Newsmakers, October 20, 2016

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• 92nd Assembly Debate

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  There are a lot of small towns and rural public schools in Wisconsin’s 92nd Assembly District located between Eau Claire and La Crosse on the state’s western coast.

  The district includes all or part of Buffalo, Trempealeau and Jackson Counties and the candidates for state representative agree on the challenges facing rural schools, but have different ideas of how to affect changes.

  State Rep. Chris Danou, (D-Trempealeau), is seeking a fifth term representing the area. He said rural areas face challenges from an antiquated school funding formula that for decades has favored more property-rich parts of the state.

  “The challenge we have is that the formula favors wealthy suburban school districts which are dominated by Republican legislators in Wisconsin who control the Assembly agenda,” Danou said. “They do not seem to have any real sense or concern of the kind of damage its doing to us in rural Wisconsin. Their school district’s relatively speaking are doing well.”

  Danou said he first ran for Assembly because rural schools have been shortchanged for years and he favors improvements to school funding that will help them.

  His challenger Treig Pronschinske (R-Mondovi) is the mayor of Mondovi and doesn’t necessarily disagree with the need for more support for rural schools. But he said Wisconsin needs to do a better job attracting more business growth to rural communities.

  “There are areas that are just stagnant on population growth and getting tax base there so the schools can get more money,” Pronschinske said. “We need to get businesses into these small towns, we need to be open-minded and we need to get people put to work.”

  The winner of the November 8 election will represent people who live in communities including Alma, Arcadia and Black River Falls.

• 70th Assembly Debate

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