The theme of Wisconsin’s traveling budget hearings is clear: Local school leaders need more money.
Members of the legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee yesterday listened as another cavalcade of local school leaders pressed them for higher wages. Neillsville School District Administrator John Gaier says schools used to have to ask taxpayers for more money only when they wanted to build new buildings, but now he says they have to go to taxpayers just to cover teacher pay raises. The JFC hearing was in Eau Claire yesterday; lawmakers will hold another hearing later today in the Wisconsin Dells. The point is to hear what the people want included in the new state budget. Lawmakers will start writing the new two-year spending plan early next month.
