Scott Walker is destroying more than just schools

He’s destroying people’s lives while his minions an trolls sing his praises and demonize the suffering of his victims.  Shame on them and shame on him.There are no school districts emerging unscathed from the savage austerity imposed on them by the Walker administration and Superior is no exception.

Recent budget cuts have been brutal, according to Janna Stevens, district administrator of the Superior School District. People have broken down in tears in her office — teachers retiring earlier than planned or staff members who made the choice to drop their health care plan to meet family bills. The 2011-13 Wisconsin state budget cut $1.6 billion out of education revenue. That left the district with nearly $3 million less than expected this school year and led to some tough choices.

“We had an incredible amount of retirements,” Stevens said. “We looked at every one of those positions to see ‘Can we absorb that and not fill that position?’

“Well the truth is we needed every one of those teachers but we knew we had to trim back.”

The so-called “tools” that Walker loves to refer to in his tightly stage-managed appearances around the state (and indeed, the country) have proven to be a complete failure.  Schools are facing teacher shortfalls and the staff who remain have had to take effective pay cuts to cover the cost of their healthcare and retirement savings.

“[Employees] simply cannot afford to have health care along with paying their bills,” Stevens said. “It’s been brutal but sadly that was a savings for us but I wish it wasn’t …” Two of her close friends are among those who now have no health care.

Walker’s tools, she said, just didn’t close the funding gap.

“My understanding is that very few districts across the state were able to really come out of this and say ‘This is going to work out better for us,’” Stevens said. “We’re with the majority. It didn’t work out for us.”

Superior expects to have another shortfall next year of $500,000 which they don’t know how they’re going to cover.

Destroying lives so he can hand over vast sums of money to his campaign supporters, the faux job creators, remains a sad and unfunny joke.  Wisconsin leads the nation in job losses.

Wisconsin simply can’t afford any more “tools” like Scott Walker.

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69 thoughts on “Scott Walker is destroying more than just schools

  1. What this blog does not state is that the Superior School District rammed through a new contract back in march not utalizing Scott Walkers “tools”. So I don’t feel for these cry baby teachers at all.

  2. Please tell me exactly how Walker’s “tools” would have helped here? Give me a detailed accounting. Because if you don’t (or can’t), then you’re nothing more than a partisan hack. Don’t sent me links to McIver or the Walker propaganda site, go get the data and crunch the numbers and show me EXACTLY HOW the “tools” would have improved the situation in Superior.

    Otherwise, you can STFU.

  3. I’ve seen your signs in the yards around and personally know a lot of those people. One thing the ones that I know have in common is a lack of common sense. Less than 10% had any idea what this state was taking from them by way of taxes to subsidize teachers unions and those who refuse to work. They were ignorant of the corruption in Madison at the hands of the liberals and the fact that the unions under which the teachers worked donated to the politicians who sat down with those same unions to consider what kind of benefits those teachers and the unions would receive. When advised of that fact most of the people I talked to considered that corruption and said that should be illegal.
    Only in a state run by liberals would one consider a person owning two cars, having a microwave, having TVs in every room hooked to cable and eating steak they bought at the grocery store with a card given then by the state as being poor. Don’t try and tell me that isn’t happening because I have witnessed it more than once in my job. The fact that I have to work hard while money is taken from me to fund this lifestyle for someone who made personal choices such as not studying at school and taking drugs galls the heck out of me.
    Recall Walker? Heck no, run him for president.

    1. Yup. The problem with society is that poor people just have it too good.

      Also, thank you for educating us about the fact that we pay taxes, which according to your scientific survey only 10% of people are aware of.

      How’d you get so smart and well informed?

  4. Calling someone a political hack for not providing something you have not provided yourself is surely the pot calling the kettle black. It is because of ignorant fools such as you that this state is one of the highest taxed states in the union.
    you can STFU you hack.

  5. Imagine that, Phil Scarr calling someone a political hack. Kinda reminds one of the the saw about the kettle calling the pot black.

  6. Now now Phil must I quote the “chosen one” and call for civility after your “stfu” statement. Yes Phil I will explain this to you first when the Superior School District signed this contracted it restricted the school to competitvly bid on healthcare meaning the taxpayers were forced tp pay for the over priced WEA this means that if they didn’t push through a contract they could of saved the district close to 1 MILLION dollars. Now that money saved could go towards klenix for the “crying teachers”. To my next point why shouldn’t teachers pay for part of their healthcare and pensions welcome to real world Phil buddy.

    1. Mike you are simply foolish. I am a teacher and I have conceded that everyone must do their part and pay more for health care and whatever else. What you say my “crying” is and what you don’t understand is that the students of Wisconsin are the ones being hurt. Yeah, I may lose my job, I am going to be sad about that but it’s not as sad as what these kids are going to have to deal with and how many more are going to slip through the cracks. So shut your mouth until you know what you are talking about.

    2. If you’re referring to me, I’m not the “chosen one;” I’m simply the person who pays for this bandwidth. Having said that, I’m free to run this blog however I see fit, and if you don’t like it, there’s plenty of options for you out there on the internet.

      1. We knew this time would come, and we think you’re ready now to hear it:

        Zach, you are the chosen one. Our fate is in your hands, Dude.

    3. If by “chosen one” you mean President Obama, then yeah, he was chosen. By the American people. That still burns, doesn’t it? 🙂

      Still waiting for that data. I see a lot of hand waving and attempts at distraction, but no data. No evidence that the “tools” work. So it’s STFU then?

      1. Phil. Didn’t you read? The data is that they heard from a friend that there’s a black poor person that has a microwave.

        Therefore, Scott Walker gave the white rich people the tools they need to provide everyone the equal opportunity to escape the grips of poverty with a good education to become productive members of society slash school budgets, hack at teachers’ family budgets, and further imperil our childrens’ futures.

        It’s commonsense, dood.

        1. JCG,
          The place I live in has one black family. That pretty much disposes of that issue, I guess. The company I owned hired more blacks than whites and that was twenty years plus years ago and no, it was not union. The union tried to come in but the employees didn’t want it. They were paid top wages for what they did and didn’t want to give some of it to unions that would just leach off of them the way the teachers union leaches off of teachers.
          You speak of opportunity. To take advantage of an opportunity one needs to be able to recognize it. The people I see living in the low income housing shun opportunity at every opportunity. I went down there two years ago looking for someone to shovel snow when our equipment went down. I offered top dollar, as much as my employees were making, for their labor clearing snow from my lot. I went from door to door with this offer. I was able to get two people out of 28 apartments to come down and put a shovel in hand (both of which I had to buy coats and boots for at the Salvation Army) and both of them demanded their pay and left before the job was done.
          From the tone of your post it is clear that you don’t apples from beans and need to grow a few whiskers before sassing those who know what the world is like and has worked since the age of ten (now 70). The world isn’t always fair, DOOD.

          1. You are suffering from the inductive fallacy of hasty generalization. You assume that your small experience with individuals is generalizable to the population as a whole. You repeat this in your post several times:

            Experience:I was able to get two people out of 28 apartments to come down and put a shovel in hand … and both of them demanded their pay and left before the job was done.

            Conclusion:The people I see living in the low income housing shun opportunity at every opportunity.

            You are drawing conclusions with insufficient data, either observational or statistical.

            1. Phil,
              Try the experiment yourself. Grab a handful of cash and go down there and try to get someone to work. If you don’t get robbed you will find out I am right. Unless, Phil, you are a coward.

              1. I would (potentially) just replicate your experience, it still wouldn’t obviate the fallacy. The issue isn’t that you didn’t have that experience, my challenge to you is in the generalizing about that experience to the entire population of people living in low-income housing, many of whom work hard, harder than you or I in many cases.

                The question is not in the validity of your experience but rather in the conclusion you drew from it.

          2. Jim, I respect your lifetime of hard work.

            But Phil is exactly correct. You’re presuming a lot of things about people and situations you don’t know (myself and Phil included), as well as forming extremely broad opinions based on anecdotal information.

            So please take your own advise and stop “sassing” people who may have more firsthand knowledge and experiences with such things than you realize.

            1. Yeah, I’ve seen some quite a few of those beneficiaries. It seems to me that the problem with the greatest majority of them isn’t that they can’t work but that they don’t want to work. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you either have your head in the sand or you aren’t looking too hard.
              You can spout all the research you want to me but given my experience, and having been a police officer for over 8 years I’ve seen quite a bit, I know what is going on with those people. We have trained a certain segment of our society to expect something from the government and they get it in return for their votes. The solution to the problem of those who will not work is hunger. If they get hungry enough they will either work or starve. (If they steal to survive that is just proof that they are too lazy to work because there is work out there at any burger joint for those who will work.)
              The ones I feel sorry for are the kids of those parents who would rather buy cigarettes and booze or drugs for themselves than clothes and coats for their children. Don’t suppose that you can sit on your haunch and look at numbers and presume to tell me what this world is like. By doing so you do nothing more than to prove that you are aloof and pompous and not connected to the real world.

              1. I think I’ve spotted the problem here.

                You can spout all the research you want to me but given my experience, and having been a police officer for over 8 years I’ve seen quite a bit, I know what is going on with those people.

                You think experience trumps data. You are wrong.

                And “Those people?” Really?

                1. Thank you Phil for the poem. Where is this burger joint that is waiting for new employees to just walk in and get a job? Just showing up at someone’s door with cash, really? Why should they trust you when they have been burned many times before. If they are on unemployment or welfare or other assistance, earning $75 for a day of work could very well create way more problems than that pittance will do to help. Did you hire “those people? Will they be covered if they get hurt. Look at some of the facts about the number of job searchers for each open job. And then realize that not many jobs available to the unskilled or undereducated pay a living wage. Minimum wage jobs don’t even bring someone up the poverty line. Try living on unemployment and food stamps. In this country we even have to pay tax on unemployment benefits. Several Congress members were trying to live on food stamp levels for a week. They did not enjoy it. Try it sometime.

                2. Sorry, pal, wrong again.
                  I know who and what you are. I’ve seen you and those like you before. Your ilk is all around us. You sit on your fat butt and do nothing but criticize and make your numbers say what you want them to while others are trying to do the things to make this country better.
                  I’ve done my volunteer duty. I joined the military when it was uncool to do so and did my stint there. I have also volunteered at nursing homes and, as a nurse for many years, volunteered at those clinics you probably have never seen the inside of to inoculate children against disease and help with the addicted you and your ilk have fostered and are so happy to defend. It breaks my heart to see what has become of this once proud country, after what you bunch has done to it.
                  No, I know you and a growing number in this country does too and is beginning to get a belly full of your bunch. Do you think that Walker got elected by accident? Is that what your numbers are telling you? I think he got elected because the people in this state, apart from Madison, are pretty tired of watching this country circling the drain and have finally decided to do something about it. They are getting tired of paying and paying and the problem only getting worse all the while people like you are blaming them for not paying enough. They want to see a little more personal responsibility out of those who receive the largesse.

                  1. I’m so tired of the straw man argument I can’t even fight it anymore.

                    Jim, wallow in your ignorance, revel in it, soak in its warm embrace. Enjoy that feeling of righteousness you get when you ascribe values to people that come from nowhere but your own mind. When you talk about “them,” do you feel the rush of power at getting to control the message? Even though you’re wrong, you get to be right in your own mind. But Jim, that’s the only place you’re right. Because here in the world, you’re full of shit.

                    Good luck to you, sir.

                    1. Phil,
                      So this is what it gets down to. I knew sooner rather than later it would get to this.
                      So I’m full of shit but one of us has experience in this world while the other had done little more than sit behind a terminal pompously typing away secure in the knowledge that he has all the answers and the world is exactly as he imagines it.
                      Yep, one of is full of it but given my experience and your lack I would say that I am not the one.
                      So go ahead youngster. Work with your data and numbers and see if you can convince other rubes like you to believe what you want them to. You, sir, prove positively that there isn’t always a correlation between education and intelligence.

                3. Thanks for the propaganda video. It made as much sense as you do. Other than the ones who were sick or injured, every one of those people had choices to make during their lives. Because they made the wrong ones I and others who pay taxes are saddled with the bill. We are left to support them. I didn’t force drugs or alcohol into them, I didn’t force them to have babies out of wedlock, and I provided an education for them but it was their choice to spurn it. Why, then, am I and other taxpayers stuck with the bill for their deeds and omissions?
                  The reason is because people like you have made it easy for them to do these things. People like you have elected politicians like Lyndon Johnson to office who did their best to share the money taxpayers worked so hard for and simply hand it as a reward to people who have made poor choices. Again, thanks for the video but, as you know, it is just so much trash and doesn’t really represent the world as it is.
                  Like I said before, I feel sorry for the children. They are the ones that suffer in all this and they are being lead down the same path of dependency. It is your bunch that is doing it to them and I believe you know it. Why else would you depend on statistics that are easy to manipulate to make it look like you know what you are talking about?

        1. What data would you like? I have lots and lots of data. What was relevant to the post was included.

  7. from what i gather on the comments i get that most of you never did some fact checking on what most state workers really earn. the snow plow drivers pay was just put in the paper last week eleven dollars an hour. wooopie, and most teachers pay is in the 45 thou bracket except the ones with a higher degree, the university police officers make 40 thou a year and in their last contract they took no pay raises that was 4 years ago and not taking any pay raises for 4 years was to off set higher cost of health care and pension, and they also had to take furlough days, days with no pay and now walker says no pay increase for another 2 years thats 6 years no pay increase. teachers don’t get paid for the summer off they have money taken out of each paycheck and set aside all year to cover them for the summer months this goes into a special account for them to draw from in the summer. some of you talk smart but you have no real clue what the majority of them really earn. and they also pay into thier healthcare and pensions. untill you know all the facts instead of just getting walkers numbers as he has cherry picked, almost all counties are in diare straights. so the next time a cop or fireman helps out a family or a school teacher helps your kid get through a difficult subject and you can get your sorry as# to work when the snow is removed from the road and freeways GO TELL THESE STATE WORKERS TO THEIR FACE THEY DON’T DESERVE THEIR PAY.

  8. No Zach I was talking about our president the one who calls for civility. Back to Matt though. I acturally believe the reason kids are “falling through the cracks” are because their teachers are on websites commenting instead of teaching them. Second, I am refering to the teachers that showed up tears in their eyes like the artlicle reads. So Matt how about you read the article first then comment on it.

    1. Last time I checked, I was not Obama. I don’t owe you a damn thing, fleeb.

      You can’t produce the goods so you can STFU.

    2. Mike,
      My daughter-in-law and son are teachers. Want to talk about kids falling through the cracks?
      When third grade kids come to school reeking of cigarette smoke in the middle of the winter without coats, gloves and boots we know that the parents do not care about their kids enough to quit smoking (I don’t know how they can afford them) let alone care about the education that the kids are getting. Those parents (in my daughter-in-laws class it’s almost half) do not show up for parent-teacher conferences and, when called, say they are not coming and couldn’t care less. They claim it’s the teacher’s job to teach the kids, not theirs.
      The blame for the children falling between the cracks can be laid right at the feet of the parents as well as the unions. The parents that are on welfare don’t seem to care about any of this and neither do the unions. If the parents would do their part for their own children as well as demand a quality education no amount of union graft and coddling of incompetents could stand in their way. If the unions were interested in quality education they would quit protecting incompetent teachers.
      If you are going to lose your job under the Walker plan it’s because you are useless and incompetent not because of politics.

  9. Linda,
    That’s the grand thing about this country. If you don’t like what you are getting for the work you are doing you can leave and either do something else or find better wages for what you do. They all have that option.

      1. JCG,
        What anecdote are you talking about? The fact that one has the ability to change one’s situation? I fail to see how that is mean spirited. Just like a liberal, claim someone is mean spirited for pointing out the obvious.
        One does not have to settle for one’s lot in life in this country. If one has the gumption one can change jobs and make things better for oneself and one’s family. Only liberals who are under the impression that they know everything and fools think otherwise. That is what makes this is a wonderful country.
        I shake my head at liberals like you. You seem to have the belief that you know what is best for people and act upon it. Your ilk has gotten legislation passed in this country that enables people to be lazy and still survive. That is not good for them nor is it good for this country.
        You and people like you have bred a whole social class of people who are dependent upon government largesse for their livelihoods and when they are sober they are miserable. They have become slaves to the state and it’s all your doing. Your and those like you should be ashamed. It would be different if you subsidized them yourselves but you thrust them upon the taxpayer to make yourself feel good.
        As a qualification, I know some people need help to survive but not the numbers that are now getting food and public assistance. These people raise children who have never had anyone in the household that has ever had a job or had a reason to get out of bed in the morning. They are your progeny and the rest of us are stuck with them. People of your ilk make me sick with your high handed pomposity.
        Try this one or two evenings per week. Go down to the police station and ask to ride along with the officers who patrol that beat. I’m sure you would change your mind pretty quickly about your stance on liberalism after you see what you and your ilk have done.

        1. I believe I gave you some easy data that debunked your frighteningly out-of-touch “we live in the land of jobs-o-plenty” anecdote. But here’s another, along the line of what Bill H mentioned.

          Beyond that, you’ve spouted nothing but ivory tower, elitist judgments about other peoples’ lives (including Phil’s and my own), so please stop projecting such things on me and “my ilk” (taxpayers as well, btw!), who’s experiences I reiterate you know absolutely nothing about.

          Finally, I hate to break it to you, but being a police officer neither gives you a very well-rounded experience of a community, given that all you see is the negative, nor does it earn you much respect around these parts. So I challenge you to walk into an inner city volunteer center or community group meeting, stop being a destructive force in our society, and join the many others who are doing some inspiring damn work to make a positive difference in their communities.

        2. Jim assumes everyone’s experiences and circumstances are identical to his own.

          All men walk in his shoes, therefore his experiences apply to all men.

          1. Indeed.

            Jim also thinks we haven’t noticed he’s told us he’s a 70 year old 2-time former gov’t employee, and therefore between the pension(s), SS, Medicare, and likely other benefits, he’s about as big of a socialist welfare leech as there could possibly be.

            Just hoping he doesn’t get all uppity and think he has the right to buy a microwave without my permission, since that’s my tax money he’s throwing away all willy-nilly in his pampered welfare lifestyle while I’m out earning a living to support him.

            1. JCG,
              You are showing your ignorance again. Since when does being in the army for 8 yrs say one is eligable for a pension? (From your comment I can guess that you’ve never had the guts to fight for your country. After two tours and two purple hearts I came home and wasn’t treated as well as those coming home today.) Since when does working for a police dept. for 8 yrs make one eligable for their pension?
              Ignorance will show and you’ve just shown yours.

        3. I love how all that ails society is the fault of liberals, as if conservatives have had no hand in running things nationally (or in Wisconsin) over the past 70+ years.

  10. Alright Phil you asked for it and I’ll give you what you want:)

    Manitowoc County would save taxpayers roughly $500,000 after changes to prescription drug co-pays and insurance deductibles for county employees.

    Health Partners and Delta Dental will provide the insurance to Hudson School District employees beginning Oct. 1. The change will save the district an estimated $1.1-1.2 million annually.

    Germantown had gone to several major carriers to receive quotes, but only two companies bid: Humana and Wisconsin Educators Association Trust, the district’s current carrier.
    In doing so, the district received two bids from each carrier, one saving the district $750,000 and another saving $1 million. Business Director Rick Ericksen advised that the most prudent course of action would be to remain with WEA Trust, which would still save the district the desired $1 million and a more seamless transition given the time frame.

    A health insurance provider switch saved Ashland School District nearly $378,000.

    Kimberly School District
    The district saved $821,000 by dropping WEA Trust.

    Edgerton School District
    The district will drop the union’s current health insurance carrier, the WEA Trust. The district is gathering bids to change to a different health insurance provider, which Pauli said could save at least $500,000 over the next year.

    The Baraboo School Board expects to save about $660,000 next year after deciding to change insurance providers Monday evening.

    Elmbrook School district originally had planned for $780,000 in savings through the health-care changes, but Brightman said the actual savings are estimated at $878,000. He said some of that money likely will be needed to pay for staffing – probably a half-time equivalent clerical position – to administer the new plan.

    1. Superior is using the “tools” and is still coming up short. From the article:

      In Superior, the $3 million drop in funding was cushioned in part by what could be termed as Gov. Walker’s budget “tools” – having employees paying half their retirement costs and more for health care. The district saw approximately $1.5 million in savings from those two moves. But they had an unintended consequence, driving many people from individual to family health plans and forcing some people off the plan entirely.

    2. Again, just because some school districts are able to make up the shortfall using the “tools” doesn’t mean that they all can. And they clearly aren’t. So where do you go from here? More layoffs? More forced retirements? More non-renewals?

    3. I tried to verify some of the data, but haven’t found a single reliable news source or other non-opinion source for any of them. They all cross-link to one another and not one I found was a link to an actual news story. I’m beginning to think it’s all a bunch of hot air. There are no savings at all.

      All the sources lead back to this one press release from the Marathon County GOP.

      I’m still digging.

  11. Sorry Phil I had a list of all my sources but, it will not allow me to post them on here. You can fact check all of them they all came off of online papers.

    1. Why can’t you post the sources here? It’s great data, I’d like to explore it myself.

  12. It is interesting reading these comments and that education of children isn’t important. Gov. Perry want’s to drop the departments of Education, Energy, and …….. You guys would probably agree.

    Why do we have Unions? Big business took advantage of their workers and kept them poor. With the advance of unions the blue collar worker was able to become part of the “Middle Class”. One of you mentioned that in your business that you didn’t have a union but you paid them well enough. I bet you would have paid less if the Union workers were paid less.

    The big lye here is that Gov. Walker got his way that there is no give an take between State workers and their superiors. That the “Boss”, whatever that position is can dictate whatever working conditions they choose and there is no recourse. That could mean more students in a class and disreguard recommended class size, fewer police officers or fire fighters, fewer aids at nursing homes, closing of schools(this is always a good idea until that school is yours), cutback on garbage collection, etc.

    The problem with you “Jug Heads” is that money is more important than Education. Did you ever bother to thank the person who taught you how to read and write so you can put this trivia in this blog. If you had a business some one must have taught you some math or else you had someone do it for you, or you went broke. Did you ever thank that person for giving you this education.

  13. By the way, the report of the police officers doing wrong and not having to pay for it is just another symptom of why the people in this country are getting sick of your kind. They know that you and yours have taken over all the agencies in government including the police departments and have made them social welfare agencies. It’s no wonder that these bad cops are given chance after chance, after all, that’s your theme isn’t it? You don’t have to be responsible for your behavior any more.

      1. Yeah, like H. Cain (if he is indeed guilty as charged) and Newt, who doesn’t seem to be trying to hide anything. Newt did shirk his responsibility to his wife just the way Bill Clinton did with Monica and how many others? If you want to get down in the dirt we can bring up Barney Frank’s little whorehouse and other instances of Dems dirt also.
        I’m trying to point out what the liberal penchant for shirking of personal responsibility has done to this country. If you cannot see that you are just as shortsighted as our host here.

        1. Jim said: “I’m trying to point out what the liberal penchant for shirking of personal responsibility has done to this country.”

          So, what you’re saying is that it’s the liberal’s fault for imbuing those values on Cain and Gingrich?

          I think I’m beginning to figure out how you people think.

          Thanks for proving my point for me. And you call me the shortsighted one.

          1. See? It’s affecting everyone. Why should Cain and Gingrich try to be any different than the liberals they hang around with? The liberals have imbued that lack of values on society as a whole. It seems to work as long as we don’t hold men and women to standards. But then, you wouldn’t know anything about standards, now would you?

            1. The circular reasoning you just demonstrated is so wonderfully bizarre, that it’s going to take me at least three more drinks to catch up to it.

              Are you really, honest to goodness, saying that immorality is a liberal trait and that goodness only comes from conservatives?

              Dude, you are blowing my mind.

  14. Phil Scarr did you review that data of mine are you stating that was all made up of local news papers? Or are you saying the data was wrong. Finally as author of this article will you admit that you forgot to say that the Supior schools extended teacher contracts either out of pure stupidity and a lack of elementary journalism or you did it on purpose which shows how shallow and partasin your journalism is.

    1. I certainly do not agree that what you posted was accurate since you provided no links to any of it. The few pieces I did attempt to research often dead-ended at a post from the macgyver institute which automatically indicates, to me, that it is spinning so fast as to be useless.

      Additionally, I’m working on a piece that will show that the “tools” may have saved some money for some counties (but not for others) the changes to the health plans for the employees make it an apples to oranges comparison. So the changes did not come without a human cost of fewer people insured with less coverage at a higher personal cost. Not a “win” in my book.

      But by all means, get a blog and document your assertions yourself using whatever “elementary journalism” ideas you like. Provide links and data and all the necessary information to support your assertions.

  15. Phil give me a school district that took the tools Scott Walker gave them. Didn’t extend the teachers contracts and asked the teachers to make modest contributions to healthcare and pensions. Which of those school districts had teacher layoffs, tax increases or major cuts in their education. I want sources to btw if you can’t except the mi because it isn’t fair then you can’t use the journal sentinal.

    1. Mike, I did not see a quote from any employees in your cited articles. Also a recurring theme seemed to be higher deductibles and co-pays. Add on top of that the increase in employee share of premiums and fewer employees to cover, what a surprise the total cost went down.

  16. Look Bill I know its so ynfair and unresonable to ask public employees to contribute 12.5 percent to their healthcare premiums and 5.8 percent to their OWN pensions OMG right!!! Like soo unfair. Give me a break Bill welcome to reality we ALL have had to make sacrifices in these times its only fair that they do too!!!

  17. Look Bill I know its so ynfair and unresonable to ask public employees to contribute 12.5 percent to their healthcare premiums and 5.8 percent to their OWN pensions OMG right!!! Like soo unfair. Give me a break Bill welcome to reality we ALL have had to make sacrifices in these times its only fair that they do too!!! NowI don’t know about you but I would take that over getting a pink slip. But hey you know what is the great part about all of this if they don’t like it then they can leave.

    1. “…if they don’t like it then they can leave.”

      And get one of those 250,000 jobs that the governor is creating…such a deal…and then all the whiners who think that govt employees are the ‘haves’ can happily fill the new vacancies.

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