Another Republican Sneak Attack on Milwaukee, Citizens and Minorities: Pay attention folks!
While few were watching the Senate committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Higher Education advanced SB 275 after a series of 4-3 party line votes created a bill that would disband the Milwaukee Area Technical College Board. The four who voted in favor were:
Dale Schultz, Chair (R-Richland Center)
Sheila Harsdorf (R-River Falls)
Neal Kedzie (R-Elkhorn)
Terry Moultin (R-Chippewa Falls)
It is pretty hard to be farther from Milwaukee than these four water carriers for the Republican donors.
This bill will dismantle the board and rebuild it by eliminating the existing two employer, two employee, one at large seat. (this has been in place for at least 100 years) These five board seats would be replaced by five board members who must be from private “for-profit” businesses or from health care entities, credit unions or cooperatives.
If this isn't bad enough they also changed the Board Appointment Process. I worked at MATC from 1966 to 1997 and was knowledgeable and involved with the formation on the District in the late 1960's as it evolved from Milwaukee Institute of Technology into the current MATC and I was also responsible for the Board Appointment process in the 1990's. The MATC District was deliberately formed to correspond with the boundaries of the school districts and not municipalities. This was done to assure that the educational mission of the College would be carefully coordinated with the k-12 schools in the district and that the College would not be subject to partisan politics of municipalities. Currently the MATC board appointment committee is made up of the chairs of the Schools Boards in the district and additional members from the Milwaukee board to reflect its size. This process has been in effect since the formation of the district.
SB 275 would eliminate this Board Appointment committee and replace it with a four member appointment committee made up of the Milwaukee County Executive, The Milwaukee County Board Chair (Milwaukee county has 90% of the population of the MATC District), the Washington County Board Chair,(Just a small portion of Washington County is in the MATC District and that represents 2% of the District population) and the Ozaukee County Board Chair (most, but not all of Ozaukee County is in the MATC District and it represents 7% of the District Population). The Republicans in the suburban counties are not satisfied with financially starving Milwaukee, now they want to call the shots on what is left.
Without going into more detail, SB 275 will remove small business, public service, and citizen representation and essentially define all of the current minority board members out of their board positions. This bill is remarkable in the amount of damage it will do. It is essentially a Private for-profit take over of a publicly funded college.
Each day more and more people send me warnings of creeping fascism. Just saying,