If you and people are entering, please turn off your video and mute the video.
Your mics.
All right, welcome, welcome, welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us as we
are admitting folks. Please turn off your video and mute your mics for the
bandwidth of the zoom.
All right, welcome, welcome, welcome everyone. Thank you so much for joining us as we are
admitting folks for the bandwidth of the zoom. Please turn off your video and mute your mics.
All right, I still see some folks trickling in, so welcome. Thank you so much for joining us for the bandwidth of the zoom. Please turn off your video and mute your mics.
All right, it looks like we have a good number of folks that have joined us. So let me start off by saying hello. My name is Carissa and I would like to thank everyone for joining us.
I'd like to thank everyone for joining Governor Evers for the virtual budget listening session this evening. As we get started here, a reminder to please mute yourself and turn off your video until you move to a small group breakout room.
We know you are all busy and appreciate you taking the time out of your schedules to join us this evening. We are so excited to have you all participating and watching tonight.
Some of you may have attended the governor's budget listening session in the past, but for those of you who haven't, our format is a bit different than the listening sessions you may be used to.
Tonight, we have six topic based breakout rooms for folks to join to have a more in depth discussion on the budget topic they would like to discuss.
The topics are an economy that works for everyone, building the 21st century infrastructure, climate change in our environment, what's best for our kids, protecting and expanding healthcare access, and then strong and safe communities.
In addition to the topic based discussion groups, we will have one group for Spanish language speakers and those using ASL interpretation services that will remain here in the main room.
This room will cover all budget topics and will have the accessibility features of Spanish language interpretation and ASL interpretation available.
If you have any questions regarding this, please feel free to message the host.
Due to Zoom case of capabilities, the interpretation services are only available in this main room and not available in breakout rooms.
The goal of these listening sessions is to foster meaningful conversation and to connect the dots with the particular budget topic of your small group and budget priorities as a whole.
With that in mind, we are going to be going into small breakout rooms shortly where we will have these conversations.
These breakout rooms will last for 60 minutes and the governor will be coming to each room to listen to the discussion and hear directly from you.
The breakout rooms will be staffed by a member of the governor's office and state agencies.
In each breakout room, there will be a facilitator who will help to move the conversation along and try to make sure that everyone has a chance to speak.
There will also be a policy advisor in case any policy specific questions arise that we can try to answer.
And they will also have a note taker to bring the ideas discussed back to the governor's office.
I also want to highlight that the Zoom meeting and the breakout rooms have live caption capabilities.
Simply click the live transcription button on the bottom of your Zoom screen to enable the live captions.
These captions are also available in multiple languages.
Additionally, as mentioned, we have provided ASL and Spanish interpretation services for the entirety of this Zoom meeting.
If you have any questions regarding those services, please direct message the host of this Zoom meeting and she will be able to help you.
The governor will give remarks here in a second and after the governor gives his remarks, the breakout rooms will open.
When the breakout rooms open, you will receive a notification at the bottom of your Zoom screen.
Click on the breakout room button and you will see the list of breakout rooms available to join.
Click the room you would like to join and you will be moved to that breakout room.
As a reminder, those using ASL and Spanish interpretation services will not move to a breakout room.
You will have your discussion here in the main room.
While in the breakout room, you are encouraged to turn your video on.
But please remember to mute yourself when you are not speaking to ensure everybody is able to be heard.
The breakout room facilitator will open the discussion, so please remain muted until you hear from them.
If you exit the breakout room, you will leave the meeting entirely and will have to rejoin the meeting again.
We encourage everyone to stay throughout the discussion and stay in one breakout room throughout the evening.
If you need to take a break while you're in the breakout room, simply mute yourself and turn off your video.
But that's enough for me.
I would now like to introduce Governor Evers for some brief remarks.
Hello, everybody, and good afternoon.
Thanks, Grace, and thank you to everyone for attending our virtual budget listening session,
our fifth and final listening session we will be holding this year.
I want to give a big thank you to those who are volunteering to run these sessions.
So they it takes a lot of partners and frankly moving parts to bring events like this together.
So I just want to recognize all the folks out there from our administration who will be our note takers and our facilitators.
And I'm confident that they're going to do a great job answering questions and making sure all of your feedback gets recorded.
Now, before we begin, I just want to take a moment to address the tragic and horrific school shooting at abundant life Christian school here in Madison this morning.
Frankly, there's no words to describe the devastation and heartbreak we feel today.
Kathy and I joined the people of Wisconsin, obviously in praying for the families and loved ones of those who wise were really sense of sentence looks not very senselessly taken.
And for the educator staff and the entire abundant life school community as a grapple grapple with the grief and trauma and lost of this cut wrenching tragedy.
And also obviously praying and hoping that all those injured survive and recover.
So if you would join me and I know this is virtually but I'd like to ask for a moment of silence to honor the lives who lost.
We've lost and extend our hopes for all those that were injured and hopefully will recover and survive.
So thank you for those just quick seconds. We're also keeping in hearts the first responders who acted quickly and ran towards danger to save lives.
This day will no doubt be heavily on them and we're grateful for their critical response efforts and answering the call when they were needed the most.
The state stands ready to support the abundant life community and the efforts of local law enforcement through what will undoubtedly be difficult days ahead.
As a father and grandfather and as governor, it's unthinkable that a kid or an educator might wake up for the school and morning and never come home, never come home should never happen.
I will never accept this as a foregone reality or stop fighting to change it.
So tonight as we talk about the most important policy document I work as work on as governor.
No matter what breakout room I encourage folks to share their thoughts on this issue and of course the others that we have slated for this evening.
But please be kind and gentle knowing this day may especially be difficult for folks joining us here tonight.
So thank you for that and tonight is all about hearing directly from you. That's what these sessions have always been.
We want to hear from you about what you care about and what challenges you face and we want to hear your ideas for solution.
And I always recite a saying that's on the ceiling of the governor's conference room on the ceiling of the governor's conference room from fighting Bob will follow it.
He was said who indicates the will of the people is the law of the land and I truly believe that and drives me as my work as governor.
I've been hosting listening listening sessions since 2019 and it's been the conversations we've had in spaces like this that have helped guide our work over the last several years.
There's one big difference this time around though and the fact that after more than a decade of voting under some really significantly gerrymandered maps.
We now have fair maps and we now have legislative maps that are fair that are responsive and better reflect the will of the people.
As a result our legislature next year will be in a better position to reflect on that fact and the people of Wisconsin were a purple state folks.
And I was hopeful as ever.
And we'll see a legislature that is a bit more cooperative, collaborative, responsive to the will of the people.
And maybe at that time we'll find better ways to move forward on longstanding priorities that collectively our state has shared.
Like expanding badger care like legalizing marijuana like protecting access to reproductive health care or moving forward on evidence based justice reform.
Protecting our environment, creating green jobs and investing in our kids and schools at every level.
And especially on our hearts and minds this evening enacting common sense gun safety reform.
And with more than a $4 billion surplus at this time we have the opportunity to invest in priorities that have long been neglected without being careless or reckless.
We can afford to make the kind of investments we need to help Wisconsin families get that just get by but to get ahead.
And I know that together we can because we've proven we can do big things when we do it together.
So I just want to thank you again for taking the time to be with us here on this call.
I know it's really difficult doing it online like this but it's our way of kind of wrapping up this effort with as many people as possible.
I look forward to listening and learning so that we can continue our work together to build a future that we want to see for a state.
With that, I'm going to turn it back to Carissa to get today's event on the way. Thanks, Carissa. Go get him.
Thank you, Governor Evers. We've just opened up the breakout rooms. So click your.
Hello, we'll give it a just a minute here to get a few folks signing on and switched over to this breakout room but hello welcome.
We're happy to have you. Oh, there they come. Here come the people.
Great. Looks like folks are switching over. We'll give it just another minute but hello and welcome to the breakout room and economy that works for everyone.
I can just get a thumbs up that you guys can hear me. I think the audio is working but just want to make sure. Perfect. Awesome. So we'd like to see.
Okay, I think we've got a nice group here. Looks like a few more folks are getting switched over to their breakout session and their topic of choice but we are happy to have you here in an economy that works for everyone.
Give it just another moment here.
Okay. Well, I speak as folks move. We'll just will pick them up and hear from folks as they're ready but I will get started.
Hello, good evening. My name is Diana Moss. I am the Assistant Deputy Secretary at our Department of Administration and I will be the facilitator for this group tonight.
As I said, we are here in the group to address an economy that works for everyone. We are happy to have you and we are excited to hear about what you would like to see in this budget to help serve you, your families and your communities.
I'd also like to introduce Carissa who you've heard from already tonight. She is our policy expert and she will help with any policy specific questions that may come up in our discussion tonight.
And then I'll also highlight that we have a note taker with us. Colleen, if you want to quick raise the hand, Colleen is here this evening to take notes about what's being discussed so that we can share that back with the governor as he prepares his budget.
So we ask everyone to be patient as we navigate the listening session and, you know, we'll do our best here to make sure that folks have an opportunity to speak.
We'll be cautious of muting mics when we're not speaking and turning on mics when we are.
But we are really happy to have you. And like I said, we're here in the room on an economy that works for everyone.
So I'm happy to open it up if you guys want to raise your hands. If anyone's interested in kicking it off. Otherwise, I'm happy to give a prompt here to kind of get us started.
You know, Governor Evers leadership Wisconsin under his leadership Wisconsin has seen the largest surplus in state history. We've seen historic low unemployment.
The record high number of Wisconsin nights are employed. They're working. And we've seen the most capital investments from businesses in over a decade.
And yet we know so many folks are hiring. And so if anyone wants to chime in on that topic, that might be a good way to get us started.
And I don't see any hands up, but feel free to come off mute and chime in if you'd like.
Oh, I see hands up here. Here we go. Great. Why don't we start with the roof. I'm going to lower your hand here.
Thank you.
So I think we can't talk about economy without talking about the challenges of childcare that both families are facing and then businesses are facing in terms of hiring people.
We've done a look at affordability of care across all 72 counties in our state.
And in virtually every county with the exception of a county like Dane County.
A median household income of four with two children in childcare will end every single month in debt and will not qualify for our state subsidy for childcare.
This is a huge concern. And it needs to have a multifaceted solution, which must include government funding.
And for us, we would say in childcare counts.
We are big proponents of childcare counts. It has been proven to work.
And we know that as funding for childcare counts is eliminated and facing complete elimination as the end of this coming state fiscal year.
We will be in a situation where childcare programs will be raising their rates by double digits.
We will see more and more families unable to afford care. And we already have a shortage of about 8000 teachers just to fill our regulated care slots in the state of Wisconsin.
We must have a state investment directly into childcare that is benefiting our programs and that is raising wages for our teachers who make on average $13 an hour and lack benefits that most of us take for granted in the workplace. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you for those comments pointed noted we we hear you and the governor certainly knows and acknowledges that childcare is a is a major factor as we try to put together this puzzle of our workforce and success and an economy that works.
I'm going to go next to Deakin.
Hi, thank you. My name is Deakin Boggs. I'm the law on my lifelong resident of Wisconsin and the housing director for Madison area community land trust.
I'd like to take I'd like to take a second to introduce the idea of community land trust but also highlight the high cost of housing in the state of Wisconsin.
For a look at Fred's housing price index housing prices in the state are the highest they have ever been.
And the dream of homeownership is even further out of reach for many residents than it has been in the past.
With that there there are programs like down payment assistance and other home buyer education programs.
But I want to highlight community land trust is an option that don't don't only provide the assistance to purchase that home but make the home itself a vessel for homeownership opportunities.
Under the CLT model homes home is sold but the land remains under CLT ownership through long term ground lease and extends the land or keeps the land value from outside market forces.
CLT's make homes more affordable through this model and this model ensures permanent affordability while shielding homes from open market competition against especially against buyers with greater financial resources.
I'd encourage today I'd like to encourage the governor to commit funding to community land trusts across the state of Wisconsin.
Similar to that of the state of Minnesota who has demonstrated effectiveness with this model through statewide direct funding to their CLT's within the state.
Examples include operational support via state funding and extended program access for development funding.
These investments have strengthened CLT's and their ability to address housing affordability across many states.
And I'd like to make sure that that option is extended to residents of the state of Wisconsin.
Thank you for your time and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
Great. Thanks, Deacon.
So we heard, you know, factors that are really important that impact our communities impact folks and their ability to be at home is affordable housing and childcare.
We know those are those are major factors as we get folks into the workforce and and safe at home.
So we've got a few more hands up and I don't know who came up first. So I'm just going to go ahead and call on you.
But John, if we could have you come on mute or come off mute and we'll hand it over to you.
Very good. Thank you very much.
I'm I'm the economic development director for the city of Franklin or a suburb of Milwaukee.
And I basically want to talk about program flex ride.
And what it does is it helps residents of the greater Milwaukee area and it includes Walker Shaw County as well as Racine County.
And so it's looking at providing some basically uber type assistance to people that are trying to get to work.
And so you've just touched on two of the big factors of workforce development challenges is transportation child for excuse me housing and childcare and transportation is another big obstacle to a lot of folks that are struggling in the economy.
And having a car failure is, you know, one one step that takes them into an economic crisis.
And so with flex ride, what they do is it's almost like like a airport shuttle where you have some collection points and some stops to pick up the workers and take them to the location where they work.
And right now flex ride has actually been very successful in getting workers from Milwaukee to walk Shaw County.
And so I don't know any better example of equity in employment than providing for those opportunities across county lines.
Likewise, we would look at trying to get jobs here in the city of Franklin where we have two very successful industrial parks get those jobs filled by people in the surrounding counties who would like to work here.
So right now we're about 15% short on the budget coming up this year that we have to put together.
And so they're looking for assistance there.
But again, it really is one of those critical factors for the workforce, especially those that are struggling and even in crisis situations where someone's lost a vehicle.
Right. Absolutely. Another great important factor to this to this equation here.
I'm going to go back to Anne Katz.
Thank you so much.
I mean, I'm cats. I'm director of create Wisconsin where the state's community cultural development organization.
We are all about the arts and creativity for everyone everywhere in the state and we know that Wisconsin is an incredibly creative and innovative place.
And so I'm asking we on behalf of our constituents, we're asking the governor to invest in our creative economy, which is according to the US Department of Commerce, an 11.9 billion.
That's billion would be dollar industry in terms of economic impact.
Again, according to the US Department of Commerce, and it encompasses over 89,000 jobs, which is more jobs than the beer, biotech and papermaking industries.
And in a world where Wisconsin doesn't make cars anymore, we don't really make much paper anymore. We still, of course, want to be a manufacturing state, but everything needs to be created and manufacturing too.
What do we have? We have authentic, unique communities, incredibly creative people, great experiences, beautiful landscapes, all the things we love about Wisconsin.
And our small towns are full of entrepreneurs and creative people who are starting businesses, wanting to keep businesses going, wanting to raise their families in any of our wonderful communities.
And so investing in the creative economy in our creative people, organizations, businesses and communities is really an investment in Wisconsin's future.
And certainly our, I think I saw Anne on this call, our cultural tourism is robust and growing.
Again, our entrepreneurship and small businesses are growing creatively, and we really, we really want.
We know the governor understands that we want to grow Wisconsin creatively, so we're asking for that investment this time around.
Thank you, Anne. Happy to hear from you. Susan, we'll go to you next, Susan Lund.
Hi, thank you for having this opportunity for us to weigh in.
My name is Susan Lund. I am a civil aid attorney. I specialize in helping folks resolve driver's license suspensions and warrants that are caused by poverty.
I'm here specifically to point out a new study from the University of Wisconsin that showed that Wisconsin's policy of using driver's license suspensions as a debt collection tool is harmful.
It specifically found that if courts stop doing this, it would result in an estimated 200.6 million in annual net benefits for Wisconsin residents, which includes connecting employers to folks who are job seeking and making sure that they can get there on time.
Half of the United States have outlawed using driver's license suspensions as a means of collecting debt, and Wisconsin should look at the budget benefits in this report and do the same.
I will drop it to Colleen in the chat.
Thank you. Appreciate that, Susan. Paul Fisk. We'll go next to you.
I'm Paul Fisk. I had a lot of experience in local government. I'm a veteran and I work with the American Legion now.
When you look at the demographics of the state, it's getting older, and we need to attract new people to the state a lot of retaining the young people we have.
One of the things that is a potential drawback is under the Wisconsin GI Bill, you've got to be a resident for five years for your family to pay in-state tuition at the various colleges.
That should be lowered and become an incentive for workers to come into the state.
I worked with Heroes for Healthcare, and we set up a program required a big change in law about three, four years ago, where military medical people got credit for what they already knew.
We actually had good paying jobs offered to them, and we're finishing the Wisconsin requirements at the same time.
That could be expanded. We've done a good job the last few years on professional certification of people that were certified in other states, but it only covers the spouses.
It doesn't cover the veteran usually. There's some things there to look at and to bring in to encourage families with skills to come to Wisconsin.
Great points. Thank you, Paul. Jenny, you've had your hand up. We'll go to you next. Jenny Maurer.
Thank you so much. Mostly just want to amplify and agree with things that my colleague Ruth Schmidt said.
I'm the executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association, and really just here to share my support for continuing childcare accounts and putting my support behind continuing that program and knowing how important it is that supporting our early care
and education system really undergirds our economy and that Head Start is a part of that system and wanting to see that continue and knowing that pretty much anything that anyone could mention here on this call.
We know that we need workers to do all of these great programs and knowing that these systems are just struggling tremendously.
So I'll keep it brief and just know that we need that funding desperately to keep all of our early care and education system standing. Thank you.
Thank you, Jenny. We'll go next to Laura Gutierrez.
Thank you so much. Great pronunciation there. So I'm the CEO for the United Community Center, which is a nonprofit here in Milwaukee.
It's been here for 55 years and I'm going to echo what my colleague said in regards to early childcare education.
I think we all know that it's beyond just childcare. It is a workforce issue.
There are more and more women in the workforce that also need care.
And I'll also echo the sentiments of how do we support our elderly.
So at the UCC, we see about or support 10,000 clients or more a year.
A lot of that is elderly programs as well and need a lot more support in that area in order.
We're seeing more elderly people living with their adult children.
And so I'm looking at, can the governor or is there a way where we can support nonprofits or programs that are doing,
or saving, I would say the state a lot of money.
And to the point of the gentleman who talked about our elderly, I think if we want to keep them here in Wisconsin,
we also have to not tax them and do something, you know, such as Florida does.
If they're there, they don't have to pay any taxes, otherwise they are losing their homes.
And I think if you want to keep that nuclear family unit, a lot of them do help support the after school.
I think when we look at after school funding, we also have essential workers in our community that were first and second shift.
And in order for that opportunity to continue to help, how do we continue to support a comprehensive program?
You know, and that rates increase a little bit.
I think we're the largest meal site in Milwaukee County, yet our rate has not gone up in years to support the elderly
that are coming to our program.
So looking forward to support in all the areas so we can continue to get more people into the workforce.
So thank you.
Thank you very much for those comments.
We'll go next to, I may say this name wrong, is it, is it Michael Ann, Michelle Ann?
Yes, that's correct.
It's Michael Ann.
Okay, perfect.
Thank you.
I just have, I just have noticed that and bring to the governor's attention that every seems like every Milwaukee County and then I don't live in Milwaukee County, but every other county and surrounding suburbs seems to have a high referendum.
That seems to be going for the school board.
And I just, I don't, I'm curious about it.
I understand they need a lot of funding.
However, I'm, I'm, I'm back when Tony Evers, I'm sorry, when Tommy Thompson was the governor.
I remember that the lottery was the only reason that a lottery was passed at the time.
That that we would allow it to go only to the schools.
And I know that the revenue that comes in must be significant.
And I'm so curious.
If the governor could give us some transparency.
Because, I mean, there's, I'm, I'm 55.
We're still wondering where that their money is.
That was a while ago, but I understand.
I mean, things get moved around and I just wondered if, if there was any way we could just, he could share some light on that subject.
I know that there's a great need for it.
And I do appreciate the governor being so attentive to the schools and their needs.
Thank you. Thank you for those comments and questions.
I don't know, Chris, if we have any follow up at the moment and if we don't, that's okay.
We can, we can get your name later and make sure we can follow up.
Sorry, Diana, I was just going to chime in to let you know, Michael, and that I also wrote your name down because I don't have the answer on the lottery specifically.
But I do know that the governor knows and has heard and feels himself the property tax burden and everything that comes from referendum and referendum.
So I just wanted to make sure that you know, he knows that that's happening. He feels it and he is trying to rework the tracks, the tax structure and the tax burdens.
So I know when he took office, we were ranked 24 of 50 states in terms of tax burden.
And you want to be number 50, you want to be ranked as the less least tax burden state.
And since he has been in office, we are now 35.
So we've jumped up 11 spots and he knows that this is really hard at times, especially for taxes and those passing referendum.
So that is something that is top of mind for him on top of a lot of the things that have been mentioned today.
But I did also write down your name and I know we have our note taker here as well to make sure that we can get an answer on the lottery itself.
So thank you.
Thank you very much.
Okay, next I've got, is it, well, Floriel.
Yep, it's Floriel.
Perfect.
Go you.
Hey, my name is Floriel Kuba. I am the Midwest farmland coordinator with American farmland trust where we save the land that sustains us by supporting farmers, protecting farmland and supporting sound farming practices.
And I would just like to draw attention to an opportunity in the state of Wisconsin and discuss some issues that we've been hearing from our constituents and our farming communities, which is that it's becoming increasingly harder to farm in the state of Wisconsin.
Despite us being America's dairy land, we're seeing the average age of farmers increasing and we're seeing increased barriers to accessing farmland pricing is becoming really untenable for the incoming generation.
And we're losing increasing numbers of farmland to development.
And Wisconsin has a unique opportunity and that we have a purchase of agricultural conservation easement program or pace in state statute that was funded in 2010, 2011 that funding was rescinded and has not been funded since.
But we really see a unique opportunity to balance needs of protecting farmland and compensating farmers for the value of their easement land.
And I would just like to excuse me.
Attention to a recent study that American farmland trust produce that shows a $25 million investment in the state pace program would not only protects over 10,000 acres of farmland.
That $25 million would become $46 million in the state economy, as it goes to purchases of local supplies, farm employee wages, that investment wage create 254 jobs.
And generate about $16 million in farm wages.
And so we really see this as an opportunity to not only protect farmland and be really conscientious about our land use and conserving some of those environmental benefits, but to also bolster the state economy as well and take advantage of really unprecedented federal match dollars that are on the table through
the IRA and through other programs such as RCPP and ASAP ALE.
So we all go ahead and drop that study in the chat and appreciate your time and thanks for your support in protecting our farmland.
Thank you. We know agriculture is such a function of this state and so important to our identity and our livelihood.
Thank you for those comments. We're going to go next to Bill Olnsted.
Hi, I apologize for the lack of video, but I'm in an in lack of flammo and we could we could talk about the lack of broadband access for rural areas, but that I'll leave that discussion for someone else.
I'm here representing the Lakeland pantry in the Monaco area, the greater Monaco area. We cover about 6300 square miles.
The man for our services have increased more than 100% in the last two years alone.
It is getting to be quite a problem. The money we raise and we are primarily a self funded organization. The money we raise local donations are down and of course state contributions to programs like Badger boxes and the state support for TFAAP organization has all been diminished.
So we would encourage the governor to try and find some funds to help support those organizations. The Badger boxes, of course, would obviously help the the local agricultural community also.
By the end of this year, we will have distributed more than 500,000 meals to people in our it's our service area.
The violence in Oneida counties have been ranked in the top 10 of second home ownership in the country. So everybody thinks of Monaco and you think of blue skies and and boats and days at the cottage.
Unfortunately, that doesn't represent a great portion of our population. The population that lives up here on a regular basis and services that tourism industry.
The two counties were in lead the state in growth in senior senior growth. About one third of our senior clients are disabled.
Another third are under the age of 18. So we have a serious issue here with food insecurity and we'd like to encourage the governor to do what he can with that.
Another important area of concern for us, of course, would be the tribal elder boxes, which are available. Again, about a third of our service area is occupied by.
Black to flambo tribal members. And again, using that as, you know, we have many thousands of senior citizens in the tribal area that rely on us and would benefit from those tribal boxes.
Thank you, Bill. Appreciate that. I have family up at the knockaway area and also think of the blue skies and the beautiful lakes, but appreciate your, your very important and honest perspective of what's happening up there.
We'll go next to Nicholas.
Hello. Good evening. I'm here mostly to this raise a couple points related to obviously the shifting demographics of our state and the ways in which we're aware that the state is aging quite rapidly.
And how do we take care of people that are elders, such as my parents, well, we need people to care for them and work in things such as the health care economy and all the other amazing things that have already been addressed.
And this is where I would like to point to things such as things that my generation right I'm currently 34 are looking for a need and obviously things have been addressed, such as broadband for rural areas, child care, pretty much everywhere in the state,
arts and culture to make this a place where we feel connected to one another ourselves and the place we inhabit, and that by really trying to tackle some of these issues, like, it'll prevent people such as myself from moving elsewhere,
which is something I really want to echo is someone who is a lifelong Wisconsin resident. I've attended UW twice and I have so many friends that no longer here and it is difficult to continue to call this place home when people that you care about leave.
And there are obviously a lot of things that keep me here, but how are we making sure and ensuring that, you know, that we really do take a consideration at this question of younger workforce as I look towards how people such as my parents who are are some of those 60 year olds that soon, you know,
Wisconsin's healthcare workforce report about how by obviously 2030 every baby bloomer will be 60 and that my parents are part of that and how do we make sure that they are able to continue to live here as well. So thanks.
Yeah, thank you. We've heard a few of it echoed a couple times now about our demographics in the state and how that impacts our workforce and the type of care needs that we need at home, whether it's childcare or elder care or other types of family care. So thank you for that.
Next, we'll go to Benson.
Hi, thanks for welcoming us all here today. And I'm here from the Wisconsin trust account foundation. We are the civil legal aid fund and grant administrator established by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
And I'm in this room because civil legal aid, which is the provisional legal services and civil matters for people who can't afford lawyers does have an economic benefit and workforce impact as well.
And we're working hard to get the word out that if Wisconsin invested general purpose revenue and civil legal aid, it's the way a lot of other states have and we don't.
We would see an economic benefit, both in terms of the direct work that many civil legal aid attorneys do with people who can afford lawyers to reduce barriers to employment as Susan London actually just mentioned earlier today, just a few minutes ago.
And that could be things like working on drivers license suspensions or something else that prevents someone from taking a job or getting the education they need for a job.
But there's also a lot of indirect benefits that attorneys in this field work on all the time, which can be more surprising if you haven't been exposed to the way all these things interconnect before.
So whether it's housing or health related, keeping people safe, keeping people helping people keep their children safe.
Sometimes these things require legal interventions, and you're not entitled to an attorney in our system unless you're accused of a crime.
All these kinds of legal interventions fall under what we call civil legal aid.
And all these things make it easier for people to participate in the workforce and also reduce grain on public resources, emergency services and things like that.
So we were doing our best to quantify that kind of information we commissioned a study just a year to ago that found that there was a $8.40 return to Wisconsin's economy for every $1 invested in civil legal aid in our state.
And that's in keeping with what other states have found with similar studies.
And so it's, you know, it's the right thing to do. It's part of the justice system.
It's part of making the system run the move on to, but it's also something we don't benefit from economically, both in terms of workforce and broader economic concerns.
So thanks so much for taking these comments and for doing all you're doing.
Thanks, Benson. Appreciate that. Very welcome. Good points. We're going to go next to Tom. Is it Krigel?
Tom, you're on mute right now. There you go.
Oh, can you hear me? Yes.
What time wanted to do you go?
What do you have here in a minute?
Well, first of all, I'm a retired agricultural economist and there are a lot of needs in the state because the Republicans under Scott Walker and his other cronies have tried to destroy the state and etc.
We have record budget surpluses this current time and there's a whole lot of needs that need to be met.
And what is not a need is tax relief for the millionaires.
We need relief for the people that are not millionaires.
The free market nonsense is just that it's absolute sheer nonsense.
My definition of the free market is it's a term to explain a system in which the greedy are free to exploit the needy.
And it seemed to me like everything I heard from every other speaker before me are worthy causes and are deserving of further government support.
And so I won't repeat those, but I will try to drive home the need for some other items.
This same free market nonsense has caused many of our counties to try to give away county-owned nursing homes, which will result in a great degradation of quality of care of our senior citizens.
That same philosophy has caused the legislature over the past 10 years to give unnecessary tax breaks to the wealthy and it does not trickle on down.
If that worked, the state would be in much better condition than it is today.
We spend too much money on programs that punish people like jails and prisons.
The United States and Wisconsin are global disgracees in terms of incarceration.
Jails and prisons and police do not make us safe.
The lack of poverty increased education, a good community support system, good jobs.
Those are the things that make us safe.
Police and jails and prisons do not make us safe.
Things like taxical mental financing are mechanisms by which even local governments can engage in corporate welfare.
Trickle down, absolutely does not work.
I urge everyone on this call to get the book titled Tax the Rich produced by the Patriotic Millionaires.
The Patriotic Millionaires are a bunch of wealthy people who have decided that, who have recognized that,
they do not want to live in a world where they find it necessary to live in gated communities,
to have armed guards when they go out in public and they realize that, to avoid that from happening,
they have to share their wealth with the people who are far less fortunate than they are.
They recognize that many times they are wealthy because they were lucky to inherit wealth.
Most of them admit that they did not do it through their hard work or their native intelligence.
So we need to follow policies that addresses the most significant economic problem that we've had in this country over the last 50 years,
which are government policies that lead to inequality of wealth and income.
The debt of the federal government has never been a serious economic problem at any point in the history of this country,
and I have the documentation to prove all that.
And as a retired academic, I always have the documentation to back up what I have to say,
and I would be happy to provide my contact information for anyone to want to get that information.
And of course, I offer it to anyone in government service as well.
Thank you.
And I'm looking forward to the other needs that other people will point out because the needs are many and again.
The millionaires are not the ones in need.
Thank you very much, Tom.
We're going to go next to Ashley.
Thank you so much.
I'm Ashley Hendricks.
I'm associate director at Wisconsin literacy, and we are a statewide coalition of 83 local literacy agencies around the state.
Last year, we served collectively 14,000 adults and their families across the state.
And I wanted to call the governor's attention to the need for increased funding for adult education.
The impact really ripples through most everything that's been touched on already in terms of agriculture,
manufacturing, health care positions.
You know, we have a worker shortage and many of our students are those workers that just need assistance upskilling.
And they will contribute back to the economy in spades.
So I just want to focus on that for just a moment.
And there is also a connection between adults level of literacy and their children's.
So a child whose parent has low literacy levels is 72% more likely to also have that same deficit in literacy skills.
So there is absolutely a generational tie and, you know, funding to support the K through 12 and the adult literacy efforts is is essential again to everything that's been discussed already.
Additionally, in Wisconsin, there are 345,000 adults who don't yet have a high school diploma.
So helping the students that were born here and who schooling was interrupted for any number of reasons to obtain that GED HST and again to, you know, to upskill them to help them move up in the workforce.
And really to retain their, you know, the companies that are at not only our companies, employers around the state looking at a worker shortage, they're also struggling with employee retention.
And we found that employers who are investing in their employees, whether they're native born or immigrants and refugees through workplace literacy classes have a huge increase in employee retention.
So again, I wanted to call the governor's attention to that adult education and adult literacy piece that is really essential to the economy and the well being of the state.
So thank you so much for the opportunity to share that.
Thank you, Ashley. Great points. And I want to thank everyone for their patience as they've got their hands up. We are, we are working through. We are getting to use. So thank you so much for your patience. We will go next to Morris.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I'm in the American Legion, and so part of my interests are associated with it. And what I'd like to do is emphasize the Wisconsin has a long history of support of its military, the veterans,
and the much of what I have to say is best directed to the legislature, but now in the wake of the redistricting, there might be better outcome than there has been in the past.
The first of the three issues I'd like to touch on is the Wisconsin veterans property tax relief, where benefits the homeless and the financially pressed veterans in Wisconsin.
Currently, they have to be a judged 100% disabled to receive any financial benefit or relief, and we're looking for at least 70% instead of the 100.
The second item is something that the University of Wisconsin has been doing very well, and that is researching and retrieving and returning bodies of the missing in action veterans.
We've had several returns to the state of Wisconsin, and I'm hearing things about lowering the amount to the University for that project. I'd like to make sure it doesn't fall prey to the axe.
The last thing I'm thinking of is lowering the five-year residency for tuition remission programs, and I think that these, as I said, are best directed at the legislature, but I would love to bring the governor's attention to these three items, and of course, there are many more.
Thank you very much for this opportunity.
Thank you, Morris. We appreciate hearing from you. We'll go next to Rhiannon.
Hi, my name is Rhiannon. I'm the executive director of Artworks for Milwaukee, and we are a youth career readiness organization.
I am here just to humbly request that we invest more in youth development, especially youth workforce development organizations like Artworks.
There are so many organizations in Milwaukee. We are one of many that are working to skill up the youngest members of the workforce.
Just to throw some data at you, currently, it's estimated that about 18% of Milwaukee's workforce is Gen Z.
Nationally, the estimates are anywhere from 25 to 30% of the workforce will be Gen Z by the year 2030, and that age group is really significant.
They're going to be a really significant part of our workforce, and they also currently have the highest unemployment rate.
I do hear a lot of comments about financially supporting elders, and I 100% agree, and I think by investing in all generations, you're supporting the financial well-being of all generations.
You can't forget one in your quest to save another. I think that having young people who are workforce ready and are able to support themselves and then having good jobs for them to do that is really critical.
I will just add, as a parting comment, that there's a lot of negative commentary about the retention of Gen Z employees and their skills, and are they good workers,
and all of this stuff? I'm an elder millennial. They said all the same things about me, and I'm running a nonprofit now, so obviously I'm not a complete loser, right?
I think it's really important that young people feel like people are investing in them and care about them and believe in them, and we need them to succeed, frankly.
We need them to become good members of our workforce.
I would just encourage there to be some funding for youth career readiness and recognize that young people are just, they've just been dealt a really bad hand because they happen to be really young during the pandemic and miss out on some of the socialization
that all of us get and some of that critical learning time, but I believe they can catch up and we're proving it every day, so thanks.
Thank you, Rana. We'll go next to Mike Griffin.
Mike, you're on mute if you're speaking.
Oh, you're still on mute here.
Oh, here we go.
There we go.
Okay.
My name is Mike Griffin. I'm the president of the Berlin Food Pantry in Berlin, Wisconsin, and I want to continue the thought that Bill Olmstead started having to do with the pantries.
I've been the president for six years now.
And so I've been through the period of pre-COVID during COVID and now after COVID and what we are seeing or actually what we are struggling with is our continued ability to provide the services to our community in need.
We're not a large, large pantry. We have about 380 active families that we serve.
What we saw during COVID is pre-COVID and during COVID was it was pretty steady the amount of people that that we served and would come to the pantry.
But as soon as COVID was deemed ended, programs and services and benefits that were put into place during COVID to help families survive ended.
And it couldn't have come at a worse time.
There's still supply shortages and access to food sources that we once have have disappeared.
On top of that, the continued inflation.
We now have doubled more than doubled the number of families that we see in our in our food pantry now in 2024. It started about mid 2023.
In addition to that, our costs are what what's happened is we've had to do more purchases of retail purchases of food to support the services we had been providing, which is not sustainable over the long haul.
And that's what that's what's of concern. If it continues this way, we may have to eliminate many of our services or end them all together.
What we're at what we're asking is that the state invest in helping to procure more food into the Wisconsin pantry network.
By working with farmers in the state like many state other states have already started doing with a permanent budget item that allows the state to work with producers, farmers and ranchers in the state.
To move more food into the network system and make it available to pantry so we can continue to provide the services that we do to our clients.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mike, for those comments. We're going to go next to Amanda.
Thanks, Diana. And thanks everybody. I'm I'm learning about such amazing programs around the state. It's really invigorating.
So I'm Amanda and I'm with Child Advocacy Centers of Wisconsin. So we are a coalition of soon to be 16 centers that serve children that are impacted by abuse and neglect around the state by ensuring that they have access to supportive services
and ensuring that there are collaborative investigations that reduce trauma to children and increase safety for children, families and communities.
So we serve over thousands of children in a year collectively, and we actually do it at a tax savings to the communities we serve for every case that goes through a CAC.
There's a tax savings of about $1,200 to $1,400 per case. So, for example, my center, which is serves Ozaki, Washington, Sheboygan and Manitowah counties.
So 600 children this year just to put that in perspective. Beyond the the tax savings, we also reduce trauma.
So we're reducing those adverse childhood experiences that children unfortunately have to go through, but by coming to a center like ours, they experience less of them in their lifetime.
And that means less strain on community resources long term because the adults that go through a CAC have more access to the services that help them heal.
So really the point I bring this up to say is that we do have an ask in the governor's budget and with the DOJ.
And I would urge his office to consider that because while all of these programs sound amazing, a lot of them, the impact is not as meaningful or possible if children aren't safe at a very basic level.
So for the sake of all of the programs that can support adults and for the sake of the children of our state, I would urge the governor's office and the DOJ to include our ask in the budget.
Thank you.
Thanks, Amanda.
So we have just about 12 minutes before I think we're going to be kicked over or back to the main session here.
So just want to give you a heads up on time.
We're going to go next to Ronald.
Hi, my name is Ronald Scottard and I am the county board chair of forest county. I'll be as brief as I can. Basically, I understand the draw on the public from property tax revenues and so forth.
We are in a unique situation here in northern Wisconsin in which only 17% of our county is taxable. And when you take into forest crop land and so forth, it's about 10%, which has placed us under great economic strain in our county.
We are having a hard time meeting our annual budget. We did try a referendum.
Unlike school districts, counties can only do that on even years and go into effect on odd years. So obviously that didn't work.
We have two excellent and wonderful tribal partners. We have two tribal communities within our county.
They have been helping us in our funding as well, but state counties are kind of an arm of the state and offering a lot of services and there's a lot of mandated services that we must offer.
For an example, one of them, it'd be the court system, for an example, that that basically is a state court system. They're not county court systems, but yet the counties are responsible for funding about 70 plus percent of the county court system.
And the state is only doing less than 30%.
Strains like that on counties really hurt us and it's becoming more difficult for us to be able to maintain quality county workers to provide services like child protection, public safety, highway maintenance, and the like.
And so anything that could help in us as counties receiving additional state funding for the services that we're mandated to provide to our citizenry and making sure that we're not losing highly qualified staff to other counties just because we simply can't
keep up with family supporting wages going forward. So I'll brief there because we have 12 minutes. So thank you for your time.
Thank you, Ronald. Appreciate that county perspective and the way that referendums work for the locals and how important that local branch of government is.
We're going to go next to George Madison.
Hello, my name is George Madison. I'm with the Workers Center for Racial Justice.
I just want to keep it brief. Like we said, one thing that I really want to see different in the state would be more in depth legal education for everybody.
I feel like because if you don't know how the legal system works, how are you going to be able to fight it, you know, how are you going to be able to stand on it.
And if we can get a more in depth education for the legal system in the schools or even through even for adults somewhere where we can go to see exactly how we would do certain processes.
Also, I would like to see less warrants for non violent crimes because it keeps people in jail for non violent offenses, which just makes it harder for anyone to get back into the workplace if they're not in a great place.
It came up from a terrible community, which is oftentimes the case in Milwaukee.
And then we're reduced processing for children and legal system.
So there is a lot of children in the legal system who are basically already on the pipeline to go to jail as soon as they become an adult and that doesn't look good when they are an adult, you know.
So if we could just get the knowledge, you know, maybe we could even even then maybe they could keep themselves out of jail.
And I think just keeping a lot of people out of the system because it doesn't help anyone honestly really just makes our whole state honestly look worse.
We got so many people in jail and all of these people can be contributing to something, especially if they're not in there for anything violent.
There's a lot more I would like to say, but those are my points.
And I do. Thank you for your time. George from the workers.
Thank you, George.
Appreciate it.
We'll go next to Heidi.
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
I'm Heidi left.
I'm the executive director of supporting families together Association.
We administer two state networks that are comprised of 37 agencies that serve the early childhood and family support fields.
So I just wanted to echo what a number of my colleagues talked about earlier.
The childcare counts ask, you know, they spoke about it in terms of a workforce issue and it absolutely is.
They're the workforce behind the workforce.
I'm also a nurse by trade and have my PhD in public health and was an academic for the past 10 years prior to jumping over to the nonprofit sector.
And my research was really focused on predictors of violence and child abuse and neglect.
And so my perspective on childcare counts is is a little bit different.
I mean, certainly what they were saying, but I also see the impact that not having access to affordable childcare that has a really negative impact on the financial security of families and also of those early care and education providers.
And financial insecurity and caregiver stress is one of the strongest predictors of violence and abuse and neglect of children.
And we also know that kids who experience abuse and neglect are far more likely to have negative outcomes in their childhood and also into adulthood.
And we've heard a lot of that from many of the people who have been speaking today.
And so as I reiterate the ask for childcare counts.
I also just want to put on the lens of supporting childcare workers and supporting families to be able to have fair wages and accessible childcare is something that is going to produce just a profound return on investment for Wisconsin.
That's multi sectoral in the short, medium, long term.
We're going to also, if we can, if we can reduce that financial insecurity for families and caregivers, we're going to be able to reduce our healthcare costs, reduce our, reduce our child welfare costs, our, our public safety costs, our corrections costs.
So I just wanted to, to also put that perspective on it because that investing in our children and all of those who support them is something that is just so profoundly positive for the Wisconsin economy in so many ways.
Thank you.
Thank you Heidi.
We'll go next to Ann.
Hi, thank you for listening to my views.
I'm the library director in northern Wisconsin and Hayward, Wisconsin.
And we, I, we are a member of 30 member library consortium.
And we probably covered the most land mass in Wisconsin for consortium.
So providing services to rural libraries and rural citizens is very important.
One of the things that we would, with an increased budget would be to expand our mail book program, which is the only mail service in the state.
And that's to so allow access to people who cannot make it into a library, where they're physically or they are located 50 miles from a library.
We provide that service.
We'd also increase access for community members through bookmobiles and increase in terms of advocacy and into intellectual freedom challenges, which we all know is going around the state and hopefully.
It goes down, including in the country.
And again, because we do cover such a large land mass delivery among the libraries is very important to us.
And it covers a lot of rural communities.
We'd also increase funding for a robust network for equitable Internet access and IT support, which is very lacking in the northern parts of the state.
We share collections so that wouldn't help us with that.
And of course, marketing and advocacy and continual education, which we all know that was stated earlier.
The parent has a strong literacy base.
The children will also, and many of our libraries have a strong basis for providing access for children for books.
And just wanted to also thank for the support that the state has given us in the last couple of years, the extras.
And that's been able to increase some personal wages, which in general, the average wage up here in northern Wisconsin is much lower.
And of course, cost of living has increased everywhere.
And it's been able to help us with price increases with health insurance, cyber security insurance, supply software, et cetera.
We're also able to expand patron access, the library materials from the Internet at home with this.
So I wanted to thank you for your past support and hopefully get continued support of the libraries in northern Wisconsin.
Thank you.
Thank you and appreciate that.
I don't see any other hands up, but if there is anyone that would like to comment, we have just another minute and a half here.
Billy Joe, we'll go to you.
We'll take you off mute here.
There you go.
Hi, my name is Billy Joe. I live in the Greater Triple Valley and work in the Greater Triple Valley at United Way.
One of the things I just wanted to bring to light is we, I do understand what it's like to try to pick who are going to grant fund as it is one of the things that we provide.
But we also do a lot of collaboration in our community to try to help everybody to the nonprofits in our community to help them grow.
One of the things that we have been noticing is an influx in the basic needs.
So more and more requests for basic need programs in our area.
So this year, what we are doing in a kind of proposing this as well for other funders is to look at your initiatives.
We cover for their financial security education health, which is mental health and then also basic needs.
And we are putting an influx to those that are having more applications, which is the basic needs as somebody who has lived experience who has gone through food and securities and homelessness themselves.
Without these programs, I would not be where I am today, which is now educated with master's degree and working to help other people.
So I really, really feel strongly to meet people's basic needs so that they are able to be the best that they can do and to help other people.
Thank you.
Brittany, you may have to go quick here.
You've got 30 seconds.
Before work kicked over to the main session.
All right, I'll be really quick.
So my name is Brittany De Lao.
I am the director of donor engagement and grants for YWCA Rock County.
I just want to echo everything related to child advocacy centers.
And child care specifically, we also were affected by VOCA cuts.
We have a domestic violence shelter.
So any kind of funding and sport that can go towards those basic needs.
Infrastructure, I know in the past, there's been support for capital nonprofits like us.
We just are really a desperate need.
So anything that can be provided is really, really essential.
Well, thank you.
And I want to thank everyone for participating and being patient and kind and a lot of great points here.
We may get kicked off before I get through them all, but I heard a lot about.
Larry, I see your hand up if you want to make two second comments since everyone's coming back.
You're muted.
To help attract more workers to Wisconsin.
We can raise the minimum wage and repeal the right to work at.
Thank you, Larry.
Appreciate it.
Just my thoughts.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Okay, everyone.
Thank you so much.
And welcome back to the main room.
Just a reminder to mute yourself and turn your video off.
We will be hearing the governor for closing remarks in just a few moments.
Well.
Thanks, everybody.
What a great opportunity.
I've had to listen to several groups, several people in several groups.
And I just want to thank you for taking the time to be here.
Really good ideas.
And I loved hearing from them.
How many hearing you explain the issues that are important.
So thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas.
Obviously, we will, you know, put all this information together with the ones that we had in person and help kind of drive our budget making.
Also, you know, good work on the behalf of the note takers and facilitators and the policy experts who helped out tonight and who will make sure all your feedback gets taken back and recorded.
We also have an opportunity here to take.
We make really meaningful investments in our shared priorities while continuing to stay well within our means and create prosperity.
That will define our state for generations.
So what we've done in the last three budgets, and that's what we're going to do again in this budget.
And so I thank you for showing up and fighting for what you care about.
So that, frankly, we can all fight for you.
So I have a good night folks and take care and thank you so much.
I've been listening all evening to your your concerns and I look forward to making sure that we have the best budget possible and your input has been really, really important.
So have a good evening again. Thank you.
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