State rep and senator visit Iola

IOLA – With Wisconsin’s district lines recently being remapped, some areas have new representatives and two of them came to Iola to introduce themselves on April 28.
Assembly State Representative Brent Jacobson and State Senator Corey Tomczyk were present at the Iola Village Hall to conduct a town hall-style meeting.
With the room packed, the representatives from the state answered questions on subjects such as the Department of Natural Resources, the budget, the four-billion-dollar budget surplus and child care.
The most talked about subject landed on school funding with Tomczyk expressing his frustration of spending so much state money on the Milwaukee School District.
Tomczyk said he would rather completely stop funding the Milwaukee School District and send the money up to smaller districts like Iola-Scandinavia.

“I personally have a problem with the money that we’re spending in Milwaukee, just taking our state tax dollars and shoving them in a money pit,” Tomczyk said. “They’re not producing kids that are going to be assets to our state in any way, shape or form. They’re producing kids that are going to be burdens to our state. Why would we want to put any money into that?”
Audience members asked what would happen to the students if the state enacted a policy that would take away funding from such a substantial school district.
Tomczyk said that the people of Milwaukee County have written off an entire generation of students, stating they have given up on a generation.
“They ask me why I give up on them, that decisions already been made by the taxpayers and the parents of Milwaukee County, and I’m not going to sacrifice the rest of the State of Wisconsin for people down there that aren’t going to step up for their own damn children. Is that clear enough for you?” he said.
Jacobson said Wisconsin is facing a lot of budgetary factors in the future, with childcare availability, Medicaid and transportation, there is only so much money to go around.
When Tomczyk was pressed again as to what the students of Milwaukee would do should their funding be cut, he questioned why funds should be disproportionately be put into the Milwaukee School District when they are only creating kids that will be a burden to the state for the remainder of their lives.
“There is not an argument anybody can give to me to counter that. We are pissing away money on kids that are going to be nothing but a cost to us for the rest of their lives and if there is a chance for me to put a stop to it I will,” he said.
Tomczyk said the charter and private schools are thriving in Milwaukee, as parents are fighting to get kids out of the public school district, as students are getting physically assaulted by other students every day.
Chris Nelson, the Iola-Scandinavia district administrator, was on hand and chimed in on the subject.
“I just want to say that our Iola-Scandinavia community is very supportive of our school district and our school and our kids and we are so appreciative of that,” Nelson said “And I hear comments about public schools. I hope you realize that we’re not perfect in our public school, but we do a pretty darn good job of educating our kids.”
Jacobsen said he would like to see more funding get put towards the special education programs.
Both Jacobsen and Tomczyk are from the Mosinee area and are members of the Republican Party.