Jul 01 2011

Wisconsin School SAVED Thanks To Union Busting Bill

Published by at 10:06 am under All General Discussions

The Chicken Littles on the left in Wisconsin have an inconvenient truth staring the square in the face. And that is the fact the Walker-GOP bill curbing union power and forcing public employees to pay their fair share for their benefits is not only now saving a once-struggling school, but changing its budget picture around by $2 million dollars.

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.

That money will now go to educating Wisconsin’s children, not union coffers. Anyone want to wager how many parents in school districts across this nation are ready to get this same return on legislation? What was the key – competition:

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.

Good Lord, for once immediate, positive results that directly impact the quality of education. Watch this catch fire.

11 responses so far

11 Responses to “Wisconsin School SAVED Thanks To Union Busting Bill”

  1. Highlander says:

    You can’t find a much better illustration of the benefits of fiscal conservatism than that. As to it catching fire – I certainly hope so. There are efforts underway in a number of states right now that, properly implemented, should reap similar benefits for their constituents. My only fear (as always) is the stubborn ability of our corrupt and servile media to suppress that which hurts the causes they promote. I continue to believe that the media’s betrayal of the people’s trust is the single greatest danger we face. They still have the power to make the truth a lie and a lie the truth for too many Americans.

  2. MerlinOS2 says:

    One staff for each 10 students and they need to hire more???????

    Is this a school or a tutor place these kids ought to be top in the nation.

    Even counting lunch room staff and janitors etc that has to mean a lot of overhead of ‘management’ that probably almost dwarfs the number of actual teachers.

    I have seen the bloat over long term. The High School I attended had one principal and one guidance councilor and one nurse.

    Today,many years later, that same school has a principle,three vice principals,two deans,seven office staff (was a student volunteer staff in my day),two nurses and a visiting doctor,four guidance councilors and others I never could get straight answers on what their job was. Also the school has added on a nursery for children of both the students and the single mother teachers on staff (grounds for moral dismissal in my day). There is also an LGBT outreach coordinator on staff.

  3. WWS says:

    The WEA trust has been skimming money and running as a pork palace since it began. Now they’re desperate to keep the money from stopping, so they’ll take whatever they can get.

    But they still have no idea how to run an insurance company efficiently. A fraud can’t stop being a fraud overnight, and a crooked insurance company won’t stop cooking the books.

    Prediction, and remember you read it here first: Sometime in the next 2 or 3 years, the WEA trust is going to declare bankruptcy and beg the State to bail them out in order to “protect” all the poor teachers whose insurance premiums have been stolen. And the dems will blame it all on mean old Scott Walker.

  4. […] for health insurance appears to save over half a million dollars per school The dissenting opinion, The Stratasphere, Public School […]

  5. lurker9876 says:

    Yeah…Just like they did with Silent Cal….

    Silent Calvin did all the right things and the Democrats smeared his actions, decisions, and results ever since.

    The MSM still gives Bill Clinton the credit for balancing the budget that created a surplus. Now someone is trying to argue with me that balancing this specific budget meant that they cut the defense budget. That’s because I argued that we needed to maintain a strong defense as mandated in the US Constitution. He asks if cutting the defense budget weakened our military. Sigh…typical liberal.

    As for Scott Walker and the WI Republicans, well, then, they had better learn how to counter attack by then to maintain an edge over the Democrats by pointing to a booming economy and increased prosperity. But their message needs to be more than a booming economy and increased prosperity.

    After all, who tried to take the credit for the booming twenties?

  6. lurker9876 says:

    wws, do you think Perry will enter the race?

    I just cannot believe that Thaddeus has decided to enter the race!

  7. lurker9876 says:

    wws, I see an increasing frustration among many Texan conservatives with Straus and Dewhurst after their performance in the last session.

    In fact, I read that a leader of a tea party in Houston telling everyone back in December and January that voting Straus in as the speaker will have no affect to the conservative legislation. And now the tea party leaders and members are very unhappy with this one particular tea party leader.

    Well, this doesn’t look good for Texas, doesn’t it?

    Think we will see a huge change in this tea party movement within the next few months?

  8. lurker9876 says:

    Somehow I’m not surprised with the Time Magazine’s article on the US Constitution. This is great because this got everyone’s attention.

  9. lurker9876 says:

    Oh yeah, looking forward to the new article about Silent Calvin, now published at WSJ (will be released by Heritage on July 5th). Are you?

  10. lurker9876 says:

    Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance. Psalms 33:12.

  11. WWS says:

    as far as Texas is concerned, remember that now (unless something extraordinary happens) the Legislature is now all done until 2013.