Monday, September 27, 2010

A Special TARP For Waukesha School District - - Thank You, Madison!

Having borrowed and blown more than $15 million to buy $65 million worth of can't miss Wall Street funny money, the too-clever-by-half members of the Waukesha School Board are turning to the Devil itself for a fix- - State Government - - and a refinancing bailout.

It'll work like TARP - - the federal lending program that saved banks from bleeding red ink due to crazy lending practices and investments.

An obscure state agency can help the school board replace the original borrowing by lending it the money at a public, hence discounted, interest rate.

I'm expecting to see a joint release signed by all the small-government/free-market/take-responsibility crowd - - Jim Sensenbrenner, Dan Vrakas,  Ted Kanavas, various radio squawkers. et al - - hailing State Government for rescuung the the Waukesha School District.

There are four other districts in the state facing similar problems, so maybe the state's mini-TARP can grow bigger - - and it might have to, since Milwaukee County accepted Scott Walker's plan to borrow $400 million in order to fund its pension plan.

Who's to say that loan won't need propping up?

Of course, the intended pot-of-gold windfall that the initial Waukesha school board loan had anticipated is gone, pending the outcome of litigation, so perhaps out there in GOP-Land folks are counting on another bogeyman for help - - trial lawyers.

And that's not the end of the the public financing ironies west of 124th St.

The Waukesha Water Utility and Common Council are turning backflips to re-appoint one of the school board members to the utility as it anticipates a borrowing 11 times larger that the school's troubled loan to fund its water supply plan.

2 comments:

Jim Bouman said...

What is absolutely RICH about this post is that the same guy who led the Waukesha School Board into a promised land of too-good-to-be-true investing, is also the President of the Waukesha Water Utility, chief cheerleader for the $165 million stunt to build a pipeline the Lake Michigan and back.

I ask once again: "Is the talent pool of citizens in Waukesha so thin that ONE GUY is president of both the School Board and the Water Utility?

Just to add a little sauce to this rancid recipe for financial disaster, get this. The guy, Daniel Warren, has a day job as Managing Engineer of Pabst Farms Development (dead, finished, kaput--an astonishing waste of time, and lots of public money, on a really bad project.

Two certified financial disasters already in the works; another one under consideration.

James Rowen said...

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