Doyle Meets With Members On Lobby Day

Teachers and education support professionals are the ones who know what's needed to help children succeed and to maintain Wisconsin's great public schools, Governor Doyle told more than 500 WEAC members Tuesday (June 19, 2007) before they spread throughout the State Capitol to lobby in favor of the governor's pro-education state budget plan.

"I hope that as you move out of here and into the Capitol that the people are listening because you have such an important message to bring," Doyle said at the beginning of the 2007 WEAC Lobby Day at the Monona Terrace Convention Center near the Capitol.

Doyle told the teachers and ESP that they are the ones who directly see and understand the positive impact of 4-year-old kindergarten, small class sizes, and quality health care for children.

"You're the ones who know what it means to have a child come to school who has not had health care and is suffering from significant health issues, who has a mouthful of cavities or doesn't have the needed eyeglasses to see the board," he said.

"It's very, very important that your voice is heard," he said. "You have a bold agenda out there to fight for - for the kids of this state - and I know you're going to get it done."

Doyle said he was impressed by the large number of educators who gave up time just as school let out to come to Madison "to fight for things so important to the future of this state and the future of this country."

Doyle reiterated that education is his top priority and that he put his 2007-09 state budget plan together with that in mind.

"If you're a big oil company and smoke three packs of cigarettes a day you probably don't like my budget," Doyle said. But if you are from a middle-class working family that values education, you will like it very much, he added.

Doyle listed several of his pro-child, pro-family budget provisions including tax deductions for child care, health care, and higher education costs.

He also mentioned many of his pro-education measures including maintaining two-thirds state funding of K-12 education; and increasing funding for school breakfast programs, 4-year-old kindergarten, the SAGE class-size reduction program, transportation costs for rural school districts, and school safety measures by exempting those costs from the restrictions of school district revenue controls.

Finally, he said, "it is past time to repeal the outdated and inflexible Qualified Economic Offer law."

Doyle said the Democrat-controlled State Senate "is geared up and ready to go" to help public education in Wisconsin, but "we have more work to do" in the Republican-controlled State Assembly. The Republican majority in the Assembly, he said, seems to think it is OK not to spend any more money on public schools than was spent two years ago.

Because of sharply rising costs, "That would result in the deepest cuts in education in the history of this state," Doyle said.

"This is something I never allowed to happen before, and I'm never going to allow to happen," he said.

In introducing the governor, WEAC President Stan Johnson said Doyle "has led the fight to make sure every child in Wisconsin attends a great school."

"He has taken on the hard fights against incredible odds, and won. In his first two budget cycles, Governor Doyle boldly used his veto authority to protect public schools from devastating budget cuts," Johnson said. "This budget cycle, the political landscape looks a little different. Governor Doyle has a few new friends in the state Senate. The governor has proposed a state budget that preserves two-thirds state funding of schools, boosts categorical aid, provides revenue cap relief, invests in technical colleges, treats support staff fairly under the Wisconsin Retirement System, and repeals the unfair Qualified Economic Offer law."

Following a review of issues, participants in the Lobby Day broke into regional sections to plan for their meetings with legislators. They spent the afternoon in legislators' offices talking directly to legislators or legislative aides about family and education issues.

Main Lobby Day page

Posted June 19, 2007