MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius says “it would be wonderful” if Wisconsin teachers could again collectively bargain and Act 10 was reversed despite a feud with the teachers union over the district’s projected $46 million deficit.

“I’ve always been a supporter of unions and labor,” Cassellius said on WISN 12’s “UpFront,” which is produced in partnership with WisPolitics. “I think they play a really important part. I actually said to the union I’d want to be one of the first ones to have our contract in place.”

Cassellius is proposing a reduction of roughly 260 positions, a majority of those at the district office, alongside delaying raises for teachers to address the deficit.

The union is asking the Milwaukee Public Schools Board to reject the proposal.

“That would not be responsible,” Cassellius said. “We have to make the very difficult decisions to tighten our belt to make sure that we’re spending within our means. We have been overspending within the district.

“What I’m trying to do is not only look at budgeting for this year, but I’m looking at budgeting for the out years, too,” Cassellius added. “We only have about $14 million left on the referendum that we can spend in the budget year past this one, and so we know that by (fiscal year) ’28, which is the funding for the school year ’27-28, we won’t have any new additional referendum dollars.”

Cassellius said asking voters to approve a new referendum is not out of the question.

“I’ve not ruled that out,” she said. “I’ve tried to be really honest with the public. I have said that I do think there’s a point where we need to come to the public for referendum. I think there’s also a point to have a conversation with the public around our buildings. The age of our buildings is 85 years old. They are really getting at the lifespan of their use.

“If we get a successful vote from the board, we should be in really good shape for the next school year,” Cassellius added. “The next one will be a little bit tougher after that, according to the forecast, and it gets really tough in five years if we do nothing. We could be facing a $400 million deficit in five years if we do nothing.”

Dem gubernatorial candidate Kelda Roys says Mandela Barnes “underperformed” in his 2022 U.S. Senate bid when asked about the former lieutenant governor’s standing in the race.

“That makes a lot of sense because polls are a reflection of who spent money,” Roys, a Dem state senator from Madison, told “UpFront.” “And we spent tens of millions of dollars trying to elect Mandela to the Senate. Unfortunately, that was unsuccessful. He underperformed the top of the ticket by, I think, four-and-a-half points versus what Tony Evers did, and when you spend a lot of money early in the race and don’t have that money to communicate later when voters start to pay attention, that is a choice that one could make. But I think the smarter choice is to use your resources when voters are starting to pay attention.”

The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union, endorsed Roys last week.

“I earned it because of my policy positions, because of my plans for public education and because I think they recognized that this election is in some ways existential for our public schools,” Roys said. “It’s the most important endorsement that’s going to happen in this Democratic primary. They have the most reach. They have the most resources. They have the moral authority representing 70,000 educators and public school support professionals across the state of Wisconsin.”

Roys insisted no matter the polls, she will remain in the race through the August primary.

“They’re certainly going to see my name,” she said.

Emergency management officials continue to assess damage statewide from storms and flash flooding across the state that prompted Gov. Tony Evers to declare a state of emergency.

“You have the state emergency operations center active and operating since Tuesday,” Greg Engle, the Wisconsin emergency management administrator, told “UpFront”. “We’ve been providing resources as requested by local governments or counties and providing sandbags, pumps, sandbagging machines, and we do have swift water rescue teams on standby as well.

“We don’t have any plans to deploy the (National) guard to any other communities at this point, but if they are needed and requested, we will be ready to do that,” Engle added. “At this point, we haven’t had any resource requests that we haven’t been able to fill. So at this point, we’ve been able to handle it within the state. We haven’t needed to ask for any help from the federal government.”

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