Walker’s Leadership Will Save Wisconsin Over $1 Billion Annually

Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch, Wisconsin’s Governor and Lieutenant Governor, announced that the bold fiscal steps and vision implemented in their first year in office will save Wisconsin over $1,000,000,000 annually.

The report announces, “The Legislative Fiscal Bureau has estimated pension savings alone over the biennium saving school districts nearly $600 million without including savings on health insurance.

School districts that reported competitively bidding out their health insurance plan with modest design changes saved $220 saved per pupil per year on average.  These savings do not include uncollected data from health insurance savings at CESA’s,
special districts, 68% of school districts, and many local governments in Wisconsin.

Extending the documented savings experienced from school districts that are documented, would add an additional $100 million of taxpayer savings.”

Governor Walker’s report includes a case study centered around the New Berlin school district. School officials in the New Berlin School District report that they were able to attain the following accomplishments by making use of the Governor’s reforms:

• Increased efficiency as a whole by being able to focus work on student learning and make real-time changes without the burden of collective bargaining, which in turn, allows the district to make decisions which are truly based on what’s best for students.
• Implemented a first-year strategic compensation model to pay staff for supporting the work of the district’s Vision and the district goals, projects, and initiatives (GPIs)
• Increased teaching staff by 8.0 full-time equivalents (FTE), reduced class sizes, increased program options for students, and provided additional supports for students.
• Implemented a teacher supervision and evaluation model based on research that provides supports for teachers and focused on best practices.
• Increased teacher work time for collaboration, professional training, curriculum development, and additional time to support students, additional time to meet with families from 7 hours per day for elementary teachers & 7.5 hours per day for secondary teachers to 8 hours/day, increasing staff time by almost 46,000 hours for the current school year.
• Implemented a Student-Family Assistance Program (SFAP) that provides additional support for district families for counseling, financial support, legal services, childcare support, among others.
• Reduced health insurance costs by $2.3 million.
• Reduced Other Post Employment Benefit (OPEB) Liability costs from $31 million to $16 million.
• Reduced contributions for employee retirement by almost $1.25 million
• In the next year, the school district will continue to refine its work in the areas stated above while continuing to achieve levels of excellence and will look to:
• Increase student contact time with teachers by 30 minutes per day. This adds up to approximately 12 days of instruction gained, with no added costs to the district.
• In the elementary schools, the increased teacher and student contact time will be utilized for
• increasing the reading and writing block, as well as offering science and social studies on a daily basis (which is currently not taking place). The added time will also provide enhanced interventions and enrichment opportunities for students at both the secondary and elementary levels.