Dear Mr Reif (Janesville school district teacher)

Mr Reif, you say Janesville economy is on the “upswing”. Let’s examine the FACTs from the US department of labor, Bureau of labor statistics (here is the link so you can see for yourself (http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?series_id=LAUMT55275003&data_tool=XGtable) The average annual unemployment rate between 2000-2008 was 5.58% with 2008 being the highest at 6.1%. Since then Janesville has reached as high as 13.2%, the most current month (Nov 2010) is predicted at 9.4%, the year previous to that (Nov 2009) 11.4% (current state avg 7.5%). So YES the economy is on the upswing, HOWEVER Janesville has NOT recovered. NOW is not the time to talk about more spending, NOW is the time to learn from our mistakes, make GOOD decisions with the current budget. I wish we could afford all the best things in life for our children, but the obvious truth is WE CAN NOT. Time to make very tough decisions on NEEDS AND WANTS. Keep the “needs”, reduce/ cut the “wants”. Very basic financial and life skills I have been teaching my daughter for 17 years.