Time for your meds vato.

Our small school district serves 7 communities. Our property taxes have gone up again this year, Act 10 is in force, our schools are in financial trouble. Our state funding is being reduced. Should we as a district complain because our state taxes are funding your schools? We have an entire "community" within our district that we pay taxes against their property values, but get no funding against that for the schools because their children go to their own schools (they have 3 schools so the buggies don't have so far to go, and kids don't have to walk more than 3 miles.) It is what it is around here. Our school board works with what they have available. It's not what everyone wants, but it is giving our children decent educations. The sky is not falling in Janesville. There are a lot of places in the State of Wisconsin in harder places.

That's pretty violent vato. You should talk to someone about that.

If the union would reopen the contract, and allow Act 10 to work, the Janesville School District budget would be balanced. After all, the contract will change accordingly in 2014 anyway.

Yes donnaw, we have to pay for schools somehow and if it doesn't come from one source, it will have to come from another.

But don't be naive enough to think that if we cut state aid to schools (putting more weight on the property tax payer) that your state income tax will lower. They'll just find something else to spend it on, good or bad.

And the more state aid we get the higher our state income tax. The less state aid the lower our income tax.

dtb....I never said where I thought the money should come from. What I said was that either we have more state aid to local districts and lower property taxes OR lower state aid and higher property taxes. I nevered said which way I thought it should go.

So sigma; you (like donnaw) think the entire cost of schools should be paid for by local taxes?

When Thompson first made that promise, most local property taxes went down a lot. They have crept up over time as everything increases in price.

dtb - YES! It is welfare. My property tax has not gone down. And out city is in a deficit. You cant prosper living in the hole.
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If funding is needed take it from the DNR, they seem to do nothing but chase bugs and ...well... nothing else. Now they are involved in tourism and stuff.

Easy Vatoloco, you enter an agreement that increases your costs prior to the State decreasing your revenue by lowering your aid. That is what happened last year(albeit aid is going up some this year) but costs are going up greater than revenue and the district is capped at how much revenue it can raise on its own. So the resultant is there is a deficit and costs have to be cut. Now the Monday morning quarterback would say, "why did we enter a contract when we knew our aid was going down". Well the answer is and was, the contract was entered well before Act 10 was passed by both houses and signed by the Governor. So Janesville was not able to take advantage of the "tools" offered by ACT 10.

Or the state can adjust the budget to increase school spending and not fund other programs as much. Which is it? You don't really know, do you? And you can't verify that the state tax rate has been raised and that money has gone to education.

HINT - back in the 90's when the economy was "good" there were higher revenues from most sources. I'm just asking you to substantiate your claim that your state income tax rates are higher than 15 years ago. Look at past budgets and you'll see that the state has repeatedly reniged on it's promise, leaving local tax payers to pick up the slack. Add into the equation revenue caps for school districts and you'll see why funding for our schools is in the crapper and local taxpayers are especially feeling the pinch.

Would you rather have 100% of school funding come from local property taxes, with no state or federal money in the mix? If that were the case, I can guarantee you neither your state nor federal taxes will decrease but your property taxes will surely increase.

dtb...the money has to come from somewhere unless you know of a secret source. Let's see, Doyle raised a whole bunch of taxes, excuse me, fees, to increase expenditures. The govt either lowers your property taxes by giving more aid to school districts and then raises your state income taxes to cover the increased aid. Or the state can lower state aid and then districts increase property taxes to cover the decrease.

So donnaw, how much have state tax rates increased since then? And how much of that increase has gone to education? Citation please. Or are you just blowing smoke as usual?

dtb...ya, and our state income taxes a lot higher.

Sigma, are you saying state aid is welfare? Gov. Thompson made the promise for the state to pay 2/3 the cost of public education to lower local property taxes. If the state lived up to that promise, our prop. taxes would be a lot lower.

When (if) Janesville can balance a budget with out being on welfare I think I will actually feel ok with the education that I am paying for. Until then, how do we ever expect a decent education to be given to students if the people doing the educating and running the show are so full of fail?

Imjustsaying...who paid for YOUR education ?

To imjustsaying.
The tax money you pay is not stealing. We must all pay to have a better city, county,state. I have not used the police or fire service but I still want them when I need them. To say anything about stealing your money to pay for services is silly and uneducated. In your way of thinking I sould not pay for anyone in the city, state level tha I think is not needed. That is scary way to think.

Sigma> I agree, of all the places I have lived, Janesville for sure has more of an over abundance of uneducated and unemployed. “Uneducated and Unemployed" don’t they usually go together

Hopefully this year the JSD will be able to do some correct math, instead of changing their numbers every time the wind blows. Hey, Pennington - don't forget - grant dollars in have to be matched with grant dollars out - please, no more budget "mistakes" before the numbers go public.

chell..read the article.

carlit, seriously you need meds for your condition! Such anger isn't healthy!

Carlito - kicked out? Try again...
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"For its part, the university has said only that he left in “good standing.”"
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"... said Barry, who implied Walker was expelled for unethical behavior despite having no proof."
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http://blogs.seattletimes.com/uwelection...

How are these reductions and increases determined?

The moron heading this State has no value on Education IMO it is because he was unable to get an education because of his conduct in college As if we recall he was kicked out. So he has a serious issue with schools.

ImJustSayin - you know the various ways to have kids, right?

Where's the chart that was in the paper showing the amounts for other area districts?

All I know is that I'm sick an tired of people stealing my money to pay for their children's educations. It's a clear case of a minority, in this case a childless person, being oppressed by the majority. Something that shouldn't happen in a Republic.

When people are on welfare they manage to just get by, sometimes barely. So now our education system is on welfare are we going to do just enough to get by? We wonder why we have so many dumb people around here. Rather than fix our financial problems we dont have to care anymore because we get state aid. Janesville = Fail.