First Statewide Wisconsin
LibertyVention: June 15-16, 2012
A statewide celebration of the Tea Party
movement will be held June 15 – 16, 2012 at
the historic Hotel Mead and Convention
Center in Wisconsin Rapids, WI.
The name LibertyVention has been
adopted for the event to reflect the Tea
Party’s true mission. The movement sprung
up more than three years ago out of a desire
to restore liberty and roll back government
intrusion into the lives of American citizens.
Plans are in full motion to bring national
and state speakers to the two-day conventionstyle
gathering. Individual members of
Tea Party and invited groups from across
Wisconsin will be in attendance to engage,
network, learn and relax during the two day
event.
LibertyVention will be hosted by
Northwoods Patriots, the Wisconsin 9/12
Project, the Uninfringed Liberty Group, and
Wausau Tea Party. Other Tea Party groups
who would like to help sponsor the event,
please contact one of the hosting groups.

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.

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.

The state has given school districts flexibility in balancing their budgets. The employees now have some "skin" in the game, which helped avoid large layoffs.

In the state budget, the La Crosse School District will receive about 4.9 million less in state aid. The district was able to save about 3.7 million by having employees contribute to the health and retirement plans. Further savings could be made by offering health plans with higher deductibles and co-pays along with a pay freeze. Federal stimulus dollars made up most of the rest of the cut.

The Onalaska School District will receive 1.5 million less in state aid. The district chose a new health plan with higher deductibles and co-pays. Employees are contributing half the cost of the retirement plan and have had their pay frozen. The district was able to balance their budget with these changes.

I believe most people would agree that transparency in our government institutions and accountability among its employees are a good idea in order for voters and tax payers to make the appropriate decisions when it comes to election day.

Dick Record recently lectured me on Facebook about this very subject with regard to the Sumi ruling against the collective bargaining law.  He ignored a lot of facts in the process of his lecture but he was absolutely right to point out the importance of transparency in all of our government institutions.