CRG REPORT ATTACKS MATC WITH LIES

The article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel dealing with the Citizens for Corporate Responsibility (CRG) report on MATC is nothing less than an attack on MATC, our students and the community. The report is not a “forensic audit” as it claims. In fact, it is not an audit at all.

Instead, it is an ideological document that begins with a premise that MATC is inefficient and the faculty overpaid and then cherry picks “facts,” many of them outright lies and exaggerations, to validate the premise.

There is no original research. Most of the data was simply cut and pasted from earlier Milwaukee Journal Sentinel articles or Bruce Murphy’s columns. It ignores numerous student and employer surveys that consistently find high levels of satisfaction with MATC’s education and graduates. It concludes with proposals that would force tens of thousands of students out of college and exacerbate the state’s skilled labor shortage.

The Journal Sentinel itself is guilty of irresponsible journalism because it has taken a report from a right-wing activist organization with a narrow agenda and presented it as an independent and credible study.

CRG was formed in response to a real fiasco in county government. However, it has now morphed into a single issue Republican front group dedicated to undermining support for public institutions like MATC and hostile to all public employees, something the Journal Sentinel does not report.

FACTUAL ERRORS

The CRG report is filled with consistently false information masquerading as facts. Just a few examples can make our point:

1) CRG states that all MATC faculty members receive double pay increases every year averaging 6% to 8% per year. This is a complete fabrication. While some members receive a step increase, just like employees in every other school district in the state and country, most MATC faculty do not because they are at the top step, having taught for 14 years or more. In fact, the impact of step increases at MATC is significantly less than at most schools. More than 60% of the faculty only received a modest 2.85% increase over each of the last three years. That increase is less than 14 out of the 15 other technical colleges in the state.

2) CRG states that retiring employees can cash in or use for retiree health care 150 sick days. This is another outright lie. Only 48 days can be cashed or used for health care and only if someone accumulates twice that number of sick days. The total amount that could be paid is therefore 1/3 of the amount CRG reported.

3) CRG states part-time faculty and staff get paid sick leave at retirement
The lies continue. There is no payment of sick days at retirement for any part-time employee.

4) CRG states MATC faculty receive 8 sabbaticals a year. At least they are only half wrong here. The maximum number of sabbaticals is four in one year. Paraprofessional staff may get one sabbatical.

5) CRG states MATC cost per FTE is $24,000 The truth, according to the Wisconsin Technical College system state office, is $12,000, the state average for tech colleges. Given that MATC has 25% more programs and more students than any other tech college, our costs per FTE indicate that the college is efficiently run.

6) CRG states the average MATC faculty salary is $90,000. The truth is the range of faculty salaries is $44,002 to $85,156. Faculty who earn above that are teaching additional courses at a reduced part-time faculty salary rate or are being paid to do administrative work. There is no additional cost to the taxpayer because someone needs to be hired to teach these classes or do the work. Fulltime faculty who teach above their regular load are paid at the same rate as any other part-time teacher, not at the full-time rate. In fact, taxpayers are getting a 40% cost break compared to hiring new full time employees to teach the same class.

PROPERTY TAXES

CRG is correct that MATC is increasingly reliant on local property taxes. But they are wrong when they attribute this to increasing faculty salaries. As we’ve stated before, salaries have gone up only 2.85% per year over the last three years and only a little more than that the previous two years.

The reason WTCS property taxes have increased is because the State of Wisconsin under Republican leadership has reneged on its commitment to provide tech colleges with one third of their funding. State funding for tech colleges has been cut in half, declining from 33% of WTCS funding in 1990 to 15% today. MATC receives $5 million less from the state today than it did in 2000.

The Republican politicians who cut MATC’s funding are the very ones who urged tech colleges to use their property tax to compensate for the state’s refusal to contribute its share. These politicians are CRG allies, so the hypocrisy is obvious.

CRG ATTACKS STUDENTS

Today MATC’s students contribute 25% more to their education than the state of Wisconsin does. In a recent survey that CRG ignores, students cited increased tuition as one of the main obstacles to student success. And what does CRG propose? DOUBLING MATC TUITION! This would make MATC more expensive than most four year UW Universities and all two year UW colleges.

This 100% increase might save the CRG authors a few bucks on their property taxes in the short run, but it would cost the community dearly. The reason is that such a tuition increase would force thousands of MATC’s students out of college, undermining MATC’s ability to educate the next generation of skilled employees for the state’s economy. This in turn would lead to increases in police, child welfare, prison, and Medicaid costs coupled with decreases in tax revenue from less educated and less productive citizens.

Thus in the long run, the tax burden would be heavier for all area citizens.

The CRG also proposes that MATC stop offering Pre College programs. Apparently the group is unaware of the state law that mandates all technical colleges provide basic skills education or that MATC and UWM officials are discussing the feasibility of MATC providing all pre-college education in the district because MATC faculty do a better job of working with these students.

The proposal is also wrong-headed. Milwaukee has 89,000 adults without high school degrees. These folks need to improve their literacy and mathematical skills if they are to become productive citizens. Equally important, they are the solution to the state’s shortage of skilled workers which is widely acknowledged as Wisconsin’s biggest obstacle to prosperity. Yet CRG proposes to eliminate the very programs that serve these disadvantaged populations.

Unlike MPS which has a big teacher turnover, MATC has a stable and highly respected faculty and staff because it pays a competitive wage. Every survey of MATC students and employers yields the same result: MATC’s competitive advantage is its faculty.

MATC recruits most of its faculty from private industry. The college has to pay market rates to attract the best web site designers, nurses, engineers and welders. MPS has trouble finding trade and technical teachers because it doesn’t pay salaries that compete with the private sector!

The Journal Sentinel can’t have it both ways, lamenting low teacher salaries in MPS (a real problem) and then criticizing MATC faculty compensation.

It would be one thing if the CRG Report was inaccurate -- that is, just sloppy, with some figures a little high and some a little low. But when all the errors make the college and faculty look bad, then random sloppiness cannot be the cause. Rather, CRG’s leadership is practicing conscious dishonesty! Any analysis of this report that fails to point that out is itself not being honest.

The Journal Sentinel needs to decide whether the state’s labor shortage is a problem worth addressing through investments in education and training. Or would it rather pander to right wing special interests that make a living attacking low and moderate income students and the educators who serve them?

Local 212 Leadership: Michael Rosen, Charlie Dee, Frank Shansky