Comments from Paul Hoffman, President of the Lakeshore Education Association, in opposition to Senate Bill 531. Hearing before the Senate Committee on Labor and Election Process Reform on February 8, 2006.

Chairman Reynolds and members of the Committee, my name is Paul Hoffman. I am an information technology instructor at Lakeshore Technical College and president of the Lakeshore Education Association. I’m here today representing the Wisconsin Education Association Council to testify in opposition to Senate Bill 531.

Our state’s 16 technical colleges are powerful engines that drive economic growth and workforce development in Wisconsin. Tens of thousands of students graduate from our technical colleges each year and go on to become the backbone of their local workforce.

WTCS graduates represent huge cadre of highly skilled workers that touch just about every sector of Wisconsin’s economy. They are our communities’ nurses, firefighters, childcare providers, police officers and paramedics. WTCS graduates build; weld; account; machine; manage; think; program; create; repair and perform thousands of other skills critical to the health of Wisconsin’s economy.

In addition to traditional instruction, the technical colleges also provide customized training and technical assistance directly to Wisconsin businesses. In 2004/05 alone, the technical colleges provided customized training to over 2,900 businesses, serving a total of nearly 24,000 employees. Technical assistance – essentially consultative services – was provided to 853 businesses.

The technical colleges’ direct services to business and industry lead to a more productive and flexible workforce, while simultaneously opening to employees the possibility of advancement along career ladders. These services are key components of regional economic development strategies.

SB 531 is a direct and immediate threat to the vitality and the range of economic and workforce development services the technical colleges provide. The technical colleges have three main revenue sources:

1. State aid – State aid to the technical colleges has essentially remained frozen for the past 6 years. General state aid has remained flat – at $118 million – since 2000-01.
2. Tuition – The WTCS State Board has made the choice to maintain affordability by moderating student fee increases. The choice to encourage broad access by keeping financial barriers low has been wise.
3. Property tax revenue - Over half of the technical colleges’ revenue is generated through the property tax. State aid represented around 1/3 of technical college costs through the 1980’s. But the state’s declining financial commitment to the WTCS has forced district boards to increasingly rely on the property tax as the means to maintain quality programs.

SB 531 would effectively freeze the technical colleges’ tax levy, eliminating the largest revenue option available to technical colleges. Meanwhile, the costs faced by technical colleges continue to climb aggressively.

The freeze required by SB 531, combined with increasing mandatory costs like healthcare; utilities; unemployment insurance premiums, will force the colleges to ratchet down the programs and services they now offer.

Under SB 531, the technical colleges will quickly loose the thing that makes them great: the ability to quickly develop programs and services to meet local needs. This year at Lakeshore Technical College we implemented several strategies to better serve our students and area businesses.

Among other things, we:

• Expanded capacity in our nursing program
• Implemented the Welding Technical Diploma day program.
• Implemented the Paramedic associate degree program.
• Created a Center for Entrepreneurship.
• Developed and offered renewable energy courses.
• Modified the Nursing Assistant program instructional delivery for students learning English as a second language.

These strategies would not have been possible without the additional resources our district board raised through the tax levy. They likely would not have been possible under SB 531 without major financial reallocations that would have negatively impacted other important programs offered at LTC. Wisconsin will not be well served by SB 531.

The state’s citizens and businesses are best served by a strong technical college system. I strongly urge you to oppose SB 531.

Thank you for your time.