On Eliminating Wisconsin Teacher Salary Growth Caps (QEO)

Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:

Spend more with less money.

That's the impossible demand Democrats who run the state Capitol seem anxious to make on local school boards across Wisconsin.

Democrats who control the governor's office and the Legislature suggest they're going to repeal a long-standing law that effectively caps annual pay raises for public school teachers. Democrats have been promising to remove the cap for more than a decade and now have the political power to do so.

But allowing higher annual raises for teachers will require more money from somewhere. And state leaders don't have any dollars to spare. They're staring at a record state budget shortfall.

So where will the money come from?

Not from property taxes. Gov. Jim Doyle and other Democrats suggest they'll keep in place a state cap on local school district revenue. Revenue caps limit how much local property tax levies can increase.

That will leave school boards with higher salary expenses but no easy way to pay for them.

Dave Blaska noted that WEAC spent $2,100,000 on five Wisconsin Assembly races in 2008.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 7, 2009 1:11 AM
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