Stripped of all its attendant finger pointing, conspiracy theories and rhetoric, the Burlington Area School District’s levy debate boils down to one thing:
The value school district residents place on education in light of current economic conditions.
The challenge is to find the point at which the cost of our educational system meets our ability to comfortably fund it.
It’s not about the agenda of the state teachers union, the rallying cries of the Tea Party, or the hot buttons pushed by radio talk show hosts.
It’s about you, Mr. and Mrs. Burlington, and the education you want to provide for your kids, your kids’ kids and your neighbors’ kids.
While that is a simplistic assessment of a very complex issue – the devil is always in the details, isn’t it? – it needs to remain the overriding consideration in any decision made concerning the future of the district. The quality of its education is the single greatest factor determining the community’s success.
So just how does education spending in Burlington stack up compared to other area districts?
According to a comparison of Racine County, Kenosha County and Southern Lakes Conference school districts done by School Board member Larry Anderson, Burlington ranks 23rd out of 27 in both tax rate and cost per student.
Clearly, local taxpayers aren’t being gouged relative to their peers in neighboring districts. In fact, an argument could be made that Burlington should be doing more to keep up with other area districts.
So why has the School Board and administration been cast as hell-bent on grinding taxpayers into the poorhouse?
Much of it is perception the board and administration either brought on themselves or failed to adequately address.
By essentially ignoring the annual meeting vote of a relatively small sampling of school district residents to reject the proposed tax levy increase, the School Board unwittingly picked a fight with a grumpy and growing constituency that should have been granted a more prominent place at the discussion table – even if they arrived late.
And, by opting for creative and largely unknown uses of Gov. Scott Walker’s “tools” for controlling costs, the district further distanced itself from what many believed to be the accepted “model” for holding the line on expenses.
While the district may well have saved more money by opting for a lower cost health insurance plan with higher deductibles and copays – rather than staying with the previous plan and charging individual teachers up to 12 percent of the premium cost – the reality remains that administrators left cost-controlling options on the table.
Ironically, in most years, district leaders would have been praised for taking creative steps to control costs while preserving the educational product. But in this political climate and economy, such steps are seen as halfhearted by some and downright disrespectful by others.
As Monday’s annual meeting redo approaches, the district has ramped up its efforts to get its message out, just as community members on both sides of the debate have made their voices heard.
In the best-case scenario, the hubbub will bring out a wide and representative cross section of district residents who cast their votes based on local reality and local need – not the tempestuous political ether that swirls throughout our state.
No matter what happens, the end result is the community will get the school system it desires and – for better or worse – deserves.
– Ed Nadolski
Editor in Chief
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I would like to respond to Mr. Nadolski’s comment regarding Governor Walker’s tools and I quote “And, by opting for creative and largely unknown uses of Gov. Scott Walker’s “tools” for controlling costs, the district further distanced itself from what many believed to be the accepted “model” for holding the line on expenses.”
I am wondering where Mr. Nadolski got his information that Burlington did not use the “tools” in the acceptable fashion. Many districts in Racine County chose to not punish staff by charging 12.6% of health insurance premiums. Burlington is one of several schools who opted instead for an insurance carrier and plan change that resulted in savings for the district. Other districts combined plan design changes with a more modest premium contribution. There was nothing in the law that mandated school districts require all employees to pay 12.6% of their health insurance premiums. Burlington chose to find savings another way, just like a vast number of other districts did.
Residents of Burlington should understand that the District has to fund its program. I think Peter Smet said very eloquently on Monday that there are Federal Mandates that the district must adhere to where increase costs are incurred.
If residents want to be mad, then direct the anger squarely at the Governor as he was the one who chose to create the dynamic where an increase in local levy was needed to bridge the gap of what amounted to a -$700 swing in per pupil funding.
Most districts either got rid of WEA Trust or made them severely cut rates. Then in addition they made their teachers pay at least 12+%. There is no limitation to pay more like the private sectors does 25-30% and with a worse plan.
These tools are not hidden or unused by others. Just the opposite. Burlington is the one that didn’t last year. That put us in a whole. Any easy google search will show this to be true. The districts like Milwaukee who couldn’t get out of their contract laid off teachers en masse. The ones who acted responsibility maintained or added services.
Like in Milwaukee, here the union wants teacher layoffs not benefit cuts – why do we want to be like Milwaukee? Don’t believe the misinformation above – do your own research and vote to save teacher jobs and kids programs not for big union benefits.
Teachers have ALWAYS paid for their own health insurance. They negotiated their compensation packages in good faith, often taking less in salary in favor of good benefits. So making them take money out of their salary and put it toward insurance, is pay cut, pure and simple.
Jlm Glinos thinks there is no shortage of good teachers, perhaps he’s right, perhpas not now. But I can’t imagine good students, seeing how teachers have been vilified as “thugs” and scapegoated not only at the state level, but by their elders right in their local communities, would consider going into education in college. But then that’s probably also part of the not-so hidden agenda to destroy our public schools.
I know I tried to talk my daughter out of it, telling her that she would be jeered and denegrated as one of those “teachers” by the people who stick their heads in the AM radio. And that was 5 years ago!
I feel fortunate that my youngest will graduate from BHS next year. When my kids start to plan on settling down, I will strongly encourage them to look at communities and yes states that have a strong commitment to education and a less than strident derision of those professionals who will educate my grandchildren.
Mr. Glinos, teachers will either be paying about 12 percent of a premium if they go with the lower deductible plan – or paying up to $3,000 (for the family plan) on the high-deductible plan. That works out anywhere from about $170 to $250 a month, depending on the plan. Teachers ARE going to be paying.
Also, if you were at the meeting Monday night, you also should have heard Mr. Smet saying that it is NOT a 3.6 percent raise across the board. It is approximately 2 percent raise overall. Teachers will be taken back to a base pay and THEN the 3.6 percent applied – which works out to roughly 2 percent.
Everyone is so bound and determined to vilify teachers and the school board, when in fact, they have made a LOT of changes to the budget this year and absorbed about a $2.4 million loss in state aid. Mr. Smet has been talking about compromise and balance since the start of the process, so how come the “conservative” right can’t see that the “liberal” side is making concessions and maybe people should meet in the middle?
Sean Cranley gems:
“Teachers have ALWAYS paid for their own health insurance.”
– yeah just like I’ve always been paid a million dollars. I just bargained it away for better working conditions and $8 an hour. Nice talking point. Too bad it makes you look like a fool.
“But I can’t imagine good students, seeing how teachers have been vilified as “thugs” and scapegoated”
-Really are these the same young teachers and students laid off or denied opportunity by their union “brothers” for the sake of higher pay for themselves. LOL Now finally students see opportunity and good teachers dont have their money stolen by a worthless union.
“derision of those professionals”
-professionals are those who do their job under all circumstances and dont unethically fail to perform because of pay concerns. Thankfully teachers can now be more and more professional that they are not under the marching orders of union leaders making hundreds of thousands of dollars and ruining the reputation of hard working educators – turning their profession into a mob like enterprise.
No one takes you seriously.
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On the other side – teachers are paying under the new plan. A high deductible plan transfers the risk to the employee lowering the premium for the district. They could pay more yes – but lets not mask reality and fall prey to the type blind rhetoric displayed above that lacks all credibility.
Wow Ted Nonymous $8 and hour that is unfortunate. I don’t know if you get health insurance on top of that through your employer. I hope you do, everyone should have access to healthcare in the event of significant sickness or injury for their own good and for the good of the rest of that pay when they don’t.
If you do get healthcare through you employer I guarantee you that you are paying 100% of that premium regardless of who writes the check. I know that’s true where I work, even though my boss writes a check for most of the premium, he not taking a loss on my employment. If your employer writes a check for a portion of that premium it is your productivity that is paying it.
It’s pretty simple really, your productivity brings in a certain amount of revenue to your employer and that amount minus your wages and benefits (and general overhead) is what he/she profits from your work. If he/she were subsidizing your insurance out of the goodness of their heart, they’d be losing money by employing you and they wouldn’t be in business long.
It’s pretty much the same situation no matter where you work and it applies to the public sector as well their qualifications, experience and labor are worth a certain amount of total compensation and how that’s divided between wages and benefits is negotiated between employer or employee individually or collectively.
If teachers get laid off it’s because Scott Walker cut state spending on public education to give tax cuts to the rich, not because of unions and not because unions unions that negotiated a contract in good faith refused to reopen that contract. Where I come from a contract is a contract.
Sean Cranley: “derision of those professionals”
Ted Nonymous: “-professionals are those who do their job under all circumstances and dont unethically fail to perform because of pay concerns.” “turning their profession into a mob like enterprise.”
Thank you Ted that’s a perfect example of the derision I spoke of. Do have an example of teachers unethically failing to perform because of pay concerns that you can cite? Or are you just making things up?
Ted said: “No one takes you seriously.” Now I know you’re just making things up since you don’t know what everyone thinks and some people do in fact take me seriously.
Ted: “A high deductible plan transfers the risk to the employee lowering the premium for the district.” In other words teachers got a compensation/pay cut. Thank you for making my points for me.
Notice the narrow minded mindset of the fringe liberals like Cranley. They believe labor negotiation exists in a vacuum. They have no understanding of the private sector, revenues, risk management, costs, and profit. They believe everything exists in the realm of the labor mind. The business exists for the sake of hired labor. In the public sector the schools exist for the sake of labor. That’s why there is a limited range of thinking in the brain of the fringe liberal.
In the real world an enterprise was created and functions because of the dream and the hard work of a founding individual. In the public sector, the school in this instance, the entity exists to provide a public good because of a gap in the market. In this case minor children are incapable of paying for an education so the public has voted to pay for it for them with a generational understanding they will in some form continue the tradition when they come of age. The school does NOT exist for the labor.
Every word Cranley spews shows a lack of understanding of this fact. That’s why in a fantasy labor is paying for all health insurance. The mind is warped and the inability to logically follow examples and derision of his own hyperbole falls on deaf ears.
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As to derision of professionals, again the Cranley 10% is in their own echo chamber. Death threats, fake doctor notes, classrooms of intimidation and indoctrination, a superintendent a tool of a union using tax dollars to campaign, forced union dues, and on and on and on. Only a fool cannot see they sorry state of “professionalism” thrown upon teachers by a corrupt union nationwide.
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Your point is not made by a high deductible plan, under your logic the labor has been paying the cost all along. Perhaps you meant to say the labor is now paying twice for insurance.
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Most say this is a waste of time to interact with the delusional. However, unfortunately their logic-less emotional based rantings have affected the discourse and allowed criminal like enterprises into the mainstream of American society. We must occasionally engage to shine a light upon them for what they are: an instructional example of the failure of totalitarian thought which has wrought pain upon billions under the false flag of utopian society.
This engagement will relegate their insipid ideology to where it belongs, as a crazy cute relic that we keep around over in the corner to remind us what not to do. Locally we have harmless Uncle Cranley in the rocker to serve this purpose.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A comment written by Jim Glinos — referenced by several other posters to this thread — has been removed at his request.
Mr. Cranley
Please state facts/give examples of tax cuts for the rich.
Like who and how much.
What is your opinion of WEA trust? Was that not a blatant scam by unions?
Your know it all,I’m higher than though response is anticipated.
Dear Shawn Granley, I think it’s a good thing that school districts can more easily switch providers and save money on health insurance. I don’t think it was a scan since WEAC does not own WEA Trust and it’s non-profit business, so I don’t see how the teachers would profit other than getting good health insurance.
Here’s some tax cut info for you: http://www.jsonline.com/business/123245453.html
EXCERPT: Aiming to make Wisconsin more attractive to business, Republican lawmakers have proposed reducing the state tax on the production earnings of manufacturers and agricultural businesses to almost nothing by 2016.
The tax reductions – slashing the rate in annual steps from the current 7.9% to 0.4% – would apply to the production income of the businesses, not to income such as royalties and investments.
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates the measure would cost the state $359.7 million over its first five years, and $128.7 million a year once it is fully phased in starting in 2016.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/122902194.html
Headline: GOP panel votes for corporate tax break, But Joint Finance Committee further cuts credits for working poor
http://host.madison.com/article_aa11ef14-a355-11e1-a373-001a4bcf887a.html
EXCERPT: According to the WDC analysis, those tax breaks and other credits will cost a Wisconsin family of four $235 beginning July 1, 2012, and grow to $291 annually by 2021.
Meanwhile, groups benefiting from the new policies contributed $23.6 million in campaign contributions to various legislators, mostly to Walker and other Republicans, from 2009 through 2011.
Have a nice day.