Drawing parallels to the Great Depression, Gov. Jim Doyle told Kenosha and Racine teachers Monday night that a lean budget and tight times would be necessary to weather economic storms, but he’s committed to keeping education strong in the state.

Calling his own budget “no bed of roses,” Doyle spoke to teachers at a special dinner hosted by the Kenosha and Racine Education Associations at the Parkway Chateau, touching on his priorities for education, health care and emergency serices.

“I don’t know if this is the moment of the second depression or whatever it is,” Doyle said, “but it is an incredibly difficult time and that is true of our state budget.

“People want new cars and flat screen TVs, but that’s not going to happen right now,” he said. “It’s not going to happen at the state level. I wish I could tell you we were adding at the state level, but we’re not. We have to keep our nose above water and I want to give you a sense of the basics.

“I believe in an outstanding 4-year-old kindergarten to (grade) 12 system, technical schools and university system. We can’t tell a second-grader to come back in five years and we hope you have a teacher.”

He called himself “a big, big believer” in kindergarten for 4-year-olds, adding the state will push for funding for the program “to get kids off to a good start in school.”

The governor acknowledged in a press conference after his speech that state funding for the University of Wisconsin and technical schools was cut, and that class sizes might grow as a result, but those cuts come on the heels of more than $200 million in increases in the state’s previous budget. He said the UW system may see cuts of 1 percent and tuition will probably go up about 5 percent, but other states are seeing cuts of up to 15 percent with 15 to 20 percent increases in tuition.

“I believe this will meet the needs, even though it’s true that classes might be bigger and we might not be able to offer all the services right now, but we have got to hold this together until the economy gets better,” Doyle said.

He said his decisions on education were made to put the state on sound ground 10 to 50 years down the road, comparing today’s world to what his parents went through in the 1930s.

“Look at the food you’re eating tonight and compare it to depression-era food. If I told my parents we didn’t have enough (money) for education, they’d think we were out of our minds,” he said. “That education in the middle of the depression helped the U.S. to win a world war. What if we didn’t have that education in the 1930s? What if we furloughed teachers and said the UW schools wouldn’t open?”

Doyle told the crowd his priorities were education funding but “I wished I could say it isn’t going to be tough. It’s not going to be easy and people will have to get by with less. State workers for the next couple of years are not going to get the raises they deserve because we have to keep the basics.”

The governor said his plan has helped insure 70,000 children who went without last year, and more people in low-paying jobs can afford insurance.

“It’s hardly a Cadillac plan, but it’s affordable for people who are out there working hard.”

He said funds also have to be made available for emergencies.

“You can’t say to someone, ‘Sorry, we have budget problems. We’ll send an ambulance when the economy gets better.’”