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.
Ed judging on the schools that have hundreds of people apply for one job I think they would be happy. Back to Phil though did you take your own advice and “stfu” com’on man I’m waiting for that school that us suffering sooo much?? What cat got your tongue;)
“…Ed judging on the schools that have hundreds of people apply for one job I think they would be happy.”
At this point every job has far more applicants than usual…Costco opened a local store recently and had 4,000 applicants for a less than 200 jobs…not a sign of the value of the job…a sign of how few jobs are available.
And so Ed we reach the point of asking ourselves whos at fault for that. Is it President Obama, wallstreet, unions, Scott Walker maybe because of economic uncertianty and failed gov’t plans to try and fix the job market by our last few presidents? Thats the million dollar question.
Mike,
But what’s the million dollar answer? Tax cuts? Wake the fuck up, man.