The La Crosse School District has employed a consultant/broker (Willis Group of Milwaukee) to assist them in making changes to the health insurance coverage of its employees that will reduce cost to both employee and employer. Willis made a presentation to the school board on Monday the 6th and Thursday the 8th to employees noting various small changes that could be made to the plan.

The current insurance carrier is the WEA trust. They have provided the school district their experience in detail each month and the total for the year. With that information the school has not felt it necessary to advertise the plan for the last few years as the trust has held the premium while experience of others in the area has been to see increases. Some changes to the coverage have been made that helped keep the premium stable. They were able to reduce cost of the plan in the current year by about three per cent.

April 29, 2011 I filed a complaint with the GAB re Jeffery Greene and his use of school district of La Crosse equipment and time to send at least one e-mail to various people regarding efforts to elect Steve Doyle.

D. A. Gruenke responded to my complaint to the GAB and requested the police department do an investigation to further determine what happened. The police complied and sent their report to the D A who forwarded the information to the GAB. As the investigation was underway (and still is) I have not had access to the report.

With information provided by the La Crosse School District, I have found some interesting facts about the high cost of salary and benefits for employees of the district.

I conducted an exhaustive study of just the support staff, and without covering the entire force of 337 people, I found the secretaries to be rather representative of the whole group.

Using the support staff and the partial group of secretaries helps explain why taxes for the district are so high. The following refers only to the support staff and does not cover teachers or administration costs, which may be higher.

Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG) has heard and is very concerned that some people in the La Crosse area are having trouble getting proper identification to vote in the upcoming elections. We want everyone that wants to vote, have the ability and identification to do so.

We are prepared to assist in helping those people get their problem resolved. We ask that you provide us with the exact problem that you are having and what action you have taken to date. We cannot help you if you have not tried to get an ID card from the Department of Motor Vehicles. If you are unsure of the procedure we will give you directions to help resolve the question.

Contact Dave Drewes at 788-4990 Jim Grenisen at 785-0857 or Jerry Every at 385-6309.

Whereas the city of La Crosse has now had three straight years of no tax increases under the leadership of Mayor Harter, who at the same time was dealing with a recalcitrant city council;

And whereas the local Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG) group is convinced a city administrator, at great cost to the city, could do no better;

And whereas the Common Council noted with great emphasis that they cut everywhere possible, (which would suppose that would leave absolutely no room for ANY amount of expense for consideration of a city administrator), in overriding the Mayor’s veto of the budget;

And whereas CRG believes that the city is already top heavy with supervisory personnel and burdened with the accompanying administrative costs in salary and fringe benefits;