February 17, 2011, Milwaukee, WI– On Thursday, thirteen Wisconsin school districts had to close their doors due to the number of teachers calling in “sick.” In fact, many of the “sick” teachers showed up in Madison today to protest the Budget Repair Bill. At issue are their salaries and pension plans.

According to data from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the average teacher’s salaries and average fringe benefits appear to be very generous given the recent economic downturn. Media Trackers has compiled the information below for the school districts that were forced to close on Thursday.

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The controversial budget repair bill could be voted on in Madison Thursday.  Today readers of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel are invited to take a poll on how they would vote on the bill.  So far readers support the budget repair bill 59% to 41%.  To weigh in with your opinion, click here.

According to the Wisconsin State Journal, Madison Metropolitan School District Superintendent had to close school on Wednesday “after 40% of the 2,600 members of the teachers union had called in sick and more were expected to do so through Wednesday morning.” Forty percent of 2,600 teachers is 1,040 teachers taking a paid “sick day” to protest.

So how much might it cost Madison area taxpayers for their teachers to go protest at the capital over having to contribute to their pension and healthcare like the rest of us?

According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the average salary in the Madison Metropolitan School District is $52,022 per year before benefits. Teachers in Wisconsin have about 180 days of instruction. Therefore, Madison teachers make about $289 per work day.

If 1,040 teachers receive payment for their sick day, Madison area taxpayers will have paid protesting teachers nearly $300,571 on Wednesday, while their children lost a day of education.

As of Tuesday, the Superintendent in Madison has said that teacher’s will be docked pay if they do not submit proper doctor’s approval. Don’t count on it.

 

This might be just the beginning of public employees holding our children and vital services hostage at the behest of union bosses.

 

Footage taken by Media Trackers inside the Wisconsin State Capital during the union protest of Governor Walker’s budget repair bill. The protesters are chanting “tax, tax, tax the rich, we can fix the deficit.” This appears to the be the union answer to the $3.6 billion budget deficit in Wisconsin.

Check out this sampling of signs from the union rally to oppose the Budget Repair Bill. Apparently asking public employees to modestly contribute to their pensions makes Governor Scott Walker akin to mass murderers like Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Hosni Mubarak. So much for the “age of civility.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial writer Patrick McIlheran gives a good look at Gov. Walker’s plan to change public-sector unions.  Read his column here.

Supreme Court candidate, Joanne Kloppenburg stresses to the media that she wants to be “independent” and “impartial.” Yet, she turned to a top Democratic strategist to run her campaign.

 

Kloppenburg’s campaign manager, Melissa Mulliken, has run a series of prominent Democratic campaigns in Wisconsin. An article in the Madison Isthmus newspaper labeled Mulliken “a longtime consultant to Democratic candidates.” (March 18, 2010). Mulliken’s past clients have included the following Democratic officials:

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Former union hack and failed Democratic candidate Ed Garvey posted a rather blistering attack that explains how the “forces of darkness,” namely “Mike Grebe, Charlie Sykes, Scott Walker, Family Fitzgerald, and governor Talker (redundant?),” are assembling to “declare war on our history, our citizens, and our values.”

Is this guy for real?

As Governor Walker has so appropriately pointed out in both his Inaugural and State of the State addresses, Wisconsin’s constitution reads that “the blessings of a free government can only be maintained by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue.”

• Justice demands that we get our fiscal house in order to spare future generations of burden.
• Moderation requires sacrifices from public employee unions who have remained largely untouched by the recent economic downturn.
• Temperance demands that public employee unions be restrained from the antiquated benefits and pension packages that threaten to swallow our state in debt.
• Frugality demands that Wisconsin stop spending money it doesn’t have.
• Virtue demands that leaders have the courage to say no and chart a course out of our fiscal abyss.

No Mr. Garvey, the “forces of darkness” are not turning their back on our history or our values, they are finding them to be a guide through trying times.

Supreme Court Candidate, and state environmental law enforcer JoAnne Kloppenburg, has had many aspirations to move beyond the state Justice Department.
And many rejections.

In 2009, she applied for a seat on the Wisconsin court of appeals. She didn’t get picked. (Oct. 21, 2009, Wisconsin State Journal).

A few months earlier, she applied for an open federal judgeship. She didn’t get that either. (April 22, 2009, Associated Press).

In 2004, she threw her hat in the ring to be Madison city attorney. She didn’t get that appointment, either. (Feb. 28, 2004, Wisconsin State Journal).

The year before that, she tried to get Gov. Jim Doyle to appoint her to another seat on the court of appeals. He picked someone else. (July 25, 2003, Capital Times).

Now she wants voters to do what several reviewers and a governor would not: Make her a judge.

An ironic line appeared in a Wisconsin Law Journal Article on Dec. 13, 2010 – it identified Supreme Court challenger Marla Stephens as a Democrat, even as she attacked incumbent Justice David Prosser for… supposed partisanship.
Said the article: “Democratic challenger Marla J. Stephens agreed that political affiliation should have no relevance in a judicial election, although she said part of her campaign will contend that partisanship has played a role in some of Prosser’s decisions.”