Bignik "..............Maybe we should take all of the athletic budget cuts and all of the other cuts already proposed and start teaching Chinese, Japenese, Vietnamese, German, Spanish and all of the other foreign languages......Seems to me that's where all our "educated" leaders in this country are taking our work- OVER SEAS.....Maybe that would be a good choice for our future leaders....." That doesn't even make sense! I don't think you even know what you meant by that statement. Athletics and other "after school" activities are just that, after school. Let's have the tax payers pay for the school part and the parents who want their kids to do athletics find a way to pay for it without the tax payers.

1. Clairvoyant - the teacher's union is state and national too - how do you intend to break that?
2. On the last article someone said their taxes were $3600 - My question is how much of that goes to schools? Not all I assume...

Dido bignik,common sense seems to be lacking in this community and on this school board.

Stubby, you're wrong. School districts do not use the same accounting standards as businesses do: they expense the retirement benefits only as they are paid, and trust me, they are paid every year.

Even if they weren't, it's no less money being spent on them. Like I said, things must not be that bad if the district can spend $80-$100k just on retirement health benefits for one retiree, and more every year.

<------------- PATS STUBBY ON THE BACK! We need more folks like you Stubby! Thanks for your great post. Common sense sure goes a long ways these days! Thank you again for a great response!

Noleftist - the retirement health benefits you are speaking about are spread over several years. That is the total, lifetime, benefit for each individual teacher, not a per year cost.

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Clairvoyant - I'll agree to the senior (62 and over) discount on property taxes if you will, at the same time, agree that those under 45 should receive a discount on their social security taxes, progressive to those under 30 paying no SS taxes, because those groups will never see the benefit from those taxes. Would you like a 10% cut in your SS benefits? As you cut the salaries of those working, the money supporting that system dries up faster. (Yeah- that notion that "those who don't benefit shouldn't pay kind of stinks when it is your funding that is going away....)

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2. Non-homeowners do pay property tax through their rent. It is filtered through the landlord.

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3. What would be a "Fair wage" for teachers? Perhaps babysitting wages of $3/hr/child? So a teacher who sees 28 kids for 6 hours per day would get $504/day or $90,720 for 180 student contact days. Yep! Babysitters are paid better than teachers. Are you getting the picture yet?

reality_bites...............Maybe we should take all of the athletic budget cuts and all of the other cuts already proposed and start teaching Chinese, Japenese, Vietnamese, German, Spanish and all of the other foreign languages......Seems to me that's where all our "educated" leaders in this country are taking our work- OVER SEAS.....Maybe that would be a good choice for our future leaders......Then we can let our kids sit in school for 8 hours a day and let the parents that can't afford anything for their little "Megan or Bryan" to play Rugby. Now that is smart. Let the people who are already suffering hard enough pay for it. Solves a lot of problems in my book. Healthcare, Welfare, War / Defense.....Just have the government send us a bill!!!

Have you really not understood what values, leadership skills, morals and character building athletics plays in building a student-athletes life? Reality bites huh!

Another thing the Board needs to address is why we allow sports at the High Schools to be a detriment to education. Students are pulled out of classes to go to games and meets weekly and sometimes more! Why is that okay in this district?? I never remember missing class when I was in school in the MMSD! The whole class has to slow down when a group of kids is gone repeatedly week after week! Then the parents call requesting "extra" credit for junior, but what they really want is alternative busy work...so junior can skip the essential learning which would take far too much time away from "training." And I'm sorry but how many of these little dumplings are actually going to make it to the NBA or the Olympics? Like .001%? And what if they bank on that and then get a chronic injury? Conversely, how many are going to have to use their brains to make their way in the world? Hopefully, most of them! Anyway, if you want your little Megans and Bryans to go to the big leagues you pay for it.

Clairvoyant, I would add to your list:

"1) Seniors starting at age 62 are entitled to a 5% reduction on property taxes and will increase 1% per year to age 70 when it's maxed out. They have no children in ths schools, so why have them taxed as all higher wage earners still working."...These seniors would not be eligible for the portion of Social Security paid for by folks who were educated in the Public School system, or about a 95% decrease in SS payments.

@Bignik- Why should the taxpayers have to pay for kids to do after school sports and activities? It is the parents' responsibility to keep them from (as you say) running the streets and keeping the police and fire departments employed. The parents can pay for their kids' own swimming lessons, sports and fitness at the YMCA! OR spend some time teaching kids some skills themselves or just walking, running or biking the city trails for general fitness. OR parents can volunteer to organize teams at the schools and fund raise for everything else! Horace Mann said that education was the greatest equalizer and that is why the community funds it based on democratic principles and yadda yadda. Not sports though--Parents should pay for this 100%

noleftist, I don't know the ins and outs of the employee's contracts. Can you explain how they get $100K in retirement benefits? That seems like a lot of money.

Here's a few options
1) Seniors starting at age 62 are entitled to a 5% reduction on property taxes and will increase 1% per year to age 70 when it's maxed out. They have no children in ths schools, so why have them taxed as all higher wage earners still working.
2)None homeowners whose children are attending schools pay a $500.00 per child.
3)Pay the teachers a fair wage and benefits. NO MORE. Break the union. Remember what they did in assisting GM ?? GREED ??

". . . deluged with e-mails about the $77,665 in proposed sports cuts but not about the millions of dollars of cuts affecting education."

Reality check: if the school board cuts sports funding, where will that leave the many Olympic contenders and NBA prospects who come from this community?

It is no secret that taxes are going up because of unfunded and underfunded mandates plus less state aid. If there is added cost for mandates and the State of Wisconsin shirks its fiscal responsibilities to Janesville, then the local taxpayer has to pay the difference.
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The administration and the Board have already eliminated millions to make up for part of this shortfall. If the SDJ had wanted to ignore the taxpayers, they would not have worked so hard to find solutions. If you have ideas with documented solutions please go to the public SB meetings and offer them during this process.
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The difference between revenue and expenses for this year represented an almost 20% gap. This part of the budget is everything but wages for represented workers.
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The SDJ has decided to eliminate almost 16% of expected expenses with a variety of cuts and only pass 4% on to us the taxpayer. The limit that the taxes could be increased, by law is 12.4% and any additional amounts over the 12.4% would be by referendum.
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These cuts represent jobs, supplies, and maintenance work with the majority of fiscal benefit returning to the community. Remember, what you cut may put additional supply workers out of work and business will be cutting back or not hiring because of less business. The SDJ is similar to GM with only part of the workers at GM and many others working to supply them the plant. This will not be easily apparent to most, but it is fact and this will put additional pressure on our local economy with additional people looking for work and stretching our community resources thinner. It is interesting how parochial we are in our vision, but this is human nature.
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If one remembers HS Physics, they should remember that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Sometimes in easing the pain of one, we create pain for others.

Things must not be too bad: health retirement benefits keep going up in the school district, to $80-$100K per employee and rising fast, with no mention of freezing let alone cutting them.

I don't get it, why is the school board going to raise our taxes and cut the budget at the same time?! The school board and the city council continue to raise taxes and the community - we the people will NOT BE ABLE TO PAY OUR TAXES!!!!!

When are you people going to get with the program and quit raising taxes. You are going to run tax payers right out of this city.

Thank you whythink!!!

Lets cut sports and all co-curricular activities so these kids have nothing else to do after school but run the streets and keep our police and fire personnel employed. Lets also make sure that the kids don't have a safe place to learn or the materials to do so.....

Whythink:
What about the rest of the district? All you speak of is teachers, There are many other positions in the district to think about that are not covered in your statement. All of the kitchen workers and part time employees do not work on the teacher work days or the days there is no school.

So the furloughed employees get a day off without pay, ostensibly to help ease the budget crunch, and then work OVERTIME, at a rate of pay 1 1/2 times higher than their normal rate, to make up the work in time to meet these requirements. GREAT way to save. Yeah--let's all ask for more furloughs.
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It wouldn't work that way for teachers. Teachers are salaried employees, 1 furlough day would be 1/190 of their salary.
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A furlough day could be a teacher work-day...they wouldn't be contracted to work the day grades are do. They could choose to stay late the night before and get them done or work the next day...get them done without being paid.
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I think it could work because teachers would have control over how long it takes to get grades done/plan for the next semester. Many will work a full day+ without pay..few will enjoy some time off.
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QUESTION: For all of you talking about the "over-spending"...what specifically are you talking about? Much of what a district does is based on mandates...that is a fact. The cost of a k-12 education has gone up because of technology...that is a fact. Teachers, are now actually paid like professionals unlike 20-30 years ago where their salary was truly a joke!
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Administration, textbooks, technology, maintenance, and athletics have been cut...just where is the over-spending?
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The problems is costs have gone up but the funding from State and Fed has gone down.

markr - I read that same article too. What a joke!

sarahb1- well said. I have to take 3 perscriptions plus vitamins. I don't have a choice unless I choose to crap my pants,not eat,have fevers daily, and so on just to mention a few of the issues. No Kid- pretty sure pot wont fix all these problems! These people have choices. I do with out on some things to offset the price of the meds. they need to start doing more to offset and freeze taxes!!

You're exactly right, rossnmeg. Also, the Wisconsin State Journal ran an article two or three weeks ago outlining how the furloughs that have already been enacted have ended up coating FAR more money than was originally saved by them. The work still has to be done, and it has to be done within federally set time-limits. So the furloughed employees get a day off without pay, ostensibly to help ease the budget crunch, and then work OVERTIME, at a rate of pay 1 1/2 times higher than their normal rate, to make up the work in time to meet these requirements. GREAT way to save. Yeah--let's all ask for more furloughs.

Here is a fun fact, if you don't want to pay the higher SDJ and City taxes, you can always put your home up for sale. You know since it has dropped in value, there are so many jobs to lure potential buyers into the area, and its a booming market. Anyone else feel like a hamster on a wheel ?
Oh I forgot, we'll have a bike tunnel and Ice Arena that will help sell the houses....

This board is not what you would call fiscally responsible.There are school programs that could have been eliminated without hurting the future of our children, but no WE must have janesville continue to appear like there are no economic problems in the city. Go ahead and raise taxes keep the home foreclosures going.

The idea of furloughs is laughable. When are teachers going to take them? The district can't cut student contact days, so that means professional development or teacher work days are going to be cut. Are these supposed to be mandatory vacation days where subs are hired? Gee, that's great for education. Did anyone think this through?
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Here's something else to chew on... everyone's work will still be there when they come back from furlough. School districts do not work on a productivity model, therefore the same level of work will still need to be completed. State reports, accounting, grading, testing, etc. doesn't stop if there is a snow day... and those already screw up the school calendar pretty bad in Wisconsin. Why is this any different? God our board is stupid...

Par for the course in Wisconsin, Raise taxes, Raise taxes, Raise taxes! It's no wonder why people move out of this state after retirement! The tax burden never ends!

The state has continually dropped their share of cost for schools but I haven't noticed my state taxes going down. Where is the money going? Oh yeah, we will have new high speed rail which we don't need or want, except for Doyle. What a waste! I heard the so called jobs being created by this are mostly overseas because we don't have the expertise for high speed trains. So much for the stimulus funds (part of the funding for this) providing local jobs for those needing them.

I hear you and agree SOUP - First thing we need to do is get all of our heroes home from Iraq & afghanistan. Stop the funding and bring them home. Getting back to the school district spending - enough of this overspending! I would ask at least one school board member to tell us who authorized the OVERSPENDING on the various referendum school building projects?

This is upsetting, first congress passes bill to continue funding Afghanistan war and now this! With GM and many others who have already left the area I'm curious how we're suppose to pay for this! Passing stuff like this will only scare existing working residents away and deter entrepreneurs from ever wanting to come here. As if our taxes weren't a little too high as it was and you wanna make them higher?! omg!!

There are many valid questions asked here and the Gazette cannot answer everything.
There would not be enough space in the paper.

The COL is currently at a 2.8% rate. The School District has charged the lowest increases in taxes of all the taxing entities involved with the SDJ area and over the past eight years been 20% below the COL figures for that period.

Why are funding needs greater each year is a great question?

1.) State funding has dropped to all districts in WI and less is will probably be the normal pattern.

2.) Unfunded or underfunded mandates from both the Federal and State governments are the main cause of what appears to be overspending. If all of these mandates where funded by who required them, we would not going through these terrible conversations.

Write your government officials who are responsible and ease up a little on those who are trying to do the best for our community and youth. Volunteer with all this free time.

When all the areas that are cut are published, you will notice millions taken from just the areas you are talking about. Several areas cannot be accounted for yet.

1.) Enrollments in September

2.) Represented contracts with workers

3.) Final state contributions

4.) Final insurance amounts

All areas have been severely dealt a heavy cut, including maintenance, technology, and administration.

Everyone will share the displeasure and unfortunately, it will include taxpayers, renters, and those with property leases when they need to renew, but most of all our youth.

Domino: I agree that we need to be more positive. Negativity is killing this country. I am also glad to see that you used the word "some" in your comment. I do not choose to spend my limited funds at Olive Garden or any other restaurant at this time. However, I also DO NOT smoke, drink alcohol, use drugs whether legal or illegal, tan, etc. And, hobbies? My big hobby right now is reading books that I check out of the library for FREE. I am not complaining. In fact, I feel blessed to have a computer and one that is hooked up to the internet at that. I also agree with those saying we need to offer quality education to the children of this community. However, I also believe that we sometimes cross over the line from "quality" to "excessive". We cannot be everything to everybody.

You are correct that not everyone can afford to eat out. However, some of these same people can afford $6 packs of cigarettes, $3 beers out in the bars, expensive hobbies, illegal drugs, tanning sessions, etc. It's all about priorities. Times are tough for those without jobs and even for those families lucky enough to still have jobs. But, we still need to support education if we are going to get out of this recession that we are in! Is the glass have full or half empty? We need to be more positive in this community.

Sarahb,
must be alot of teachers going out to Olive Garden because according to the blogs they are the only ones with jobs and the only ones that can afford to fill the parking lot everynight.

Why doesn't the district look into cost savings like heat and electricity. Most students could dress a little warmer if they turned the heat down a few degrees. Has the district ever looked into geothermal heat and cooling? Drive by the schools at night. You won't need any street lights burning because the schools will light up the nighttime sky! How about using water to clean the white boards which works better than expensive cleaners. I wonder how many computers suck energy when they are not being used overnight or during the day? That's just the tip of the iceberg for cuts. What about garbage bags. Don't schools have dumpsters where trash cans can simply be dumped into the dumpsters or does every can in the schools need expensive liners which is also bad for the environment? How about only having reduced lunch prices instead of free? Parents need to be responsible and able to afford the cost of bringing children into this world. If you can't support them, don't have them. What about cleaning supplies. Certainly we can cut in this area and use a little old fashioned elbow grease to get the job done! How about some cuts in the administrative luncheons and get back to bringing your own lunch? Let's be smart school board and cut things in the budget that don't affect the learning. How about having people who owe time for community service do some cleaning up of the schools and do some hard labor to save on costs. Let's get a little bit creative. I say the district should drop the Studer Initiative. It simply will never work in a city such as Janesville that does not support public education! Test scores don't matter and will never increase without community support and parent support for our schools! With all of the negative publicity of our schools going on in this community, do you really think that today's students don't see or hear what the community thinks about our schools? Do you really think that they will try their very best on a test when they see their own parents and other community members bashing the schools? The students who are successful come from the homes that support education whether it be public or private! They spend quality time with their children and family and community are important to these families!

Ummm....wait until the City of Janesville adds their portion of the raise in taxes....They haven't even started their budget talks.

But you can all go live on the 2nd sheet of ice....

Hey, justin, not everybody can afford to go out to eat.

Jp, contracts are being negotiated and going to arbitration. They can't do anything with the teachers and custodial now. They could of looked at cuts in admin. pay or summer furloughs for non-teaching staff, but they didn't.

It’s good to see them cut sports for once. Enough with the huge amount of money pumped into sports. Its school! We need to produce scholars that will do something with their education. We have enough washed up high school jocks who just sit around Taasbag talking about the good ol days. Our big factory is gone, we need smart people now.

I'm sure glad that I don't have to pay JSD taxes. There is no possible way that I could give up eating at Olive Garden one time next year.

It is only going to get worse. If you think $25-$30 is bad, wait until the next budget. The district doesn't even know what the arbitrator is going to do with the contract negotiations. At least the board made sure that by only levying 4%, it will be all the teachers' fault when it isn't enough.

Get ready for a ton of fundraiser sales this school year to off set the lack of money, especially for athletics.

I wonder if these people on the school board realize that their vote to increase taxes just signed their resignation.

It is time to use the money wisely! Just as we have to in these times!! There isn't any increase in pay for most of us and some of us are a decrease!
What don't all these people get about we cannot afford more taxes ANYWHERE!

Any property tax increase is too much. If its time to start cutting some sports, so be it.

You're darned if you do and you're darned if you don't. I sure would not want to be on the School Board or a school administrator forced to decide these cuts.