POWIP Piece of Work In Progress – Former Abode of Dan Collins

Some More Recent Historical Context for Wisconsin-Union Dispute [UPDATEDx4]

Over the past week, we've gotten a lot of hits for our post on Wisconsin teacher salaries in context, but fewer for the recent Wisconsin history in which one needs to place Walker's pending legislation to limit public union bargaining power. I'm returning to the subject, because, like Mitch Daniels, some of the folks on the conservative side of the blogosphere are having second thoughts about the extent of Walker's initiatives:

Politifact digs deeply and concludes that Walker's union-busting proposals (as contrasted with the cost-sharing proposals) were not part of his campaign and really did come out of right field. I had reluctantly reached that same conclusion (on much less research) on Monday.

Below, you have Enoch's post on just what it was he believed that he was voting for when he cast his ballot for Walker, but, as usual, there's more to the story, and it has to do with self-dealing in Milwaukee County, where Walker became County Executive, despite the entrenched unionism, after an enormous pensions scandal involving his predecessor, F. Thomas Ament:

Discussions began in earnest in April 2000, after Ament’s re-election, when the pension fund was awash in money. “I think we all felt very rich because the fund had done so well,” says Supervisor Mark Borkowski.

Dobbert’s early memos to Ament included a proposal to allow veteran employees to get an annual pension equal to 90 or even 100 percent of their final average salary. This was a radical change in county government, which had always barred employees from getting more than 80 percent of their final salary.

To get around this, Dobbert created a plan that technically left people at 80 percent but then applied a 25 percent increase on the back end – not when computing their years of service but in figuring their final average salary. The net effect: Dobbert, Ament and all other employees who started before 1982 could collect 105 percent of their final average salary, directly contradicting a county ordinance still on the books.

The 25 percent increase is contained in numerous memos and is understandable to anyone who has mastered the seventh-grade skill of figuring percentages. Ament was then earning $125,000, and his salary, by previous ordinance, would rise to $168,000 by 2008. Even at the old standard of 80 percent, Ament would have gotten an annual pension payment of $149,000, plus paid-up health insurance for life.

But Ament opted for 105 percent, which would increase his annual pension to $186,000 a year, far more than retired American presidents, who get a mere $166,700 a year (and no paid-up health insurance for life).

To help finance this magnificent benefit, the memos show that Ament rejected an idea to provide a 3 percent cost-of-living increase in the pension payment for retired county workers, which would have cost $1.85 million per year. They would get nothing. The administration also dumped a proposal to give every employee a lump-sum pension payment of $1,000 for every year worked.

This latter idea would have treated all employees equally regardless of their salary level. For Ament, who would have 40 years of service by 2008, this would have yielded a lump-sum payment of $40,000. Instead, Ament and Dobbert selected the backdrop plan, which was skewed to offer the best benefits to those with the highest salaries and the longest terms of service. Ament now says his lump sum could be cut back to $641,000 because of IRS rules, but independent actuary Joan Gucciardi says that even with this rule, Ament could have still collected $2.3 million if he served until 2008.

Scott Walker defeated the union candidate in Milwaukee County as a result of this grotesque pilferage. Meanwhile, as Dan Riehl notes, WEAC, the Wisconsin Educational Association Council, has been forced to pay back taxes owed the state, and may prove to have been gouging on the health insurance it provides to teachers in the state. It's this pattern of self-dealing that most bothers Wisconsinites, and that reached its apex in the lame duck session, when outgoing Governor Doyle and the Dem State Senators tried to renegotiate contracts with 17 unions in order, among other things, to give them effective control over their workplaces without all that intrusive governmental oversight.

According to this article in the WSJ, Obama and company are sitting the States vs Unions battle out, having received a warning shot across their bow. That would be prudent, but whether you believe it or not is up to you. That the administration didn't see criticism of a state's attempt to balance its budget would necessarily invite comparison to the hot mess that Obama sent to Congress doesn't say much for them. In other words, stupidly.

It does invite the question, though, whether Obama realizes that Card Check is dead, or whether he thinks he needn't weigh in on individual states and have his ass handed to him repeatedly, because he's going to push it through.

Keep floating that meme balloon, boys. I predict another long, hot summer for The Won, especially considering how summer travellers are going to feel, caught between the TSA and soaring gas prices.

Related: Brent crude tops $120 in overnight trading.

UPDATE: Ament's Lament:

“I probably never will be able to run again for office.”

Just. wow.

UPDATEx2:

In fiscal 1998, according to the NCES, Wisconsin spent $7,123 per pupil in its public primary and secondary schools. In the Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading test that year, Wisconsin public school eighth-graders scored an average of 266 out of a possible 500. As a result of that test, only 33 percent of Wisconsin's public school eighth-graders earned a rating of "proficient" or better in reading.

By 2008, Wisconsin was spending $10,791 per pupil in its public primary and secondary schools. Yet, in the 2009 NAEP reading test, Wisconsin public school eighth-graders again scored an average of only 266 out of a possible 500. Only 34 percent earned a rating of "proficient" or better in reading.

When the $7,123 per pupil Wisconsin spent in its public schools in 1998 is adjusted for inflation, it equals $9,408 in 2008 dollars. Thus, even though Wisconsin increased per pupil spending by $1,383 dollars from 1998 to 2008 (from $9,408 to $10,791), it did not gain a single point on its average eighth-grade reading score.

Wisconsin had similar results in math. In 1996, the state's public school eighth-graders scored an average of 283 out of 500 in math. In 2008, they scored an average of 288 out of 500 -- or 1 percent higher than in 1996.

And regarding SAT scores:

Consider Wisconsin’s third-place ranking in the SAT. It sounds great -- but only 4 percent of graduates in the state took the test in 2010, and those that did likely did so because they had a particular need to take the SAT as they applied to certain colleges. And that means that Wisconsin SAT takers were a self-selecting group, probably more academically advanced than average.

As a result, it’s fairer to look at Wisconsin’s ranking on the ACT, which was taken by 67 percent of graduates in 2009. And that ranking was 13th in the nation -- not bad, but well short of the 2nd place finish cited in the Facebook post.

Meanwhile, in the five non-collective-bargaining states, the SAT was the more widely taken test, and in those rankings, the non-union states placed between 34th and 49th nationally. Meanwhile, for the ACT -- where participation ranged from 15 percent to 50 percent -- the rankings in the non-union states ranged from 22nd to 46th.

So, on neither test did the five non-collective bargaining states perform as well as Wisconsin did, and in general those five states clustered in the bottom half of the national rankings. Given these statistics, it’s reasonable to say that Wisconsin outperformed the other five states significantly -- but not as overwhelmingly as the blog and Facebook posts suggest.

UPDATEx3:

Wisconsin’s teachers are required to teach children about the history of the labor union movement and collective bargaining in the United States, per a law former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle signed in December 2009. Wisconsin’s Assembly Bill (AB) 172 requires the state’s teachers to incorporate “the history of organized labor in America and the collective bargaining process” into their lesson plans.

You know what? I've got a little less trouble with this idea than some people probably do, since I'm convinced that this has a bit more substance than the plight of the polar bear. On the other hand, I'm sure that if you look through the material, you're not going to find anything about labor unions' ties to organized crime or the rubber-roomed perverts who stay on payroll to do nothing because they can't be fired, or how taxpayers' money is used to lobby against their best interests when unions can mandate dues be extracted from paychecks.

UPDATEx4:

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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