Walker Short-changes Schools by about $100 million. He's a Budget Genius!

Do you want to know the state of Wisconsin schools? Last night NBC15 in Madison put together a revealing critique of Scott Walker's magical rescue of public education. 

As I've pointed out in previous posts, Walker and the legislature have made some major budgeting miscalculations that will only get worse as time moves on, unless Walker is removed from office.

Here's a perfect example of how wrong Walker was, big time, about something I only just heard about: 

NBC15: For 2012, schools lost $390 million just in general state aid. Walker originally said schools would save $488 million a year by requiring employees to contribute 5% towards their pension and 12% towards their healthcare. But that projection was flawed, as many schools already had their employees contributing to both pensions and healthcare.

Now, according to Governor Walker's own website touting his reforms, the real number for school savings is $389 million this year. Compared to the $390 million schools lost this looks like a wash, but not every school was hit the same.

For example, the Fall River School District saved $122,000 in employee costs after the Governor's budget went into effect, but that barely made up half of the $235,000 they lost in state aid. In the end, Fall River had to cut its budget and still raised taxes 4.4%.

Having just gotten an earful from my conservative friend about how much money schools are saving, and how much better off we are now, this NBC15 piece begs to differ: