July 1, 2005

GOP’s budget is a bleak future and a blank check

WEAC President Stan Johnson issued the following statement today following the announcement of the Republican Senate leadership’s state budget proposal:

“Governor Doyle proposed a fiscally responsible budget and made education his first priority back in February. The Republican legislative leaders have now clearly demonstrated that education is not a priority, and they are determined to sacrifice our state’s future to prove it.

“To entice the votes of two holdout senators the Republican leadership took a bad budget from the Assembly and made it even worse by bowing to those senators’ favored special interests. The result is a rollback to 1981 in terms of school funding adjustment levels and a bizarre tax break available only to parents whose children do not attend public schools. While public school children stare at a bleak future, special interests see a blank check.

“This comes at a time when the school district in Florence is forced to close its doors because of inadequate state funding and great schools throughout the state are in dire straits after 12 years of revenue caps. The Republican leadership’s response to this state’s school funding crisis is, ‘We don’t care.’”