No Runny Eggs

It’s been a while since I fisked the Fifth Column at 4th and State, but their Daffy Duck “Mine, mine, mine, all mine!” approach to Germantown’s desire to leave MATC deserves a thrashing: Paging Mel Blanc, pick up the red courtesy phone:

There’s been talk in Germantown about whether the community should leave the Milwaukee Area Technical College district and join some other, less expensive, tech school district, such as Moraine Park, which serves most of Washington County. The sentiment is understandable – who doesn’t want to pay less in taxes? – but what makes the most sense is for Germantown to stick with MATC.

Who doesn’t want to pay less in taxes? Dhimms and the MJS editorial board (P-Mac and Mabel Wong excepted).

Although Germantown is in Washington County and obviously has ties to West Bend and the U.S. 45 corridor, it is still an essential part of the metro Milwaukee area. At the same time, the roughly $5 million Germantown sends to MATC makes a significant contribution to keeping the school healthy. And there’s the fact that of the 804 students from Germantown currently in the statewide technical school system, the largest contingent (229) attends MATC campuses.

Translation – “That money’s mine, mine, mine, all mine. It’s not enough the students attend MATC and pay the fees to do so; we need more.” Because MATC is closer than Moraine Park’s main school in Fond du Lac, and because the West Bend school is little more than an afterthought while MATC spent and spent and spent and spent and spent and spent to make all campuses equal, I’ll wager that a heap of West Bend students that want programs not offered at the West Bend Moraine Park school go to MATC rather than schlep up to Fond du Lac.

Still, the proposal should spur a fruitful discussion.

I’ll start; do we need both the system that spawned MATC, Moraine Park Technical College and WCTC, and UW-Waukesha? No.

MATC officials need to pay closer attention to the concern over tax hikes. It obviously requires a hefty budget, but MATC should consider whether it really needs repeated annual 5% hikes in the tax levy and whether its programs are being run as efficiently as possible.

Translation – “Can’t pay those teachers more than college profs any other way, after all. Can’t duplicate all the offerings at all 4 campuses any other way, after all. Besides, when we advocate more than doubling the state tax, maybe we can ask MATC to only raise taxes 4.99%. Let’s figure out how to do that without reducing the size and growth rate of MATC.”

State officials should consider creating a truly metropolitan technical school district by placing Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Washington and Waukesha counties into one district. Such a district could provide better strategic planning and more efficient governance and could spread out cost.

Translation – “MINE! MINE! MINE! Back, WCTC. Back, Gateway. Back Moraine Park. THAT TAX MONEY’S MINE! ALL MINE!”

Change the governance structure to guarantee fair representation for those paying the bills and some accountability to taxpayers. Of the nine current board members, not one comes from Washington or Ozaukee counties. And board members are appointed in an almost Byzantine process that ensures taxpayers have virtually no say in who is raising their taxes.

Translation – “Throw them a bone for paying all the bills, but keep all the power with the liberals in the city of Milwaukee just like MMSD.”

Keep Germantown in the MATC district. But let’s start a serious discussion about making MATC more accountable to taxpayers and a truly regional work force resource.

I guess I won’t get my idea for getting rid of MATC heard then because by “serious”, they mean, “How do we sucker more people to dump money into this pit?”