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Legislative Alert: Contact Joint Finance on the Budget
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | March 20, 2013
I want to thank each and every one of the SAA members that have contacted their legislators in support of the SAA’s positions on the Governor’s education budget proposals. Your efforts are paying dividends. Increasing numbers of Republican legislators continue to voice their concerns about the Governor’s revenue cap freeze as well as his private school voucher and charter school proposals.
But, the battle is far from over. It’s a very long budget process (lasting in to June) and many legislators believe they can simply wait us out and we won’t be able to sustain the fight.
So, again, I want to thank all of you for contacting your legislators. For those of you that have yet to lobby your legislators, please do so ASAP. To be successful in this fight, all SAA members must contact their legislators repeatedly throughout the budget process.
Now, it is time for you to turn your attention to the Joint Finance Committee (JFC). Yesterday, the JFC began its formal work on the state budget with the start of state agency budget briefings.
I’m calling on each and every SAA member to collaborate with your district’s administrative team on a strategy to contact the 16 members of the Joint Finance Committee.
This budget contains many proposals that impact every school district in the state. But, for now, it is vitally important that we focus on the following:
- Support the Ellis/Olsen plan to increase the revenue cap per pupil increase by $150 in each year of the biennium.
- Support removing all private school voucher expansion proposals (including special needs vouchers) from the budget. Share with legislators that such a fundamental change in education policy really must stand as separate legislation – away from the budget – to allow the public’s voice to be heard. The voucher proposals need the public scrutiny that only a separate public hearing before the standing education committees can provide.
- Support removing all charter school proposals (for both school district and independent charter schools) from the budget. The public’s voice also must be heard – away from the budget – on these charter school proposals.
For SAA Talking Points on Private School Voucher Expansion, Special Needs Vouchers and Charter School Budget Proposals see here.
Please send a letter (phone calls work too) using the information discussed above and the talking points to the members of the Joint Finance Committee as soon as possible. Please share your communication with your legislators and with the SAA. We have provided contact information for each of the 16 members of the Joint Finance Committee below. For your convenience, I have also provided links to the Senate Directory, the Assembly Directory and Who Are My Legislators.
Senator Alberta Darling (608) 266-5830
Senator Luther Olsen (608) 266-0751
Senator Sheila Harsdorf (608) 266-7745
Senator Joe Leibham (608) 266-2056
Senator Mary Lazich (608) 266-5400
Senator Glenn Grothman (608) 266-7513
Senator Jennifer Shilling (608) 266-5490
Senator Robert Wirch (608) 267-8979
Representative John Nygren (608) 266-2343
Representative Pat Strachota (608) 264-8486
Representative Dale Kooyenga (608) 266-9180
Representative Dean Knudson (608) 266-1526
Representative Dan LeMahieu (608) 266-9175
Representative John Klenke (608) 266-0485
Representative Cory Mason (608) 266-0634
Representative Jon Richards (608) 266-0650
It is vitally important that we continue to communicate with our legislators on the major budget issues. The pushback from the pro-voucher groups and pro-charter groups will be enormous. We must match their intensity, not only today but tomorrow as well. This is a long fight and we must sustain our intensity for the next 4-5 months of the budget process. A lot of lawmakers believe they can simply wait us out and we won’t be able to sustain our intensity.
We need to prove them wrong. This is for all the marbles. Let’s fight for everything that is good in public education, let’s fight for all the reasons we made education our life’s work, and most importantly, let’s fight for our children’s future.
Thanks for listening, and thanks for all your efforts on behalf of Wisconsin school children.
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