket is more money for the rest of us. Thanks!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePhillip, You're new found financial difficulty of having to pay more for your benefits explains your anger toward our governor. Most people on this site can appreciate the feelings of frustration that makes us resort to name calling ("Scooter") and thinking all that disagree are mistaken ("the people here do not know what they're talking about"). However, to use emphasized terms like "MYTH" and "STEAL" in your argument, can only serve to undermine it. It makes me think that you are not attempting dialog with those who disagree with you. Rather, you are seeking to insult us hoping that we will get angry in return and show how inflexible we are as well.
But please consider this... as bad as it is for any of us to have to pay more for our benefits, or lose our company match for 401k, or see pension plans eliminated at our companies... many of us would consider it quite a stretch to say this is stealing. Such talk results in justification of retaliation similar to the rioters in London that are stealing back from the rich.
You have many on this site that would commiserate with you over a Leinenkugel (or three) about financial struggles. If none of us accepted the bad turns as part of life and moved on, everyone would have something to march in the streets about daily. I hope you can move on from your misfortune and anger so you can find some peace.
Hopefully the Pack will give you some joy soon. God bless.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePhillip, what do those evil rich people do with the money they do not invest? Stuff a matress, up the butt, eat it for lunch? Where do you think 'saved' money goes? Or do you not save money because your union takes care of you?
When you put money in a bank account, the bank lends it out to businesses, individual mortgages, etc. Currently, if someone deposits money in a bank, the bank lends out up to nine times that amount (Based upon the reserve requirements). So if you spend 3,000, 3,000 enters the market. If a "rich person" saves 3000 in a bank, 27,000 enters the market.
If they buy bonds, they are fundng the operations of businesses or government directly. If they buy equities, they are purchasing a share of a business already in operation, and returning the equity of another investor so the orignal investor can spend the money, or choose any other type of investment they might.
This notion that someone intelligent enough to invest some of their earned capital is removing it from the economy is complete rubbish. Money saved for emergencies and future financial independance fuels the economy. Remember, any group powerful enough to provide for your needs is also powerful enough to take it all away.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet's see . . .
The Republican attempt to pass the law would fail because the Democrats would not return to the state until Walker and the Republicans cried uncle.
Prosser was going to lose, and Kloppenburg would join the majority in the state Supreme Court in overturning the law on a technicality.
The Democrats would recall at least three, possibly as many as six, Republican senators, taking control of the Senate and reversing the law.
Now you tell us unequivocally that Walker will be recalled, and the reforms repealed. Forgive me if I doubt your prognostications on these last two matters, since your predictive success on the first three was on a par with your economic understanding.
And regarding that understanding, if your economic theory was correct, Obama would by now have us to full employment, zero deficit, and a falling national debt.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMust be a disgruntled teacher. Have to pay some of my own retirement and benefits....Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI love the cheese you guys make in Kaukauna. Keep up the good work! Glad the schools are doing better financially, too. Happy kids make for happy cows :)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDrake, You can't give liberals facts, it just confuses them and gives them a migraine. They will just put their hands on their ears and go lalalalalalalalaalala. You dirty their little union organized world when you mention inconvienent facts to them.
Shame on you.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMyKu:
But...but...but...but...but...
but...but...but...but...but...but...but...
but...but...but...but...but...
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This ought to be entertaining.
I can't wait to hear how Walker's successes are, in fact, failures or who they're attributable to someone or something else. Let's hear how there would have been MORE success if Walker's actions hadn't limited it to what it turned out to be (the "Thank a union!" slogan).
Conservatism works. Every...time...it...is...tried.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet me give you at least one, from my five excruciating minutes watching Ed Schultz last night.
He claimed WI unemployment has gone up since some undefined date as a baseline. (In the past month? Since the reform packaged passed? Since Walker's inauguration? He doesn't say.) So I checked BLS.
External Link
We've heard that Wisconsin created half the net new jobs in the U.S. in June. Yet because of the quirks of measuring an UE "rate" - people leaving/entering the workforce, and so on - the state's actual UE "rate" ticked up a couple tenths of a percent.
Schultz being blatantly misleading, shocking, I know.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWisconsin gives us all some hope.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseChristian,
Thanks for the great reporting from WI. Keep up the good work. We need more stories like this getting out into the media.
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I will not switch to FIOS! I cut the video cord years ago and will never pay for TV again.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Wisconsin GOP and Governor Walker need to start flooding the airwaves with ads touting these statistics. As we all know from our favorite NJ Governor, you need to have a clear and concise message that you can relentlessly hammer your opponents with.
If Mr. Schneider can pull these statistics together on a simple NRO post, the GOP should be able to (or should have ALREADY) pull these into a message/ad for next week's fleebagger recall!
Here's hoping we send those fleebaggers to the unemployment line and reverse (totally) the 2 seat gain that the unions/democrats took over.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGet rid of the Bonobos captcha!!!
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"But all over the state, teacher jobs are being spared due to the increased benefit requirements in Walker’s plan. The Wauwatosa School District, facing a $6.5 million shortfall, anticipated needing to cut 100 teacher jobs — yet they were able to spare those teachers through shared sacrifice."
Did Schneider actually read the article quoted? The "shared sacrifice" had nothing to do with the increased benefits requirements in Walker's plan.
From the article:
"They [teachers] made those concessions anyway, even unions that had two years remaining on contracts that would not have been, for the time, affected by the state's action."
Statistics might matter but apparently the facts don't matter to Schneider.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseProbably would have made those concessions anyway even if Walker's intentions weren't afoot, eh?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf one wants to point to Walker's budget cuts in education, you might have a point. But the unions weren't under any obligation to alter their contracts.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObligation? No. But public pressure was mounting, and the tide had turned dramatically. Altering their contracts was a desperation move, not an public-spirited, noble act.
You are ignoring the point everyone is making: the unions would not have made such a move if not for the fact that they were about to lose big, and needed a game changer. Do you doubt that for a second?
They act only in self interest, and offering to alter existing contracts was in that same self interest. The fact that such a move benefited the public was entirely beside the point, no matter how loudly they touted it. Otherwise, they would have come up with the offer on their own, without pressure, way back when it first became necessary.
So spare us your declarations of good intentions on the part of the union. When they can put the needs of the students ahead of their greed during without the threat of losing something they value, call us. We'll be waiting.
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