In the Mt Horeb Mail this week they're reporting that the school budget has increased for this coming school year.  I don't have an opinion on whether this increase was completely necessary or not - I don't have that much information on what was included at this time.  However, we do know that this, combined with the state budget, will mean an increase of $12.00 per $100,000 per year in property taxes.  In other words, due to cuts in the stat budget our local taxes will be rising again. 

Remember a short while back when our state representatives were patting themselves on the back for making all those "hard decisions" on the state budget?  One of those hard decisions was to cut state aid to our schools and instead fund a bunch of pork to reward the members who voted for that travesty.  This doesn't qualify as a hard decision in my book.  A truly hard decision would be to place our children and our schools as a top priority and instead cut the pork.  In other words, make a real stand on the priorities for our state instead of politics as usual.  On the other hand, it looks like the towns, schools, and ultimately us as the taxpayers are going to have to continue to mark true hard choices as a consequence.

In contrast to the state budget which increased spending, increased taxes, increased fees, and ‘enhanced’ collection of those fees and taxes, the Village of Mt Horeb is facing true hard decisions in their budget.  As a consequence of all the spending, or more accurately where the spending went, in the state budget, townships and villages have to deal now with a 15 percent reduction in state aid.  Unfortunately, they truly will need to make tough choices. 

Representative Sondy Pope-Roberts appeared before the Mt. Horeb Village Board to try and explain this.  At one point she plainly admitted “It is not a budget any of us can come forward and brag about”.  Funny, I seem to remember many quotes from the Democrat majority bragging about how they made all the difficult decisions and did right by the people of Wisconsin in this budget.   Remember, they spent all those late nights, working hard through the night for us? 

The bottom line is that this nightmare of a budget was created in wee hours of the night, behind closed doors, largely in secrecy.  Our representatives, at least those in the Democrat majority, didn’t make the hard decisions we elected them to do and at the end of the day spent more money than they have – again.  This is clear as the budget passed on partisan, party lines.  When our representative sides with her party over the people she represents then you have to ask who is she representing?