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VOTERS GUIDE; ELECTION 2006; WAUKESHA: SCHOOL BOARD; Waukesha Schools Candidates Have Different Priorities

Posted on: Monday, 3 April 2006, 03:03 CDT

By AMY HETZNER

Waukesha The only new candidate in the upcoming election for the School Board is an incumbent.

Following an unsuccessful referendum attempt and its aftermath, this year's School Board race pits a former candidate against three incumbents, one of whom was appointed to his position and has never run in a Waukesha School Board election.

The four will square off for three seats, each of which carries a three-year term, in Tuesday's election.

Candidate Patrick McCaffery missed his chance to serve on the School Board by only eight votes when he ran in 2000.

Now, he said, he thinks he would be able to bring new ideas to a board, where he said there is too little discussion and too little dissent to reflect the full community.

"I think the board needs new blood right now," McCaffery said. "I think a lot of members are entrenched in their positions and their thinking. And I think their thinking is going to hurt the School District in the long run."

McCaffery, a 35-year-old mechanical contractor, said he was galvanized to run again this year by the belief that current board members are squandering the district's limited resources.

In particular, he pointed to South High School's new pool, toward which the district has committed $2 million, only half of which was approved by residents in a 2001 referendum. The board asked residents for more money last year in its ill-fated referendum attempt.

"I think the people are sick of the School District spending millions of dollars and then crying poverty," McCaffery said.

But Daniel Warren, who has been on the School Board for about 13 years, said critics of the pool project don't understand the issues completely and risk sacrificing long-term vision for "short-term criticism."

"People can nitpick about someone's operating dollars here and operating dollars there," said Warren, 59, who works as development manager for Pabst Farms Development. "But the reality is those are relatively insignificant arguments when compared to much larger strategic financial decisions that this board has made."

Warren said he sees the district's spending on items such as the South pool and new charter schools as investments. Such initiatives are needed in times when public school choice programs pit school districts against each other for limited amounts of money, he said.

"When students have the ability and parents have the ability to choose where they send their children in an era of continual budget pressures, it'll be more and more difficult as time goes on for all school districts to hang on to those that are unique," Warren said. "And I think the school districts that end up with the ability to somehow maintain those unique programs in the end are going to win more students than they lose."

David M. Bauer, 36, a certified public accountant who was appointed to the board in June to replace former board member Roger Danielsen, agreed the district needs to focus on the areas that it does best.

That means, when the time comes to eliminate programs, it needs to single out the areas where the district is not as unique.

"Those are areas where we're going to continue to cut," he said.

He also pinpointed class size as something the district needs to protect as it deals with projected budget shortfalls in future years.

Even though he has not been on the board long, Bauer said, he has carved out health insurance as an area of interest. He would like the district to introduce more options to help bring costs down, particularly more consumer-driven models that better inform participants of the cost of their care.

"If we reduce the cost of health insurance, a vast majority, if not all, goes back to salaries," he said. "And there's a lot of studies that show our teachers are underpaid compared to other states, in salary at least."

School Board member Patricia Madden, on the other hand, has targeted building maintenance as an area that needs attention in the next three years.

"I would definitely like to get some money into maintaining our buildings," said Madden, 69, who has been on the School Board for three years. "Right now, we've got money that's not even a million bucks for 26 buildings. You just can't continue to keep repair on all those buildings at the level it should be with that kind of money."

But while she believes the district's buildings are underfunded, Madden also said the district's focus needs to be on academics when it makes decisions on expected program cuts in the future.

"Reading, writing, arithmetic is a priority," Madden said. "That's why we're there. That's why free education is there. And then we're going to have to look at every single thing that's not that."

The School Board will need to keep a close eye on the work of the Legislature, as it considers ways to further restrict local taxes and spending, Madden said.

Not all of that might be bad if they also remove some of the "arbitrary rules" that have been imposed on local boards and their negotiations with employee groups, she said.

David M. Bauer (inc.)

Age: 36

Address; years in district: 2003 Wildberry Court, Waukesha; 27 years

Occupation: Certified public accountant and chief financial officer for Lubar & Co.

Education: Bachelor's and master's degrees from Marquette University

Elective office, government experience: Appointed to School Board in June 2005

Family: Married; two children

Patricia Madden (inc.)

Age: 69

Address; time in district: 317 Cheviot Chase #2, Waukesha; almost entire life

Occupation: Retired

Education: Waukesha High School graduate; some college courses

Elective office, government experience: 3 years on Waukesha School Board; 14 years as Waukesha County clerk

Family: Divorced; four adult children

Patrick McCaffery

Age: 35

Address; time in district: 1010 Belmont Drive, Waukesha; 35 years

Occupation: Mechanical contractor

Education: Bachelor's degree from Carroll College

Elective office, government experience: None

Family: Married; three children

Daniel Warren (inc.)

Age: 59

Address; years in district: 1259 Lambeth Road, Waukesha; 21 years

Occupation: Development manager for Pabst Farms Development

Education: Bachelor's degree from University of Wisconsin- Madison; master's degree from Keller Graduate School of Management in Milwaukee

Elective office, government experience: 13 years on Waukesha School Board; 18 years on Waukesha Water Utility Commission

Family: Married; three children

Copyright 2006, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media.)

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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