At a forum held at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee on Thursday, 09/23, Scott Walker continued with his blame of public sector workers causing budget woes...
Asked if he would continue to impose furloughs on public employees as governor, Walker said such measures should be a last resort to balance the budget, not as a tool of punishment.
Furloughs wouldn't be needed if employees would agree to concessions, he said. "We came in and proposed very reasonable changes in terms of wages and benefits.
We asked for a pay freeze. We asked for $30-a-month more for health care," Walker said of his dealings with public employees. "For most people outside of government, they'd say that's a pretty reasonable expectation. All of my non-union employees started that as of January. We put in place furloughs for those collective bargaining units that did not help us, because to me that's only fair that if one group of employees is helping to balance the budget and another is not, that's where the furloughs should be issued.
"Three of our unions stepped forward. They voluntarily reached a settlement. A couple of our bigger unions, for political purposes, I'd argue, decided not to do anything until after November."
If everyone agreed to the changes, Walker said, the county would save $10.3 million have a budget surplus through the end of the year instead of having to look at furloughs.
Walker also said, if elected, he'll immediately require state employees to contribute toward their pensions and will permanently eliminate some 4,000 vacant state positions.
Walker also insisted he wasn't responsible for structural problems at a Milwaukee County-owned parking garage where a falling concrete slab killed a teenager this summer.
An out-of-state engineering firm has concluded the problems go all the way back to installation in 1990s, he said.
"I was only a couple of years older than many of the students here today, so clearly I didn't have anything to do with that."
Source: WisPolitics.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
This blog is created to not only keep you informed, but to receive feedback from you as well. Please feel free to comment on any posts. We reserve the right to remove any post we deem inappropriate in language and/or content.