Did Walker's budget help schools?

[booley]

Ok now that I have a title that looks like flame bait (it's actually not but bear with me) I need to play devil's advocate. I would like someone in Wisconsin to help me understand this.

Am in a discussion with a guy who made the following claim that "

....doyle left WI with a 3.3 billion dollar deficit

........

Then, Walker BALANCED THE BUDGET:

Then Walker gave school districts tools to use to help make up money for their districts.

The districts that DIDN'T extend contracts ARE NOT LAYING OFF TEACHERS. Only districts that DID extend union contracts ARE laying off teachers. I hope you are informed enough to know what contracts I'm talking about because I can't explain EVERYTHING to you.

Then, MOST IMPORTANTLY, school districts that DIDN'T extend UNION contracts are hiring more teachers, closing their deficit, lowering property taxes, reducing class sizes, implementing merit pay ALL BECAUSE of Walker's Act 10 bill. The bill created SO much cash for districts that DIDN'T extend contracts that they are doing all the above.

Ok as for balancing the budget he gave links to http://www.jsonline.com which support that Wisconsin may have had a deficit approaching over 3 billion.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/102748564.html

Though after looking around, that doesnt' necessarily mean as much as the guy may say..

http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&Darling.pdf
http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/jul/03/scott-walker/gov-walker-says-2-years-ago-we-had-largest-deficit/

But I would still like some help undertsanding this as it seems that it should be too early to tell if Walker's budget really balanced the way he claimed.

But it's the school thing that I am really interested in.

From What I can tell what he is talking about is how Kaukauna school district claims it will get a 1.5 million surplus specifically because of the ending of collective bargaining because they didnt' extend the teacher's contracts.

http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20110630/APC0101/106300455/Kaukauna-schools-project-1-5M-surplus-after-bargaining-changes

Milwaukee that did extend the teacher's contracts but is facing a budget short fall , because they say of Walker's budget. They are planning on laying off 354 teachers.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/117550018.html


But two examples don't seem enough to support what this guys says. There may be a grain of truth but I can't tell. But it is all over right wing blogs who are using this to claim that Walker was right and the teacher's Unions should be broken. I can't find any specific response to that besides the right wing blogs

Anyone want to me help me sort this out?

[louis-t]

1. The way I understood it, Doyle left with a balanced budget

Walker gave out huge tax breaks to corporations which caused the deficit in the first place. Republicans have to lie. Their ideas do not work. The only way they can get elected is to keep lying, then make the lies bigger, then keep anyone from learning the truth.

[CarmanK]

2. That doesn't answer the questions!! Are Walker's schemes working?

Are they the short term gain which will dig a really deep hole later?? I really find it difficult that any of the TBAGGER policies are working. TRICKLEDOWN has been killing this nation by a thousand cuts for 30 years. But, there may be some short term successes that we need to counter ASAP.

[booley]

10. that's kind of why I asked

I am already seeign right wingers saying Kaukauna "proves' that Walker saved the schools while the Unions were destroying them.
And even though it's a projected surplus and it seems that the teacher's union had already offered a similar deal with similar savings as the one forced on them by the lack of collective bargaining, right wingers won't worry about those details.

And if in the next few months it ends up that even this example was pie in the sky, will we even be paying attention to it anymore?

[Igel]

3. People play with the terms and make them fit their conclusions.

The budget each year must be balanced. So the budget as of 8/2010 was balanced, by definition.

But that also is ambiguous. I'll rephrase it: The *budget document* as approved was balanced, with *projected* and planned expenses and revenues totaling to $0. This is "budget" = "budget document".

But there were problems because actual revenues didn't match actual expenses. This is "budget" = "actual revenues + actual expenses." It's really hard to keep verbal context and real context distinct and both in focus.

The budget document projected for approval in fall 2010 was out of balance. It had to be brought into balance. On paper. But this projected shortfall preceded the elections. It wasn't Walker's doing.

Walker had tax cuts, IIRC. But that just made things out of balance even more. The "even more" is important.

When the politifact link says that Walker was false, it's not saying there was no projected shortfall. It's saying that the projected shortfall he claimed as a record wasn't the record. His claim was false, his number wrong, but that doesn't mean there was no shortfall.

[booley]

4. Ok so...

Am I right in thinking this means that while walker claims his budget is balanced it would just as easily lead to deficit as previous budgets did?

[Igel]

7. Sure it could.

Any budget is only as good as the assumptions that go into it. Reality comes along and consistently refuses to make good on our predictions. It just has no respect for our august opinions.

Take Texas, where I live now; or California, Oregon, New York, Delaware, or Maryland, all states I've lived in since I turned 18. They pass balanced budgets. Sometimes they're fairly accurate. Sometimes there's a surplus that nobody can spend because the legislature isn't in session to authorize spending it; sometimes there's a deficit, and the government should make cuts.

In California the cuts typically weren't made. Davis, Scharzenegger, Wilson, it didn't matter: They'd see revenues down in December, they'd come along in March or May to say that there's a deficit. They could reduce spending a bit in December or postpone all the savings until the last two months of the year, with disastrous results. The politicians always chose "disastrous results" later because they often had elections that would be affected by slight cuts earlier.

I don't know what Texas does. I really have trouble bringing myself to read the local press.

[spedtr90]

5. It's not just losing the right to bargain - teachers lost benefits at Kaukauna

The loss of the right to bargain by itself did not save any money. Unions with collective bargaining rights have helped districts save money when they agreed to wage freezes and benefit changes. Apparently Milwaukee's board decided to honor the current contract, Kaukauna's did not.

I wonder how much theses schools lost in funding through Walker's budget cuts. The advertised savings from breaking unions more likely are attempts to fill that gap. From Milwaukee JS - "The Democrat-controlled Legislature dropped school aid by less than 3% and nearly one-quarter of the state's 425 school districts saw their general state aid decline by 15%. The proposed cut in school aid in Walker's budget is more than 8% in the first year."

From your link: "The Kaukauna School Board approved changes Monday night to its employee handbook that require staff to cover 12.6 percent of their health insurance and to contribute 5.8 percent of their wages to the state's pension system, in accordance with the new collective bargaining law, commonly known as Act 10. The new rules also cut sick days from 10 to five, eliminate teacher pay for emergency school closings, such as snow days, and give district leaders the option of furloughing staff members."

[Igel]

6. I don't know.

I'll say what I read months ago. I tracked down some references, don't consider any to rise to the status of "actual fact" so report them as editorial comments that might not be fully true.

The Appleton School District had a union contract with its teachers that required that the union-affiliated health insurance provider WEA Trust provide the teachers' health insurance. The district decided to ignore this provision and issued a call for bids for the teachers' health insurance.

The WEA Trust was not in the 3 lowest bids. But the district had been pleased with the WEA Trust's performance over the last 40 years or whatever and gave the Trust the opportunity to match the winning bid. The Trust matched it while keeping the benefits steady. Teachers not hurt, at least not immediately; the Trust kept the district in its stable of clients; everybody was happy. The net effect was that costs were reduced by something like $3.1 million/year or over the course of the contract.

Since I read this the claims have gotten fuzzier. The name of the district's dropped out, the reason for the savings has dropped out, and the claims expanded to "all districts that" did this or that. Perhaps it's so. I doubt that the people making the claim have actually checked to see if the districts fall so neatly into the two categories proffered.

[snacker]

8. Some info here:

from: http://budget.wispolitics.com/


DPI releases report on budget's aid impact to school districts

According to DPI figures released this morning, 410 of the state's 424 school districts will get cuts in their general aid from the state for the upcoming school year, while 13 districts are seeing an increase.

One, which did not receive any state aid during the past school year, will see no change.

Overall, districts will see a total of $398.7 million in general aid cuts for the upcoming school year under Gov. Scott Walker's budget, according to the report from the Department of Public Instruction.

DPI is required to compute estimates of general school aid for each district on July 1. The numbers are used by school district administrators to prepare their budgets.

The biggest increase in state aid percentage-wise was in the Pewaukee School District, with an 11.3 percent increase, or about $115,000. Many of the districts who will see increases are in the suburban Milwaukee area.

Most districts across the state will see a decrease of about 10 percent in general aid.

The biggest cut dollar-wise was to Milwaukee Public Schools, which will lose $54.6 million. It also will receive by far the most state aid in 2011-12 with $529.5 million in state support.

-- By Greg Bump

[booley]

9. is there a way to find out which extended contracts?

I think the guy is hinging his entire argument on the idea that if the union contracts were not extended then the benefits would appear.

But there's only that one case and it's a projected surplus.

I am also a bit confused because according to this Kaukauna is going to lose over 2 million in education funds. But the school board claimed that by teachers paying extra on pensions and benefits they somehow raised almost 4 million.

Does that sound right?

[Igel]

11. I can't imagine there's a way to find that out in one place.

Maybe somebody did the legwork. Lots of local papers would report on each school district. I assume the state ed agency would have the info, if you could wrest it from them.

$2 million isn't all that much, when you get right down to it. My local school district was planning on being $30 million in the red; it wound up getting something like $13 million in cuts. Painful, but they still hired teachers. They're saving a lot of money by conservation; by limiting bus service; by simple attrition.

Good luck.

[booley]

12. I think I got it figured out

Thanks to everyone who helped me research this. I will post my reply below though it is a bit long. I think it may help since lots of right wingers are claiming what the guy below is and they depend on people being ignorant and not questioning them.

sorry I didnt' reply sooner. But this took a little research and I do have a life.

I will add your words in my response since I am sure you can figure out what parts of yours and which are not. I hope.

Inform yourself
You're an idiot.

Ahh You're sweet too. I am glad you went right to the troll portion of the conversation so quickly.

Anywho, I did indeed inform myself, something I could not have done on this topic without you for as I had said before I had no idea what you were talking about. And after asking others, they didn't know either. You giving me something with on which to base a search was really helpful.
Here's what i found...

First off doyle left WI with a 3.3 billion dollar deficit

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/102748564.html

http://www.jsonline.com/newswatch/41543657.html

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/109275069.html

Well a 3 billion dollar deficit is not a good thing for one's budget. But some problems with the way your interpretation of the facts.

First, as I said, there is no reason to believe that this shortfall was due to collective bargaining. In fact, the state's legislative Fiscal bureau did a report on exactly why there was a short fall..

"More than half of the lower estimate ($117.2 million) is due to the impact of Special Session Senate Bill 2 (health savings accounts), Assembly Bill 3 (tax deductions/credits for relocated businesses), and Assembly Bill 7 (tax exclusion for new employees)."

http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&Darling.pdf

Sounds like at least 2 out of that 3 are about taxes.

Indeed as you link (the third one above) says, state employees under Doyle were already taking 8 unpaid days off and had seen raises frozen. The reason it was assumed the deficit would grow larger was in part there was no assurance Walker would continue the cuts done by Doyle or not.

So if state workers were already cutting back WITH collective bargaining, how was collective bargaining the problem?

Your links don't say.

Another problem is Walker apparently got rid of the 2 billion in taxes that would have helped off set this, making the situation even worse.
Rr as your link (3rd one again) says, "In one sense, the state's two-year budget can make shortfall figures seem larger than they are. If state leaders enact a permanent spending cut or tax increase in the first year of the budget it will help reduce the deficit in the second year as well, meaning a $3 billion shortfall could be solved with $1.5 billion in permanent cuts and tax increases."

But what's really interesting is that running deficits is normal in Wisconsin . It's actually quite bi-partisan. The largest was under a Republican predecessor of Doyle's, Scott McCallum.

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/jul/03/scott-walker/gov-walker-says-2-years-ago-we-had-largest-deficit/

So the problem wasn't as bad as Walker or you claimed, it had nothing to do with Unions right to collectively bargain and it could have been fixed without taking that right away.

Then, Walker BALANCED THE BUDGET:

http://www.fox6now.com/news/politics/witi-20110626-budget-walker-signed,0,4709635.story

I will not deny that. It is true that Walker and the republican controlled legislature put forth a balanced budget.
However, so did Walker's Democratic predecessor Doyle. As did Doyle's predecessor.
Wisconsin has a balanced budget amendment to it's constitution. ALL budgets have to be balanced. Yet they still end up having deficits.

http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org/primer_balancedbudget.html

As I told you earlier, it's far too early to know if Walker balanced the budget the way you're implying.

Indeed Walker's budget may not only not "repair" the budget but hurt Wisconsin's economy in the end...

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_8c50dc92-52f7-11e0-993d-001cc4c03286.html

http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org/budget_adjustment_bill_comparisons.pdf

Now lots of governors get out of these short falls by using one time revenues and this seems to be exactly what Walker is doing by selling off public assets for very little money.

http://www.jsonline.com/business/116965798.html

OF course that begs the question what happens when Wisconsin runs out of stuff to sell off and utility costs go up? (since private companies have to make a profit on top of cost)

this seems more of the same kind of penny wise, pound foolish economics republicans in general and tea partiers in particular have made infamous.

Then Walker gave school districts tools to use to help make up money for their districts.

Not sure what "tools" you are referring too. The only tool seemed to be breaking the teacher's union. And as I said, that wasn't really the problem to begin with.

What Walker did do however was over see cuts to education funding by almost 400 million dollars.

http://dpi.wi.gov/eis/pdf/dpinr2011_78_district_estimates.pdf

410 districts saw a decrease. Only 13 saw an increase and that was only because of population growth.

The districts that DIDN'T extend contracts ARE NOT LAYING OFF TEACHERS. Only districts that DID extend union contracts ARE laying off teachers. I hope you are informed enough to know what contracts I'm talking about because I can't explain EVERYTHING to you.

So how powerful could the teacher's unions be if their members can still be laid off?

Every teacher not working weakens the Union over all. Can't pay dues if you're not getting a pay check.
And wouldn't the 400 million cuts by the state gov be a bit more influential on school districts cutting back?

Not to mention that Walker put limits on property taxes making them essentially flat across the board. (so much for local control). Since districts that lose state money have to make it up typically through property taxes, this probably was a far greater factor then teacher's contracts.
Its like me challenging you to a race and then before we start, I club you in the knee caps.

Anyway....

Then, MOST IMPORTANTLY, school districts that DIDN'T extend UNION contracts are hiring more teachers, closing their deficit, lowering property taxes, reducing class sizes, implementing merit pay ALL BECAUSE of Walker's Act 10 bill. The bill created SO much cash for districts that DIDN'T extend contracts that they are doing all the above.

http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20110630/APC0101/106300455/Kaukauna-schools-project-1-5M-surplus-after-bargaining-changes

http://brvanlanen.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/wisconsin-budget-reform-saves-teachers-jobs/

Ok first lets be clear. You don't mean districtS. You mean district. Not plural but singular. Just One. Kaukauna.

One district out of 424 isnt' really enough to say there' s a causal relationship.

However Kaukauna did say explicitly that they were in a hole and are in a surplus because teachers couldn't collectively bargain.

Let me repeat "THEY SAID".

Here's a funny story.

In their 09-10 budget, Kaukauna began including future fixed costs to their current budget. This caused them to go into deficit on paper, even though it really didn't effect their current costs.

And with Walker's "balanced budget" Kaukauna lost 2.7 million in state aid which probably really did put them into the red. (not that you will probably hear this from the Kaukauna school board)

But the school board said "Oh my we are in a huge hole" and began negotiating with the teacher's Union to get a better deal.

The teacher's Unions said in exchange for a 2 year extension of the current contracts, they would agree to pay 12% of health insurance premiums, 5.8% of pensions (the same required by act 10). Also teachers would accept a salary freeze for 2 years and be flexible on half days counting as full days among other concessions.
Remember, when this negotiating happened Act 10 had not yet passed.

The union was informed that the school board had voted unanimously to not accept the Union's offer. However there is no public record of such a vote. (possibly violating open meetings laws)

One school board official said in anonymity it was because of the imminent passage of Act 10, that the school board president held off until after act 10 was law. And then they not only got what the Union offered but far more.

Because remember, collective bargaining isn't just about benefits. It's also used for things like working conditions.

http://bdgrdemocracy.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/kaukauna-school-board-and-scott-walker-have-something-in-common-budgeting-is-not-about-the-money-its-about-union-busting/

Since one of your sources was a blog, I don't feel bad about citing this. Especially since this guy already did the research and went through Kaukauna's public records.

There are many more examples that the mainstream won't publish. It's happening all over WI and you cannot deny it. School all over are balancing budgets and hiring teachers BECAUSE of Act 10.

As I said before, when you told me about this neither I nor any of the others I talked too had heard of this before.
But once I had a google search words, the most popular sites were almost all right wing blogs, extolling this example as vindication for all they had claimed about Walker and teachers and Unions in general.

You know what's interesting? For all your claims that there are more examples and that somehow the media is just hiding it (but then why not hide Kaukauna?) the ONLY example any of you can come up with is Kaukauna, which so far looks to be atypical and very suspect.

So Yes, knowing what I know now I think I can very reasonably deny what you claim.

Not that I blame you for accepting it blindly though. You heard what you wanted to hear and this stuff took some digging before it became clear. The way it was presented on the surface, it would seem as if what you said might be true if one hadn't dug around into the details.

Which is why I want to thank you for helping me counter this right wing propaganda