Neillsville District Administrator Talks State Budget and Public Education, Part 1 Overall
Monday, July 27th, 2015 -- 12:44 PM
-With the passing of the state budget recently, many people are not happy with the lack of support for public education, especially for small, rural schools.I spoke with Neillsville District Administrator John Gaier about the budget with regards to public education. Overall, Mr. Gaier was not impressed.
"Well, I'm very disappointed, honestly, in the budget. And I think what it reflects is four years where 850,000 public school students are just not a priority for the state of Wisconsin based on the budgets that we've been given. This budget is a horrible budget for K12 public schools."
"Another concern I have about the budget, is this budget was filled with over 160 policy items. That means policy items were put in the budget that had no public hearings. Where tax payers had no opportunity to provide feedback on what they believe or what they think of the policy. And I think that's mostly done because they don't believe a lot of the policies that are in the budget would pass going through a proper bill procedure. That was disappointing to me."
"The budget increases spending and decreases revenue and it, again, borrows a tremendous amount of money, which puts responsibility on future generations to pay for the benefits we enjoy. That concerns me a great deal as I'm working to, hopefully, make kids' lives better in the future."
"Clearly, the budget was very divisive based on the number of Republicans that voted against it. Republican Senator Steve Nash said that this budget was a 'treasure chest for special interest groups.' Republican Senator Luther Olson said this budget 'will not make it very easy to operate a public school over the next 2 years.' So, clearly, even in the majority party's own party, there were a number of folks who believe this to be a very divisive budget."
Coming up on Tuesday, Mr. Gaier will talk about the budget and funding for public schools.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.