Emily Koczela had been anxiously waiting for months for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's controversial budget repair bill to take effect. Koczela, the finance director for the Brown Deer school district, had been negotiating with the local union, trying to get it to accept concessions in order to make up for a $1 million budget shortfall. But the union wouldn't budge.

"We laid off 27 [teachers] as a precautionary measure," Koczela told me. "They were crying. Some of these people are my friends."

On June 29 at 12:01 a.m., Koczela could finally breathe a sigh of relief. The budget repair bill-delayed for months by protests, runaway state senators, and a legal challenge that made its way to the state's supreme court-was law. The 27 teachers on the chopping block were spared.