Waukesha Forward has published their new newsletter and much of what they said, we agree with-the support the AB447, AB448 and AB449, the call on the union to slow down the rate of growth of teachers’ salaries. However, while we appreciate the board’s attempt to slow down the administrative salaries, we believe they should have been frozen. If our district adminstrative costs were brought into line with other districts (per position comparison), our district could have saved hundreds of thousands (see WaukeshaForward.org). In addition to slowing down the rate of growth in teacher salaries, we also believe there needs to be changes in the insurance–copays AND contributions to premiums. These are all things that the Waukesha Taxpayers League has supported for a very long time.
Now that we are coming into tax season, we will give a lesson on how to calculate school taxes. This has been an area of contention we have had with the school district and the way the tax increases get underplayed. Sometimes, the newspaper catches the misreprentation and sometimes they don’t.
The slowing real estate market will place more emphasis on “mill rate” increases vs. assessed values.