Original Post: Newstalk 1130
(FLORIDA) NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.
Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA’s Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Wisconsin’s New Jobs Account for More than Half of Nation’s Net Gain for June
Original Post: Macinver Institute
Madison, Wisc…] Earlier this month, analysts were dismayed by the nation’s anemic job creation numbers. On Thursday, state officials were pleased as they released data that showed more than half of the net new jobs added in the US in June came from Wisconsin.
“We have made difficult decisions in our state, but they are beginning to payoff,” said Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R). “The national job figures remind us that we can not rest after one month of good news; while there will be ups and downs along the way, we must help lead the nation to recovery.”
Using seasonally adjusted data, the 12,900 private-sector jobs created in June marks the largest one-month gain in Wisconsin since September 2003. The state’s net new job gain for June is 9,500 jobs, more than half of the nation’s net gain of 18,000 jobs for the same month.
Many in the past had given up looking for a job which removed them from the unemployment rolls – now they are back to looking for jobs. In June there were 118,800 total entrants to the labor force, up 15,100 from May. That boosted the overall unemployment rate .2 percent to 7.6. Wisconsin’s unemployment rate remains below the national rate of 9.2%.
“Wisconsin has added 39,300 private-sector jobs since Governor Walker declared Wisconsin open for business,” Department of Workforce Development Secretary Scott Baumbach said. “Jobseekers and employers alike are reaping the economic benefits of the business-friendly environment that Governor Walker is advancing, and we encourage jobseekers to keep pursuing these new employment opportunities.”
State officials note that in the first six months of 2011, Wisconsin’s total private sector job growth of 1.7% has been almost twice the national rate of 0.9%; and in the manufacturing sector job growth has been more than twice the national rate, 3.2% compared to 1.2%.
Wisconsin total nonfarm job growth (1.4%) has been more that twice the national rate (0.6%).
Governor Walker has made job creation a focus of his platform, vowing to help Wisconsin’s private sector create a quarter of million new jobs by the end of his term. Administration officials were quick to tout the new numbers Thursday, with Walker holding a noon press conference in Milwaukee and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch and Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Paul Jadin holding another in Green Bay two hours later.
Since January, Wisconsin has added 39,300 new jobs, with 14,100 of those in the ever-important manufacturing sector. Eight hundred new manufacturing jobs were created in the state in June.
Compared to a year ago, private sector jobs increased by 42,400 (seasonally adjusted).
Madison, Wisc…] Earlier this month, analysts were dismayed by the nation’s anemic job creation numbers. On Thursday, state officials were pleased as they released data that showed more than half of the net new jobs added in the US in June came from Wisconsin.
“We have made difficult decisions in our state, but they are beginning to payoff,” said Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R). “The national job figures remind us that we can not rest after one month of good news; while there will be ups and downs along the way, we must help lead the nation to recovery.”
Using seasonally adjusted data, the 12,900 private-sector jobs created in June marks the largest one-month gain in Wisconsin since September 2003. The state’s net new job gain for June is 9,500 jobs, more than half of the nation’s net gain of 18,000 jobs for the same month.
Many in the past had given up looking for a job which removed them from the unemployment rolls – now they are back to looking for jobs. In June there were 118,800 total entrants to the labor force, up 15,100 from May. That boosted the overall unemployment rate .2 percent to 7.6. Wisconsin’s unemployment rate remains below the national rate of 9.2%.
“Wisconsin has added 39,300 private-sector jobs since Governor Walker declared Wisconsin open for business,” Department of Workforce Development Secretary Scott Baumbach said. “Jobseekers and employers alike are reaping the economic benefits of the business-friendly environment that Governor Walker is advancing, and we encourage jobseekers to keep pursuing these new employment opportunities.”
State officials note that in the first six months of 2011, Wisconsin’s total private sector job growth of 1.7% has been almost twice the national rate of 0.9%; and in the manufacturing sector job growth has been more than twice the national rate, 3.2% compared to 1.2%.
Wisconsin total nonfarm job growth (1.4%) has been more that twice the national rate (0.6%).
Governor Walker has made job creation a focus of his platform, vowing to help Wisconsin’s private sector create a quarter of million new jobs by the end of his term. Administration officials were quick to tout the new numbers Thursday, with Walker holding a noon press conference in Milwaukee and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch and Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Paul Jadin holding another in Green Bay two hours later.
Since January, Wisconsin has added 39,300 new jobs, with 14,100 of those in the ever-important manufacturing sector. Eight hundred new manufacturing jobs were created in the state in June.
Compared to a year ago, private sector jobs increased by 42,400 (seasonally adjusted).
Monday, July 18, 2011
Obama lies about his mother's death to forward health care agenda
Fresh doubt cast on Obama's health care story
Original Post: Washington Examiner
By: Byron York
Then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) addresses a rally in the gymnasium of Concord High School January 4, 2008 in Concord before the 2008 New Hampshire primary, where the Democratic presidential hopeful made this remark examined by Examiner columnist Byron York: "She was in her hospital room looking at insurance forms because the insurance company said that maybe she had a pre-existing condition and maybe they wouldn't have to reimburse her for her medical bills."
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama often discussed his mother's struggle with cancer. Ann Dunham spent the months before her death in 1995, Obama said, fighting with insurance companies that sought to deny her the coverage she needed to pay for treatment.
"I remember in the last month of her life, she wasn't thinking about how to get well, she wasn't thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality, she was thinking about whether or not insurance was going to cover the medical bills and whether our family would be bankrupt as a consequence," Obama said in September 2007.
"She was in her hospital room looking at insurance forms because the insurance company said that maybe she had a pre-existing condition and maybe they wouldn't have to reimburse her for her medical bills," Obama added in January 2008.
"The insurance companies were saying, 'Maybe there's a pre-existing condition and we don't have to pay your medical bills,' " Obama said in a debate with Republican opponent Sen. John McCain in October 2008.
It was a simple and powerful story, one Obama would tell many more times as president during the national health care debate. But now we're learning the real story of Ann Dunham's health coverage is not quite what her son made it out to be.
The news is in "A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother," a generally admiring new biography written by former New York Times reporter Janny Scott. According to the book, Ann Dunham, an anthropologist who spent most of her working life in Indonesia, moved from Jakarta to New York in 1992 to work for a nonprofit called Women's World Banking, which encouraged micro-lending in Third World countries. Unhappy in New York, in 1994 Dunham took a job with an American company called Development Alternatives, which had a contract with the Indonesian State Ministry for the Role of Women. Dunham returned to Jakarta to work, and Scott reports the job provided Dunham with health insurance, a housing allowance, and a car.
At the time she took the job, Dunham was increasingly worried about her health; she was suffering from intense abdominal pains. In November 1994, Dunham went to an Indonesian doctor who diagnosed appendicitis. As Dunham debated whether to leave the country for surgery, she called her boss at Development Alternatives. "You've got health insurance, that's taken care of," the boss told her. "We can cover the airfare."
Dunham decided to stay in Jakarta, where she underwent an appendectomy. But the pain did not go away, and Dunham feared, correctly, that she was terribly ill. In January 1995 she left Indonesia to go home to Honolulu, where she was diagnosed with advanced uterine and ovarian cancer. She began a regime of surgery and chemotherapy.
That is the time during which Obama says his mother battled insurance companies to cover her illness. But Scott, who had access to Dunham's correspondence from the time, reveals that Dunham unquestionably had health coverage. "Ann's compensation for her job in Jakarta had included health insurance, which covered most of the costs of her medical treatment," Scott writes. "Once she was back in Hawaii, the hospital billed her insurance company directly, leaving Ann to pay only the deductible and any uncovered expenses, which, she said, came to several hundred dollars a month."
Scott writes that Dunham, who wanted to be compensated for those costs as well as for her living expenses, "filed a separate claim under her employer's disability insurance policy." It was that claim, with the insurance company CIGNA, that was denied in August 1995 because, CIGNA investigators said, Dunham's condition was known before she was covered by the policy.
Dunham protested the decision and, Scott writes, "informed CIGNA that she was turning over the case to 'my son and attorney, Barack Obama.' " CIGNA did not budge.Since he was acting as her attorney, you'd think he had an idea of what was going on in the case and it's details. If he's such a poor laywer that he fucked up his own mother's case, maybe he's not such a good choice for president. Just saying.
In September 1995, Dunham traveled to New York for an evaluation at the renowned Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Returning to Hawaii, she began a new course of treatment. She died in November.
A dozen years later, her son turned her ordeal into a campaign pitch for national health care. But the story Obama told, Scott writes, was "abbreviated" -- the abbreviation was to leave out the fact that Ann Dunham had health insurance that paid for her treatment. "Though he often suggested that she was denied health coverage because of a pre-existing condition," Scott writes, "it appears from her correspondence that she was only denied disability coverage."
That's a different story altogether. One the president never told.
Original Post: Washington Examiner
By: Byron York
Then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) addresses a rally in the gymnasium of Concord High School January 4, 2008 in Concord before the 2008 New Hampshire primary, where the Democratic presidential hopeful made this remark examined by Examiner columnist Byron York: "She was in her hospital room looking at insurance forms because the insurance company said that maybe she had a pre-existing condition and maybe they wouldn't have to reimburse her for her medical bills."
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama often discussed his mother's struggle with cancer. Ann Dunham spent the months before her death in 1995, Obama said, fighting with insurance companies that sought to deny her the coverage she needed to pay for treatment.
"I remember in the last month of her life, she wasn't thinking about how to get well, she wasn't thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality, she was thinking about whether or not insurance was going to cover the medical bills and whether our family would be bankrupt as a consequence," Obama said in September 2007.
"She was in her hospital room looking at insurance forms because the insurance company said that maybe she had a pre-existing condition and maybe they wouldn't have to reimburse her for her medical bills," Obama added in January 2008.
"The insurance companies were saying, 'Maybe there's a pre-existing condition and we don't have to pay your medical bills,' " Obama said in a debate with Republican opponent Sen. John McCain in October 2008.
It was a simple and powerful story, one Obama would tell many more times as president during the national health care debate. But now we're learning the real story of Ann Dunham's health coverage is not quite what her son made it out to be.
The news is in "A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother," a generally admiring new biography written by former New York Times reporter Janny Scott. According to the book, Ann Dunham, an anthropologist who spent most of her working life in Indonesia, moved from Jakarta to New York in 1992 to work for a nonprofit called Women's World Banking, which encouraged micro-lending in Third World countries. Unhappy in New York, in 1994 Dunham took a job with an American company called Development Alternatives, which had a contract with the Indonesian State Ministry for the Role of Women. Dunham returned to Jakarta to work, and Scott reports the job provided Dunham with health insurance, a housing allowance, and a car.
At the time she took the job, Dunham was increasingly worried about her health; she was suffering from intense abdominal pains. In November 1994, Dunham went to an Indonesian doctor who diagnosed appendicitis. As Dunham debated whether to leave the country for surgery, she called her boss at Development Alternatives. "You've got health insurance, that's taken care of," the boss told her. "We can cover the airfare."
Dunham decided to stay in Jakarta, where she underwent an appendectomy. But the pain did not go away, and Dunham feared, correctly, that she was terribly ill. In January 1995 she left Indonesia to go home to Honolulu, where she was diagnosed with advanced uterine and ovarian cancer. She began a regime of surgery and chemotherapy.
That is the time during which Obama says his mother battled insurance companies to cover her illness. But Scott, who had access to Dunham's correspondence from the time, reveals that Dunham unquestionably had health coverage. "Ann's compensation for her job in Jakarta had included health insurance, which covered most of the costs of her medical treatment," Scott writes. "Once she was back in Hawaii, the hospital billed her insurance company directly, leaving Ann to pay only the deductible and any uncovered expenses, which, she said, came to several hundred dollars a month."
Scott writes that Dunham, who wanted to be compensated for those costs as well as for her living expenses, "filed a separate claim under her employer's disability insurance policy." It was that claim, with the insurance company CIGNA, that was denied in August 1995 because, CIGNA investigators said, Dunham's condition was known before she was covered by the policy.
Dunham protested the decision and, Scott writes, "informed CIGNA that she was turning over the case to 'my son and attorney, Barack Obama.' " CIGNA did not budge.Since he was acting as her attorney, you'd think he had an idea of what was going on in the case and it's details. If he's such a poor laywer that he fucked up his own mother's case, maybe he's not such a good choice for president. Just saying.
In September 1995, Dunham traveled to New York for an evaluation at the renowned Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Returning to Hawaii, she began a new course of treatment. She died in November.
A dozen years later, her son turned her ordeal into a campaign pitch for national health care. But the story Obama told, Scott writes, was "abbreviated" -- the abbreviation was to leave out the fact that Ann Dunham had health insurance that paid for her treatment. "Though he often suggested that she was denied health coverage because of a pre-existing condition," Scott writes, "it appears from her correspondence that she was only denied disability coverage."
That's a different story altogether. One the president never told.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Wisconsin Schools Already In Line to Save $155 Million Through New Contracts
Original Post: McIver Institute
Requiring Teachers to Make Modest Contributions to Health and Pension Benefits Can Cut Cost of Education by $500 Per Student in Wisconsin, Saving School Districts Hundreds of Millions of Dollars.
By Christian D’Andrea
MacIver Institute Education Policy Analyst
With Act 10 passed, the landscape of teacher and staff contracts in Wisconsin’s public schools has been significantly altered. As soon as it was proposed, the landscape already began to change. With the state facing a $3 billion dollar deficit, many districts turned to the tools provided by the budget adjustment bill to stay afloat. This included two major components: teacher contributions to retirement funds and their health insurance.
In short, teachers and full-time educational staff members were forced to pay portions of their benefit packages. This meant a 5.8 percent salary payment towards teacher pensions (which was matched by the state) and a 12.6 percent payment for health coverage. Many districts also turned to other tools, including wage freezes, switching to higher-deductible health plans, and adjustments in lane change salary bumps to help tighten finances in local schools.
Though the plan is still in its infancy, many districts have already undergone contract extensions that include these considerations. The results have led to a projected $163 million in savings that have helped to offset less revenue from the state and keep Wisconsin’s schools up and running. One shining example we’ve seen so far happened in the Kaukauna School District.
Kaukauna’s changes – which included concessions from employees to pay the full 12.6 percent of their health insurance and 5.8 percent of their pension contributions – helped turn a projected $400,000 deficit into a potential $1.5 million surplus. As a result, the small town’s gains have been some of the plan’s most publicized outcomes. These changes led to the cancellation of proposed layoffs and ensured that schools in the town could operate normally despite large budget cuts. In this case, teachers were able to save their own jobs – and stay in business for students – by giving back.
However, Kaukauna isn’t the only Wisconsin district that has rolled up its sleeves to save jobs. Teachers and staff members at both local districts and technical colleges statewide have adhered to Act 10’s provisions and retained savings that will mean more jobs for teachers and more support in the classroom.
Sample Group of Districts With Updated Contracts – July 2011
District Health Contribution Pension Contribution Projected Savings
Green Bay 12.60% 5.80% $11,000,000
Ripon 12% 5.80% $600,000
Eau Claire 12.60% 5.80% $3,500,000
Columbus 12.60% 5.80% $375,000
Madison
up to 5% in 2011-12,
up to 10% in 2012-13
Madison 5.80% $15,500,000
Racine Switch to high-deductible plan 5.80% $19,200,000
Sheboygan 12.60% 5.80% $6,600,000
Wausau 15% 5.80% $3,354,900
Kaukauna 12.60% 5.80% $1,900,000
The chart above shows just a few of the school districts reported as having passed new contracts in 2011. By our latest estimates, 110 school districts and technical colleges have approved or are waiting to approve contracts that include the cost saving measures of Act 10 under effect. Several more are still in progress. The districts included range from some of the state’s largest cities to some of its smallest towns. This will create a projected savings of over $163 million based on current reports – and that includes less than 25 percent of all the state’s educational entities.
Our analysis is a conservative estimate based largely on contract settlements that were agreed upon while Act 10 was being debated, and before the Supreme Court upheld its enactment. Ninety four public school districts in Wisconsin will save a projected $155 million. However, 19 of these districts don’t yet have official projections tied to the savings from these new contracts, which suggests that the overall fiscal benefit will be much higher.
Still, we come to an average savings of $2.1 million per reported district. According to 2011 head counts from the Department of Public Instruction, these changes will affect 312,567 students in Wisconsin – saving districts an average of $497.81 per student.
# of Reported # of Students Projected Savings Savings per Districts Affected So far Student
75 312,567 $155,600,179 $497.81
A preliminary estimate based on an analysis of local reports conducted by the MacIver Institute suggests that, if adopted uniformly by every district in Wisconsin, local schools would stand to save $434,232,693.66 through new staff contracts that required the additional contributions to health and retirement benefits.
This is likely a conservative estimate, as many districts have yet to report updated fiscal estimates from reported contracts, and Legislative Fiscal Bureau figures include only measures taken by increasing teacher contributions to pension and health care plans.
Many districts, such as Edgerton, Clinton, and Green Lake are having their teachers contribute less than the stipulated 12.6 percent of their health care costs. Despite smaller cuts, these schools have been able to produce significant savings that will keep their schools intact – a fiscal benefit of over $2.4 million between the towns. These school boards were able to supplement their savings through switching their health care provider, a process made easier by the increased control that local districts have with collective bargaining scrapped for public employees.
Health care has been a significant source of savings for districts across Wisconsin. We’ll cover this more in-depth as our series of reports rolls on.
In most districts the changes have been enough to save jobs and keep schools running smoothly. However, administrators in cities like La Crosse suggest that while savings are inherent from the concessions, they aren’t enough to meet their projected deficits in the coming years. La Crosse District Finance Manager Janet Rossiter suggests that the estimated savings of the budget plan won’t be enough to cover the losses from the cuts.
La Crosse’s estimates vary from the state’s. This is partially due to the fact that many teachers in the district already pay 10 percent of their health insurance. Other districts, like Holmen and Cashton, are finding similar discrepancies when it comes to savings. While it’s clear that every school board in Wisconsin stands to create savings thanks to the tools of Act 10, some districts face different challenges to meet their original projections thanks to cost saving measures that had been implemented before 2010-11. Alternative methods to meet budget restraints, such as reducing some post-retirement benefits, eliminating step increase raises for staff members, may be pressed into action in these districts.
Still, the program stands to create a net benefit in the midst of tough budgeting. In all, local school districts stand to save over $155 million dollars through these restructured contracts – and that group represents less than 18 percent of all the districts in Wisconsin. These school boards have pulled together to maintain the quality of their schools despite significant budget cuts. Many more will follow as well.
Requiring Teachers to Make Modest Contributions to Health and Pension Benefits Can Cut Cost of Education by $500 Per Student in Wisconsin, Saving School Districts Hundreds of Millions of Dollars.
By Christian D’Andrea
MacIver Institute Education Policy Analyst
With Act 10 passed, the landscape of teacher and staff contracts in Wisconsin’s public schools has been significantly altered. As soon as it was proposed, the landscape already began to change. With the state facing a $3 billion dollar deficit, many districts turned to the tools provided by the budget adjustment bill to stay afloat. This included two major components: teacher contributions to retirement funds and their health insurance.
In short, teachers and full-time educational staff members were forced to pay portions of their benefit packages. This meant a 5.8 percent salary payment towards teacher pensions (which was matched by the state) and a 12.6 percent payment for health coverage. Many districts also turned to other tools, including wage freezes, switching to higher-deductible health plans, and adjustments in lane change salary bumps to help tighten finances in local schools.
Though the plan is still in its infancy, many districts have already undergone contract extensions that include these considerations. The results have led to a projected $163 million in savings that have helped to offset less revenue from the state and keep Wisconsin’s schools up and running. One shining example we’ve seen so far happened in the Kaukauna School District.
Kaukauna’s changes – which included concessions from employees to pay the full 12.6 percent of their health insurance and 5.8 percent of their pension contributions – helped turn a projected $400,000 deficit into a potential $1.5 million surplus. As a result, the small town’s gains have been some of the plan’s most publicized outcomes. These changes led to the cancellation of proposed layoffs and ensured that schools in the town could operate normally despite large budget cuts. In this case, teachers were able to save their own jobs – and stay in business for students – by giving back.
However, Kaukauna isn’t the only Wisconsin district that has rolled up its sleeves to save jobs. Teachers and staff members at both local districts and technical colleges statewide have adhered to Act 10’s provisions and retained savings that will mean more jobs for teachers and more support in the classroom.
Sample Group of Districts With Updated Contracts – July 2011
District Health Contribution Pension Contribution Projected Savings
Green Bay 12.60% 5.80% $11,000,000
Ripon 12% 5.80% $600,000
Eau Claire 12.60% 5.80% $3,500,000
Columbus 12.60% 5.80% $375,000
Madison
up to 5% in 2011-12,
up to 10% in 2012-13
Madison 5.80% $15,500,000
Racine Switch to high-deductible plan 5.80% $19,200,000
Sheboygan 12.60% 5.80% $6,600,000
Wausau 15% 5.80% $3,354,900
Kaukauna 12.60% 5.80% $1,900,000
The chart above shows just a few of the school districts reported as having passed new contracts in 2011. By our latest estimates, 110 school districts and technical colleges have approved or are waiting to approve contracts that include the cost saving measures of Act 10 under effect. Several more are still in progress. The districts included range from some of the state’s largest cities to some of its smallest towns. This will create a projected savings of over $163 million based on current reports – and that includes less than 25 percent of all the state’s educational entities.
Our analysis is a conservative estimate based largely on contract settlements that were agreed upon while Act 10 was being debated, and before the Supreme Court upheld its enactment. Ninety four public school districts in Wisconsin will save a projected $155 million. However, 19 of these districts don’t yet have official projections tied to the savings from these new contracts, which suggests that the overall fiscal benefit will be much higher.
Still, we come to an average savings of $2.1 million per reported district. According to 2011 head counts from the Department of Public Instruction, these changes will affect 312,567 students in Wisconsin – saving districts an average of $497.81 per student.
# of Reported # of Students Projected Savings Savings per Districts Affected So far Student
75 312,567 $155,600,179 $497.81
A preliminary estimate based on an analysis of local reports conducted by the MacIver Institute suggests that, if adopted uniformly by every district in Wisconsin, local schools would stand to save $434,232,693.66 through new staff contracts that required the additional contributions to health and retirement benefits.
This is likely a conservative estimate, as many districts have yet to report updated fiscal estimates from reported contracts, and Legislative Fiscal Bureau figures include only measures taken by increasing teacher contributions to pension and health care plans.
Many districts, such as Edgerton, Clinton, and Green Lake are having their teachers contribute less than the stipulated 12.6 percent of their health care costs. Despite smaller cuts, these schools have been able to produce significant savings that will keep their schools intact – a fiscal benefit of over $2.4 million between the towns. These school boards were able to supplement their savings through switching their health care provider, a process made easier by the increased control that local districts have with collective bargaining scrapped for public employees.
Health care has been a significant source of savings for districts across Wisconsin. We’ll cover this more in-depth as our series of reports rolls on.
In most districts the changes have been enough to save jobs and keep schools running smoothly. However, administrators in cities like La Crosse suggest that while savings are inherent from the concessions, they aren’t enough to meet their projected deficits in the coming years. La Crosse District Finance Manager Janet Rossiter suggests that the estimated savings of the budget plan won’t be enough to cover the losses from the cuts.
La Crosse’s estimates vary from the state’s. This is partially due to the fact that many teachers in the district already pay 10 percent of their health insurance. Other districts, like Holmen and Cashton, are finding similar discrepancies when it comes to savings. While it’s clear that every school board in Wisconsin stands to create savings thanks to the tools of Act 10, some districts face different challenges to meet their original projections thanks to cost saving measures that had been implemented before 2010-11. Alternative methods to meet budget restraints, such as reducing some post-retirement benefits, eliminating step increase raises for staff members, may be pressed into action in these districts.
Still, the program stands to create a net benefit in the midst of tough budgeting. In all, local school districts stand to save over $155 million dollars through these restructured contracts – and that group represents less than 18 percent of all the districts in Wisconsin. These school boards have pulled together to maintain the quality of their schools despite significant budget cuts. Many more will follow as well.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Wisconsin State budget wipes away structural deficit ... and lowers taxes
Original Post: Lakeland Times
Richard Moore
Investigative Reporter
The new biennial budget approved by the Legislature and sent to Gov. Scott Walker last week doesn't raise taxes, doesn't raid segregated funds, and doesn't rely on one-time stimulus dollars but will still wipe away virtually all of the state's structural deficit.
Wisconsin has run multi-billion dollar structural deficits - the difference between expenditures needed to run state government and possible revenues under the tax structure - since the mid-1990s, when the state massively increased spending on Medicaid, schools and corrections.
According to the state Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Wisconsin will even have a little money left in the bank at the end of the two-year budget cycle, about $306 million if revenue estimates hold up.
That's the bottom line of the $66 billion budget. Not that the state won't end up spending more money. It will: State and federal spending will creep upward by $1.1 billion, or 1.8 percent, compared to the final budget under the administration of former Gov. Jim Doyle.
The Walker administration had factored in a 1-percent increase in the budget; another $154 million is due to higher estimated enrollments in Medicaid.
Nonetheless, the increase in spending is far less than the increase under Doyle's last budget, which saw spending jump by 6.2 percent. Doyle and the Legislature eventually raised taxes and fees by more than $2 billion and spent $3.4 billion more in federal stimulus money to cover a $6.6 billion shortfall.
Because of increased revenue projections, the Legislature this year is also repaying $235 million owed to the medical malpractice fund.
Gov. Scott Walker said this week he would make use of his veto-pen by "a fair amount" but he did not specify what provisions of the budget he might veto. His line-item veto makes the Wisconsin governor one of the nation's most powerful.
Savings and tax cuts
Walker and the GOP's bid to balance the budget without raising taxes is not a hat trick. The budget makes significant cuts in spending and borrowing to achieve the goal.
For instance, the Department of Health Services will trim Medicaid by a approximately $466 million over the next two years, while state aid to local school districts will decline by approximately $800 million. Officials say school districts will be able to make up the difference because of new contributions by teachers to pension and health benefit payments.
School districts with contracts in place will be bound by those contracts until they expire, however.
The state will borrow significantly less money than in the past, about $2 billion less overall. Among other things, the budget cuts bonding authority for the state stewardship program from $86 million a year to $60 million.
In addition, the budget imposes a true property tax freeze on school districts and local governments. Counties and municipalities will have to live with current levy amounts for two years - they can raise taxes only by the amount of net new construction, but that has been negligible - and after that can only raise taxes by 1.5 percent or the amount of net new construction, whichever is greater.
The budget does not raise sales or income taxes and actually reduces taxes by $24 million.
On the tax side, the budget would reduce income tax credits by $56 million for lower-income families with two or more children. Republicans say the benefit had become too generous to sustain. The Legislature would also freeze eligible income levels for qualifying for a homestead tax credit.
For businesses, a new capital gains tax deferral for investments in Wisconsin-based companies will cost $36 million over two years, while manufacturers and agricultural firms would gain a tax credit of approximately $129 million a year.
The GOP did not remove combined reporting requirements from the state tax code, but it did liberalize the tax treatment, amounting to a tax reduction of about $46 million over two years. The budget would also establish a sales tax exemption for advertising and promotional direct mail starting in 2013.
.
Nonfiscal policy provisions
While the budget helps to reshape the character of government spending, the character of the budget process itself remained unchanged, loaded with late-night votes, closed caucus meetings and nonfiscal budget items tucked here and there in the bill.
For example, the Wisconsin Credit Union League is asking Walker to veto provisions that would allow direct conversions of member-owned credit unions to shareholder-owned banks.
"The direct-conversion provisions subvert the interests of a credit union's full membership to that of a few who intend to own and profit form a stockholder-owned - and not member-owned - business structure," said Brett Thompson, president and CEO of the league.
Thompson said the provisions would allow for the direct charter conversion of a credit union to stock-bank with little meaningful notice requirements, no protections of members' voting rights and no requirement that any equity in the converted institution be returned to members.
Membership and deposits are increasing at credit unions both in the state and the country, and many say the trend is being driven not only by greater eligibility for credit union membership but by ever-larger banking fees.
However, banking officials counter that credit unions are non-profit and thus can offer more competitive rates and lower fees because they don't have to pay income taxes.
In any event, Thompson said, the provision was slipped into the budget without any consultation of credit unions and without any public debate or input by regulators.
Then too, this week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is calling for Walker to veto a provision preventing brewers, distributors and any retail outlet that sells beer from owning a license to operate in more than one of those business categories. The state craft breweries say that will cripple their ability to expand and grow because they could no longer have a brewer's license and a distribution license.
The provisions were also inserted into the budget without public hearing.
A rare coalition of conservative Republicans such as Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) and Pam Galloway (R-Wausau) and liberal Democrats such as Rep. Brett Hulsey (D-Madison) urged Walker to veto the measure.
"Wisconsin is known for its breweries, and allowing small craft brewers to own their own taverns will highlight their product," Grothman said. "This is the type of provision that should have been dealt with in a separate bill. It was complicated and the thriving craft brew industry did not participate in drafting this provision."
Hulsey said it was the wrong move at the wrong time.
"I am concerned that at this time of economic uncertainty we are sending the wrong message to these small growing businesses," Hulsey said.
Other measures inserted in the budget would weaken notice requirements to tenants living in buildings subject to foreclosure, and would loosen recent requirements on payday lenders.
Finally, the budget allows for limited expansion of the state's school voucher program to certain cities under specific conditions. Second-class cities (those between 39,000 and 149,999 population) that have 50 percent or more of their students eligible for free or reduced lunch could qualify for vouchers.
Richard Moore
Investigative Reporter
The new biennial budget approved by the Legislature and sent to Gov. Scott Walker last week doesn't raise taxes, doesn't raid segregated funds, and doesn't rely on one-time stimulus dollars but will still wipe away virtually all of the state's structural deficit.
Wisconsin has run multi-billion dollar structural deficits - the difference between expenditures needed to run state government and possible revenues under the tax structure - since the mid-1990s, when the state massively increased spending on Medicaid, schools and corrections.
According to the state Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Wisconsin will even have a little money left in the bank at the end of the two-year budget cycle, about $306 million if revenue estimates hold up.
That's the bottom line of the $66 billion budget. Not that the state won't end up spending more money. It will: State and federal spending will creep upward by $1.1 billion, or 1.8 percent, compared to the final budget under the administration of former Gov. Jim Doyle.
The Walker administration had factored in a 1-percent increase in the budget; another $154 million is due to higher estimated enrollments in Medicaid.
Nonetheless, the increase in spending is far less than the increase under Doyle's last budget, which saw spending jump by 6.2 percent. Doyle and the Legislature eventually raised taxes and fees by more than $2 billion and spent $3.4 billion more in federal stimulus money to cover a $6.6 billion shortfall.
Because of increased revenue projections, the Legislature this year is also repaying $235 million owed to the medical malpractice fund.
Gov. Scott Walker said this week he would make use of his veto-pen by "a fair amount" but he did not specify what provisions of the budget he might veto. His line-item veto makes the Wisconsin governor one of the nation's most powerful.
Savings and tax cuts
Walker and the GOP's bid to balance the budget without raising taxes is not a hat trick. The budget makes significant cuts in spending and borrowing to achieve the goal.
For instance, the Department of Health Services will trim Medicaid by a approximately $466 million over the next two years, while state aid to local school districts will decline by approximately $800 million. Officials say school districts will be able to make up the difference because of new contributions by teachers to pension and health benefit payments.
School districts with contracts in place will be bound by those contracts until they expire, however.
The state will borrow significantly less money than in the past, about $2 billion less overall. Among other things, the budget cuts bonding authority for the state stewardship program from $86 million a year to $60 million.
In addition, the budget imposes a true property tax freeze on school districts and local governments. Counties and municipalities will have to live with current levy amounts for two years - they can raise taxes only by the amount of net new construction, but that has been negligible - and after that can only raise taxes by 1.5 percent or the amount of net new construction, whichever is greater.
The budget does not raise sales or income taxes and actually reduces taxes by $24 million.
On the tax side, the budget would reduce income tax credits by $56 million for lower-income families with two or more children. Republicans say the benefit had become too generous to sustain. The Legislature would also freeze eligible income levels for qualifying for a homestead tax credit.
For businesses, a new capital gains tax deferral for investments in Wisconsin-based companies will cost $36 million over two years, while manufacturers and agricultural firms would gain a tax credit of approximately $129 million a year.
The GOP did not remove combined reporting requirements from the state tax code, but it did liberalize the tax treatment, amounting to a tax reduction of about $46 million over two years. The budget would also establish a sales tax exemption for advertising and promotional direct mail starting in 2013.
.
Nonfiscal policy provisions
While the budget helps to reshape the character of government spending, the character of the budget process itself remained unchanged, loaded with late-night votes, closed caucus meetings and nonfiscal budget items tucked here and there in the bill.
For example, the Wisconsin Credit Union League is asking Walker to veto provisions that would allow direct conversions of member-owned credit unions to shareholder-owned banks.
"The direct-conversion provisions subvert the interests of a credit union's full membership to that of a few who intend to own and profit form a stockholder-owned - and not member-owned - business structure," said Brett Thompson, president and CEO of the league.
Thompson said the provisions would allow for the direct charter conversion of a credit union to stock-bank with little meaningful notice requirements, no protections of members' voting rights and no requirement that any equity in the converted institution be returned to members.
Membership and deposits are increasing at credit unions both in the state and the country, and many say the trend is being driven not only by greater eligibility for credit union membership but by ever-larger banking fees.
However, banking officials counter that credit unions are non-profit and thus can offer more competitive rates and lower fees because they don't have to pay income taxes.
In any event, Thompson said, the provision was slipped into the budget without any consultation of credit unions and without any public debate or input by regulators.
Then too, this week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is calling for Walker to veto a provision preventing brewers, distributors and any retail outlet that sells beer from owning a license to operate in more than one of those business categories. The state craft breweries say that will cripple their ability to expand and grow because they could no longer have a brewer's license and a distribution license.
The provisions were also inserted into the budget without public hearing.
A rare coalition of conservative Republicans such as Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) and Pam Galloway (R-Wausau) and liberal Democrats such as Rep. Brett Hulsey (D-Madison) urged Walker to veto the measure.
"Wisconsin is known for its breweries, and allowing small craft brewers to own their own taverns will highlight their product," Grothman said. "This is the type of provision that should have been dealt with in a separate bill. It was complicated and the thriving craft brew industry did not participate in drafting this provision."
Hulsey said it was the wrong move at the wrong time.
"I am concerned that at this time of economic uncertainty we are sending the wrong message to these small growing businesses," Hulsey said.
Other measures inserted in the budget would weaken notice requirements to tenants living in buildings subject to foreclosure, and would loosen recent requirements on payday lenders.
Finally, the budget allows for limited expansion of the state's school voucher program to certain cities under specific conditions. Second-class cities (those between 39,000 and 149,999 population) that have 50 percent or more of their students eligible for free or reduced lunch could qualify for vouchers.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
School disctrict hires more teachers BECAUSE of Scott Walker's budget
Original Post: Washington Examiner
Union curbs rescue a Wisconsin school district
By: Byron York
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signs his first budget in front of supporters gathered at Fox Valley Metal Tech in Ashwaubenon, Wis., on Sunday, June 26, 2011. The budget helped save the struggling Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin.
"This is a disaster," said Mark Miller, the Wisconsin Senate Democratic leader, in February after Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed a budget bill that would curtail the collective bargaining powers of some public employees. Miller predicted catastrophe if the bill were to become law -- a charge repeated thousands of times by his fellow Democrats, union officials, and protesters in the streets.
Now the bill is law, and we have some very early evidence of how it is working. And for one beleaguered Wisconsin school district, it's a godsend, not a disaster.
The Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin near Appleton, has about 4,200 students and about 400 employees. It has struggled in recent times and this year faced a deficit of $400,000. But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it's all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous.
In the past, teachers and other staff at Kaukauna were required to pay 10 percent of the cost of their health insurance coverage and none of their pension costs. Now, they'll pay 12.6 percent of the cost of their coverage (still well below rates in much of the private sector) and also contribute 5.8 percent of salary to their pensions. The changes will save the school board an estimated $1.2 million this year, according to board President Todd Arnoldussen.
Of course, Wisconsin unions had offered to make benefit concessions during the budget fight. Wouldn't Kaukauna's money problems have been solved if Walker had just accepted those concessions and not demanded cutbacks in collective bargaining powers?
"The monetary part of it is not the entire issue," says Arnoldussen, a political independent who won a spot on the board in a nonpartisan election. Indeed, some of the most important improvements in Kaukauna's outlook are because of the new limits on collective bargaining.
In the past, Kaukauna's agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust -- a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. "It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them," says Arnoldussen. "Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor." This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.
Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage. And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position. "With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, 'We can match the lowest bid,'" says Republican state Rep. Jim Steineke, who represents the area and supports the Walker changes. At least for the moment, Kaukauna is staying with WEA Trust, but saving substantial amounts of money.
Then there are work rules. "In the collective bargaining agreement, high school teachers only had to teach five periods a day, out of seven," says Arnoldussen. "Now, they're going to teach six." In addition, the collective bargaining agreement specified that teachers had to be in the school 37 1/2 hours a week. Now, it will be 40 hours.
The changes mean Kaukauna can reduce the size of its classes -- from 31 students to 26 students in high school and from 26 students to 23 students in elementary school. In addition, there will be more teacher time for one-on-one sessions with troubled students. Those changes would not have been possible without the much-maligned changes in collective bargaining.
Teachers' salaries will stay "relatively the same," Arnoldussen says, except for higher pension and health care payments. (The top salary is around $80,000 per year, with about $35,000 in additional benefits, for 184 days of work per year -- summers off.) Finally, the money saved will be used to hire a few more teachers and institute merit pay.
It is impossible to overstate how bitter and ugly the Wisconsin fight has been, and that bitterness and ugliness continues to this day with efforts to recall senators and an unseemly battle inside the state Supreme Court. But the new law is now a reality, and Gov. Walker recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the measure will gain acceptance "with every day, week and month that goes by that the world doesn't fall apart."
In the Kaukauna schools, the world is not only not falling apart -- it's getting better.
Union curbs rescue a Wisconsin school district
By: Byron York
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signs his first budget in front of supporters gathered at Fox Valley Metal Tech in Ashwaubenon, Wis., on Sunday, June 26, 2011. The budget helped save the struggling Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin.
"This is a disaster," said Mark Miller, the Wisconsin Senate Democratic leader, in February after Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed a budget bill that would curtail the collective bargaining powers of some public employees. Miller predicted catastrophe if the bill were to become law -- a charge repeated thousands of times by his fellow Democrats, union officials, and protesters in the streets.
Now the bill is law, and we have some very early evidence of how it is working. And for one beleaguered Wisconsin school district, it's a godsend, not a disaster.
The Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin near Appleton, has about 4,200 students and about 400 employees. It has struggled in recent times and this year faced a deficit of $400,000. But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it's all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous.
In the past, teachers and other staff at Kaukauna were required to pay 10 percent of the cost of their health insurance coverage and none of their pension costs. Now, they'll pay 12.6 percent of the cost of their coverage (still well below rates in much of the private sector) and also contribute 5.8 percent of salary to their pensions. The changes will save the school board an estimated $1.2 million this year, according to board President Todd Arnoldussen.
Of course, Wisconsin unions had offered to make benefit concessions during the budget fight. Wouldn't Kaukauna's money problems have been solved if Walker had just accepted those concessions and not demanded cutbacks in collective bargaining powers?
"The monetary part of it is not the entire issue," says Arnoldussen, a political independent who won a spot on the board in a nonpartisan election. Indeed, some of the most important improvements in Kaukauna's outlook are because of the new limits on collective bargaining.
In the past, Kaukauna's agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust -- a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. "It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them," says Arnoldussen. "Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor." This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.
Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage. And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position. "With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, 'We can match the lowest bid,'" says Republican state Rep. Jim Steineke, who represents the area and supports the Walker changes. At least for the moment, Kaukauna is staying with WEA Trust, but saving substantial amounts of money.
Then there are work rules. "In the collective bargaining agreement, high school teachers only had to teach five periods a day, out of seven," says Arnoldussen. "Now, they're going to teach six." In addition, the collective bargaining agreement specified that teachers had to be in the school 37 1/2 hours a week. Now, it will be 40 hours.
The changes mean Kaukauna can reduce the size of its classes -- from 31 students to 26 students in high school and from 26 students to 23 students in elementary school. In addition, there will be more teacher time for one-on-one sessions with troubled students. Those changes would not have been possible without the much-maligned changes in collective bargaining.
Teachers' salaries will stay "relatively the same," Arnoldussen says, except for higher pension and health care payments. (The top salary is around $80,000 per year, with about $35,000 in additional benefits, for 184 days of work per year -- summers off.) Finally, the money saved will be used to hire a few more teachers and institute merit pay.
It is impossible to overstate how bitter and ugly the Wisconsin fight has been, and that bitterness and ugliness continues to this day with efforts to recall senators and an unseemly battle inside the state Supreme Court. But the new law is now a reality, and Gov. Walker recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the measure will gain acceptance "with every day, week and month that goes by that the world doesn't fall apart."
In the Kaukauna schools, the world is not only not falling apart -- it's getting better.
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