Thanks for the response, since you know I play golf, I am surprised you don't know how to spell my name.

I assure you I have no tension in these issues, just knowledge and experience and a sincere concern for the district including the JEA members, some of whom I have a very close relationship with.

Lastly, please consider that the district has had long standing administrators, the avg superindent in the State of Wisconsin serves 3 years or less, Dr. Evert is one of the longest serving Supt in the state with 13 years of service. I am not sure there is or should be a correlation between the supt salary and the bargained salaries of the JEA members, but again your concerns should be shared with the Board, Dr. Evert is the only employee they supervise.

Good luck.

Mr. Wolf: My memory plays tricks with me. My mistake. You are correct. Perhaps ten years ago or so, the JEA was given a “lane freeze”. This meant that JEA members were not given credit for that year of experience, thereby “repeating” the experience lane, correct? OK, not a wage freeze, but JEA salaries took a net loss due to the “missing” year of experience. Also, the $1 Million I refer to, wasn’t it more like $1.2M of “Act 11” (?) money that came out of our salary schedule? As we all know, money taken out of, or put in to, the salary schedule is either gone or there forever.

Don’t be disturbed, for tension ruins your golf swing. Past contracts are past contracts until you bargain the next contract. I understand negotiations are give and take. School boards have teachers over the barrel when it comes to “negotiations” and our negotiations have continually grown hostile. One silent issue in particular right now is that Janesville school administrators have seen their salary and benefits packages grow disproportionately when compared to Janesville teachers. Example: in 2007 Dr. Evert’s salary and benefit package was ranked 14 in Wisconsin while Janesville teachers were ranked 200-something. Not fair, but life isn’t. This holds true for virtually all of Janesville’s top administrators. If we have top 10% administrators, why not top 10% teachers?

The contract is ratified by the board (except Sodemann) and my friends that are teachers tell me they aren't getting their back pay until June. What's with that?

Kudos, Tom Wolfe.
I have always supported our teachers and educational system, however I have always believed that all things should stand or fall on their merits.
The JEA has not always been totally upfront in presenting their "facts" concerning contract issues. They do seem to come clean when directly confronted, but trying to shade or slant some things initially, hurts their credibility. This is the very thing they often accuse the JSD of.
I think yours' and Mr. Sodemann's contributions to this comment section have helped to clarify many grey areas in these discussions.

caddyshack243, you keep referring to a wage freeze and the JEA contributing $1,000,000 in a previous contract. I was on the negotiating team for these issues. First, there was no wage freeze, the JEA and district, in order to give all JEA employees a bump in their cell, had no cell movement for one year and in year two all cells were increased and therefore all members were able to get larger increases. Because of the large increase in benefit costs some cells actually would have gone backwards. I recall some pension acutuary credit in one year over $1,000,000 that came into the system but it did not go in the insurance fund and was not "contributed" by the JEA.

What I find disturbing about these comments is that a contract seems to never get settled. In other words you seem to harbor some ill over a past contract when it was agreed to by both sides. I understand you personally may not have agreed with it but the Board and the JEA membership did.

I could state many positives that I believe the JEA has received in contracts I negotiated but my guess is those won't be recoginized as positives but rather as a given.

I hope you are able to accept the outcome of this latest contract and work with your negotiating team on changes you would personally like to see in the next one, as it is right around the corner.

Since you know who I am please feel free to call me, I would be happy to discuss this with you.

giveahoot: Yes the JEA did pay for the years that the insurance fund was over-spent. The union activists contributed over one million dollars to the insurance fund and those same union activists suffered a wage freeze. The union activists did this without an additional penny coming from taxpayer pockets. Shame, shame on you for criticizing without knowing the facts.

rocksolid: How about answering BigDaddy's questions. Also, why not explain why Dr. Evert was the 14th highest-paid administrator in Wisconsin last year, while the Janesville teachers rank 234th in the state. Why are the administrative salaries in Janesville proportionately so much higher than the teacher salaries? Why can Janesville afford to pay the top school district administrators some of the top salaries in the state, yet Janesville teacher salaries are average at best and they continue to lose ground when compared to other teachers in the state?

snerd: No, no, no. Eighty percent of the JEA membership voted. Of the 80% who voted, 59% voted "Yes", and 41% voted "No". Do not automatically assume that the non-voters would have voted "Yes". Why not assume the non-voters acted in protest? Then those votes would be counted as "No" votes. But that is not the case, either. The fact is: a vote not cast is a vote not counted.

When the insurance fund ran at a deficit, the JEA contributed over $1 Million to the JSD and settled for a one-year wage freeze to make up the difference. The taxpayers incurred no additional expense.

Simon - Regarding the insurance fund - according to the data that I have received, which covers the previous 10 years, there have been three years that we have had significant deficits (1999-2000, 2000-2001 & 2001-2002), three years that we have had significant surpluses (2002-2003, 2003-2004 & 2006-2007) and four years that have been very close to the amount budgeted. If you would like a copy of the exact figures, I can send them to you. This information has always been publicly available.
Sincerely,
Bill Sodemann

giveahoot - please enlighten us as to when the district had a deficit for the teachers health plan

What many don't understand about teachers is that they spend much of their own money purchasing things for their classrooms. Many teachers work part-time to supplement the money they spend on school or just to make ends meet. I know that you could all say that if they don't like it, they can do something else. But, where would all the good teachers come from. Teachers deserve competitive compensation for the hours they put in and the care they give to the children in their classes. If you want your kids growing up into productive citizens, it's only fair the people entrusted to teach them be taken care of.

A few $$$$$ questions
Is it true that after 10 years of service administrators recieve a $100,000 bonus at retirement. Also, does Dr. Everet get a car paid for by the district. Finally where does the money come from that is putting on the extra programs for the 2 Saturday sessions (Hypnotist & Magician).

And I'll bet that the administration didn't invoice the teachers or thier union in those years where the health plan ran at a deficit and the general had to be tapped to make up the loss.

With that in mind, this overfunding argument just does not pass the honesty test. Shame shame union activists!

Bill, I appreciate and respect your convictions. After your comments the other night your convictions would still have been intact even if you voted yes. Those comments could have set the stage for the next negotiations because the current negotiations were over. That was the point I was trying to make. You had made a comment in your campaign that you would like to see the return to consensus bargaining and that is what your yes vote would have indicated.
Thank you for serving and good luck with the many difficult issues that still face the district.

In response to another comment in my nearly 10 years on the board nothing could be further than the truth that the board was over estimating on the self insurance fund for employees to fund pet projects of the district. There were years that some employees had very serious and tragic illnesses where the fund was negative and transfers from the general fund had to be made to deal with this. That is one of the challenges of self insurance.

Don't you have to bring the private sector into it? After all, a lot of taxpayers work in the private sector. If teachers are receiving 4.5% pay increases and everyone else is receiving 3% pay increases (just an estimation) then eventually the privat sector working taxapayers will not be able to sustain paying for the high pay increases of the teachers and it will ultimately hurt all of those who pay taxes.

FYI --- This is not necessarily a reflection on my opinion of the situation, but merely to point out that we do have to consider the private sector at least a little in the mix because it is relevant in the larger long-term picture.

Some of the main reasons why I voted "no".
1. The insurance coverage is not the same as that provided to the administrators. In fact it is better. It was desired that all participants have the same coverage to make it easier (less expensive) to administrate.
2. Although family coverage will now cost JEA participants $43.00 / month or $516.00 per year (3%), one deductible of $300.00 per year was eliminated, which means the real increase in health care cost to JEA is much less.
3. By contract, the admin health plan must be at least as good as JEA’s. Therefore, we will have to increase the administrator’s health plan and lower their premium percentage to 3% as well. These changes of course will cost more.
4. When these changes occur, then the other bargaining units (Custodians etc.) will ask why they should pay 5% when everyone else is paying 3%. I don’t blame them.
5. The total cost to the taxpayers is more than $500,000 than the amount that was budgeted for in March. Because of reduced enrollment, there will probably be enough staff reduction to cover the cost this coming year. This will catch up to us as however as our revenues will be reduced proportionately over a 3 year cycle or we will have no money to add teachers if enrollment figures recover. Bottom line is that will have fewer teachers per student and any hope to restore positions such as the Library Media Specialists etc. is gone.
6. The health insurance “trust” issue was not resolved. I suspect that if we have another good year with fewer claims, we will face the same problem of JEA members accusing the administration of mismanagement etc. Had we instead used the “Sodemann HRA” proposal, any insurance surpluses (after a reserve was met) would have been returned to the participants tax free! This would have created a partnership environment where we can all work together towards common goals and share in the rewards.
7. In the economic environment that we are in, it is hard to support overall increases that are pushing 5% per year with the insurance changes factored in. Sometimes you have to pay a premium to solve other issues, but as you can see from the points listed above, the taxpayers paid for a much higher than normal settlement without solving the problems and perhaps creating more.
Sincerely,
Bill Sodemann

amen

What is with all this private sector talk? I have friends that are as educated as I (post grad) who are teachers that make half as much money as I do. I enjoy a very nice salary and benefit package in the private sector (as do many of my friends), that teachers would only dream of. If comparing apples to oranges is your cup of tea, then continue to highlight the differences between unprofessional (no training/education required) and professional careers. If you seek to have a legitimate discussion then compare apples to apples.

“I want our teachers treated as well as we can afford to treat them,” Rashkin said.
-
Was that a misquote?
It is my take that the JEA members who voted no to the contract did not do it because they wanted more pay. It was an issue of trust. They did not trust the board that for the last 10 or 11 years has been using their insurance money to fund pet projects. Every year they say they need to make cuts yet the taxpayers get a $1.5 million relief. More cuts yet another charter school is developed. More cuts and then 4 year old kindergarten is added. If the board really appreciated teachers they would be honest with them. They would not overestimate their insurance premiums to create a cash cow for their pet projects.

Sodeman had a good point about the high raises they will automatically get. The private sector working people don't get that. Private sector workers work all year also.

My "feelings" were based upon the facts and figures that I laid out in detail at the meeting. I am not given the time nor money to survey the public for every vote that I take. Had I done so, what do you think the public would have said about a raise that averages almost 5% per year even after you factor in the insurance changes? I honestly don't know, but I suspect that it might have raised some eyebrows.
Sincerely,
Bill Sodemann

Only 21% of teachers voted against the contract. 59% voted for it, and 20% didn't vote.

Are board members supposed to vote with their personal feelings? or are they supposed to vote representative of the public who elected them?

rocksolid: Is the best solution to have teachers pay a larger portion of their health insurance premium? You need to remember that education is not the private sector! Also I find it interesting that you as well as 40% of the JEA disagree with this contract, however I have a feeling it is for completely different reasons!

Tom - For me, the right thing to do is to vote my conscience. To do otherwise would, to me, be dishonorable. It has nothing to do with "posturing" or trying to sway voters as "Why Teach" stated. Pointing out the many problems in the agreement does not mean that I do not support the Administration, my fellow Board Members or the JEA. It means that I am looking for the solution that is best for the students, taxpayers and the JEA.
Sincerely,
Bill Sodemann

My daughter has a Sodemann girl in class. The older girls were home schooled until 9th grade when they are sent to Parker.

As a former Board member and President, I disagree with Commissioner Sodemann on his voting posture in regards to the contract settlement. Although I understand that he didn't agree with some aspects of the settlement, the Board's negotiating team agreed, the JEA negotiating team agreed,and a majority of JEA members agreed. With that in mind he certainly could have voiced his concerns at the meeting prior to the vote and showed his support for the Board, Administration and JEA members by voting in the affirmative. It would have been a supportive gesture towards his board colleagues and JEA members. It also would have been the right thing to do.

huntfish1....Are you sure?
According to Bill's post's on previous articles, at least some of his kids attend Janesville public schools.

Bill,
You got re-elected with this kind of ignorant talk, it is past the election time and you can stop trying to sway voters now.
Dennis, I guess you were right, the teachers were dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Thanks for your support and how important you think teachers are, “If we didn’t appreciate them, (the contract) wouldn’t look like this" I am glad you are enjoying benefits that you took away from us.

Mr. Sodemann also apparantly doesn't realize that nearly all of the clerks, aides and food workers who work in the district don't even qualify for or are offered any health insurance benefits. But if he wants to offer them to those groups, I'm sure they'd be glad to pay 5% of the total cost of insurance in order to get it.

Sodeman's kids are homeschooled so that tells you how much he appreciates teachers in this district.

Sodemann and reality parted their ways quite a while ago!