Blogging Blue

Wisconsin State Senator Mary Lazich is obviously not among my favorite legislators. Putting aside her outrageous belief that Wal-Mart should run our health care system, I also take issue with the conduct of her staff, including the propensity at least one of her staffers has for abusing his vacation leave.

Given my own problems with Senator Lazich and her leadership style, it should come as no surprise that she was the only State Senator who voted against approving the contracts of every state employee bargaining unit. In justifying her vote against the contracts on her blog, Senator Lazich cited the lagging state economy, as well as pay increases she deemed to be too generous, but a quick look at the numbers says a different story. According to this article, as well as my own personal knowledge of at least one of the contracts Lazich voted against, employees made concessions in order to get the contracts approved:

Under the contracts Doyle signed Monday, state employee contributions to health insurance will increase 15 percent starting in January.

A previously scheduled 2 percent pay increase in July is being cut to just 1 percent.

A 1 percent raise scheduled to take effect in April 2009 also is being eliminated. Instead, workers will get a 2 percent raise in June 2009.

While I don’t have intimate knowledge of the language in each of the contracts, I do know the employees covered under the Professional Social Services contract will receive raises of 2%, 1%, and 2% in each of the three years of the contract, for a total pay increase of 5%. Additionally, those same employees will pay more for their health insurance coverage. Interestingly enough, while Senator Lazich seems to have a problem giving state employees a 5% raise over three years, I’ve yet to hear her complain that she doesn’t deserve the 6.3% raise she’s getting next year.

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$36.3 million dollars.

That’s the amount the state Department of Corrections
paid out in overtime costs between mid-2005 and mid-2006, a jump of 27 percent. Rising numbers of inmates in the state prison system, coupled with staff shortages in state institutions, are largely to blame for the overtime costs, and since the situation came to light, lawmakers have approved hiring 50 officers, a move expected to cut overtime costs to $26.3 million this fiscal year. Already some state lawmakers have begun raising questions about the overtime costs, with Rep. Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) stating, “The answers they gave us didn’t seem to quite add up,” he said. “We feel there’s something else going on, but we haven’t been able to pinpoint it. It seems there’s something not quite right. Perhaps they need an audit.”

Rep. Suder can call for an audit until he’s blue in the face, but ultimately these overtime costs are the direct result of a concerted effort on the part of the Department of Corrections not to fill vacant positions in order to eliminate enough positions to satisfy the Governor’s annual request that state agencies tighten their collective belts. Sure, the DOC tries hard to cut administrative positions, but they’re not above eliminating vacant corrections office and probation and parole agent positions, which gives us the situation the DOC’s currently in. What folks don’t seem to realize is that cutting positions - and thus creating a situation where massive amounts of overtime are needed - only leads to huge overtime bills. If vacant positions were filled, there’s no doubt in my mind costs would certainly decrease, so what’s needed isn’t an audit, but rather an increased effort to fill all vacant positions so that overtime costs can be kept to a minimum.

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That’s something I’ve been wondering about, in light of a recent editorial in the Fond du Lac Reporter by Paul W. Sylvester, president of the Concerned Citizens of Fond du Lac County. In his editorial, Sylvester seems to argue Wisconsin’s public employees are overcompensated - by way of the benefits they receive - especially in comparison to the benefits received by workers in the private sector. Sylvester notes, “state-local government employees in Wisconsin received an average of $12,171 in fringe benefits in 2005, exceeding benefits for private sector workers by more than 50 percent,” but what he doesn’t take into consideration the pay that state and local government employees receive - pay which often fails to keep pace with the private sector. In response to Paul Sylvester’s editorial, Marty Beil, the executive director of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, AFSCME Council 24, wrote an editorial of his own.

As the recent hostage situation at Waupun Correctional Institution demonstrates, the public employees who staff our correctional facilities face dangers in their workplace that most of us wouldn’t want to confront for any amount of money.

But Paul Sylvester’s Nov. 15 commentary isn’t concerned about the modest pay, short staffing and dangerous workplaces correctional employees face. He’s concerned only about parroting one-sided statistics peddled by the corporate-directed Wisconsin Taxpayer’s Alliance, whose wealthy board members have a vested interest in maintaining the loopholes and special breaks they enjoy under Wisconsin’s skewed tax system.

In trumpeting the Alliance’s attack on public employee benefits, he leaves out an important part of the story. Looking at benefits in isolation doesn’t present anything close to an accurate picture. Like all working people, public employees are compensated by a mixture of salary and benefits.

For decades, most public employees have given up the potential for higher wages in exchange for maintaining health care that protects their families and retirement benefits that allow them to retire with the dignity they deserve.

Good people have been attracted to public service and have been willing to accept lower pay than they could have made in the private sector in exchange for a degree of stability.

Beil goes on to note the negative impact skyrocketing health care costs have had on the cost of benefits to state and local government workers, noting:

As one who has negotiated many contracts, I can tell you that the cost of supporting the health insurance bureaucracy is rapidly outpacing all other factors at the bargaining table. Public employees have been taking smaller and smaller cost-of-living increases (typically less than inflation) to offset the raging costs of health insurance.

It seems like anybody truly interested in saving money for taxpayers would be spending a lot of time and energy on pushing for a solution to the health care crisis.

Instead of blaming working people for simply trying to maintain decent coverage for their families, truly concerned citizens groups would be asking why Americans spend more money for health care than anybody else in the world.

Why do Americans pay far more but get statistically poorer outcomes than other industrial nations? Why do we pay more while leaving more than 47 million Americans with no coverage? Why are we willing to watch 30 cents of every health care dollar get gobbled up by a duplicative and inefficient health insurance bureaucracy?

The answer to those questions isn’t really that hard to find; one only needs look at our nation’s health insurance companies and their all-powerful lobbyists and trade groups to figure out why our health care system is as dysfunctional as it is. Too often, our elected officials are unwilling to confront the behemoths of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies that are profiting mightily from the current health care system. Instead, some would rather spew talking points about how health care reform will result in “socialized health care.” Ultimately, the answer to skyrocketing health insurance costs isn’t to try to take coverage away from those who still have it - the answer is to commit ourselves to finding ways to make health care more affordable and accessible for every American citizen.

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A few days ago, I wrote a little about the anti-tax rally held in Madison by the conservative fringe group Americans For Prosperity, as well as the counter-rally held by members of AFSCME, Wisconsin’s largest government employees union. I noted then that the number of AFSCME members was almost double the number of folks attending the AFP rally, even despite the AFP’s efforts at busing folks in for the rally.

Shortly after the rally ended, conservative bloggers were quick to denounce the members of AFSCME for their boorish, disruptive, and thuggish behavior, despite my having heard no reports of any arrests or citations for any illegal behavior on the part of the folks from AFSCME. Folks on the conservative end of the spectrum, including Fred Dooley from “Real Debate” Wisconsin, were also quick to assert AFSCME’s interest in organizing a counter-rally had little to do with their members expressing support for getting a budget done, but instead was nothing more than, “getting more money for their members.”

What I found most interesting wasn’t necessarily Fred’s post itself, which is pretty standard anti-union garbage that most conservatives love to spout, but rather his comments section. Mixed in among his comments were a few choice comments by Cathy Stepp, a former State Senator who was mired in ethical issues as the result of her authoring legislation that would benefit her special interest benefactors, since she was firmly in the pocket of special interests in the building, construction and real estate industry who contributed more than $80,000 to her election campaign. Stepp is also notable for her attempts to sell out her constituents during the last round of budget negotiations, when she supported a Republican-proposed budget that would have cut state aid to Racine-area school districts. In her comments, Stepp uses some pretty fuzzy math (to put it mildly) to assert state employees somehow aren’t regular taxpayers like John and Jane Q. Public. Stepp said:

The 42% of us in the private sector (aka “Real World”) pay the salaries of the 58% in government jobs.

Now obviously I was more than a little taken aback at Stepp’s assertion that government employees don’t pay taxes, because it defies logic that someone who spent four years in the Wisconsin State Senate can’t seem to master the most basic principles of mathematics. After all, Cathy Stepp seems to think 42% of folks in Wisconsin who are in the “real world” pay the salaries of the 58% in government jobs, which is curious, because as one of the aforementioned 58% who are government employees, I get taxes - both state and federal - taken out of each and every one of my checks. This is a talking point I’ve seen at more than one conservative blog - the assertion that the salaries of lazy, no-good state employees are being paid by hardworking folks in the private sector - as if state employees don’t pay taxes too. Conservatives are quick to demonize state employees as leeches off taxpayers, but the simple concept that they fail to grasp is that state employees pay taxes too, so in essence, state employees help pay their own wages.

It’s exactly this kind of dishonesty that’s going help the Republican Party lose even more seats in the Senate and the Assembly in 2008, which promises to be a very bleak year for conservatives in the State of Wisconsin.

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So today was the day that the rabidly anti-tax folks at Americans for Prosperity held a rally against hiking Wisconsin’s taxes even higher. What’s most interesting about the rally (at least to me) is the fact that the number of anti-tax folks who were in attendance was far smaller than the number of folks that were in attendance to support the budget proposed by Governor Doyle.

According to the MJS,

Americans for Prosperity drew hundreds of people outside the Capitol to say lawmakers should not raise taxes. They were surrounded by a larger group, made up primarily of state union workers, calling for a budget that includes new taxes on cigarettes, hospitals and oil companies.

Among the anti-tax folks rallying was Boots and Sabers’ own Owen Robinson, who said, “I’m a Wisconsin taxpayer and I can’t afford for my taxes to be any higher.” Robinson, you might recall, is proud of the fact that he got 11 members of the Republican-controlled Assembly to sign a pledge against raising any taxes, and at today’s rally he thanked them for sticking by their word in budget talks so far. What’s really curious is how proud Owen seems to be that lawmakers are perfectly content sticking it to autistic children as they blatantly pander to their wingnut base. I wonder….does Ole’ Owen really think that autistic children don’t deserve the treatment which in many cases could help them be productive, well adjusted members of society?

What was really encouraging about the accounts I’ve read of the rally is how folks really turned out to show their dissatisfaction with the fact that some of our lawmakers just don’t seem to care about getting a budget done. It’s certainly telling that the folks who want a budget and support Governor Doyle’s proposed budget outnumbered the people who are perfectly content with no budget - and the inevitable belt tightening that would accompany no budget. I know some on the right love to label those who support the Governor’s budget as nothing more than “pro-tax-increase folks” (Boots and Sabers) and “teat-sucking squealers” (No Runny Eggs).

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m a state employee, and I’d like to not that contrary to the all-too familiar conservative stereotype, most state employees are not lazy and useless. At this moment, I’m sure bunches of wingnuts are railing at this very moment against state employees on their blogs, and while those folks write their entries about how we favor “tax hikes” as if we don’t pay taxes, they need to start using a little bit of logic. I pay taxes just like conservative folks pay taxes, and while I don’t necessarily enjoy paying taxes, I take some pride in knowing that my tax dollars are being spent to provide high quality services to the people of this state - and that’s not something that can be said in many parts of the country. I can’t help but wonder - are these folks who rail against the size of state government and the quality of state employees willing to do their part? Are they willing to man our prisons, supervise offenders in the community, plow our streets, pick up our trash, and fight fires? I’m willing to bet they’re not.

Pundit Nation has more on the rally here.

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