Governor Tony Avers declared 2025 the year of the kid, and his two-year budget called
for more than $300 million in direct spending on school mental health treatment and staffing.
Last night, the Joint Finance Committee approved $20 million in one-time funding to expand
K-12 mental health programs.
Meanwhile, a bill in the legislature calls for a two-year pilot program in two schools
in Wisconsin, providing wrap-around school-centered mental health services, even through the
summer break.
Senate author of the bill, Republican Senator Jesse James of Thorpe, joins us with more
and thanks a lot for being here.
Thank you for having me this morning.
Sure.
So just on the process of it, provisions and funding of your bill would be tucked into
the budget under the Department of Health Services.
That is correct.
And is it in there at this point?
The funding is going to be funded through a budget motion that has been submitted.
So you've said that advocacy for youth mental health is your number one priority.
Why the urgency on that?
So it comes from my personal life.
It comes from my outside career of this building as a law enforcement officer, as well as what
I've seen with and heard from constituents from my district and from across the state.
The impacts that we've seen in our mental health, behavioral health crises that our youth have
been experiencing across our state, have been on the rise.
And I've dealt personally with more youth in crisis than I have adults in my law enforcement
capacity in the last five years where I work as a part-time police officer in the village
of Cadat.
So that raised some concerns for me and our state does okay when it comes to these crises,
whether it's adult or youth.
But I think trying to get our youth, the services, resources, education prevention, coping strategies,
everything that they need as a youth that they can mature and grow into the young adult life
will set them up for success in the future as they continue to reside in our state.
So the school-centered pilot program proposed would provide wraparound mental health services
in two schools.
What would that look like?
So in two schools, one would be urban semi-urban school and the other one would be rural school.
You know, the things that happen up in the village of Cadat happen in the city of Milwaukee.
And I think the key element to this is the data collecting.
There will be a report that will be, have to be submitted from whoever were to receive
the grant funding for this.
And they have to provide a report back.
And that's some of the issues that we have in our state is the lack of information sharing.
The schools do a good job tracking it, but at the state level, none of that information
is shared.
So we would have to personally go to each of our school districts to find out what's going
on with mental health, how many students are impacted by it, whether it's elementary,
middle school, high school.
And without that data, it's very hard for us as a legislature to make decisions moving
forward.
We can just say, yeah, there's a problem, but we just throw money at it with no data reporting
or collecting.
That's a foolish decision, in my opinion.
And so what would those wraparound services look like?
Well, it's huge.
And the key element to this is that the parents are involved in, and then also the community
buy-in as there as well with the partnerships and collaboration.
But the wraparound, it's a year-long process.
It's not just during the school year where when the children are in crisis, they're receiving
the services and resources available to them.
This is a year-long process that even continues on through the summertime to where those continue
treatment options are available to the youth and the family.
So I understand that an agency like Lutheran Social Services could hold the contract to
provide the program, and there are estimates there that it would cost about $850,000 over
two years in the end of those two years.
If this proves super successful, how could it be paid for in more schools than two across
the state?
Well, that's the good question.
I think we're still waiting to see what's happening at the federal level with all the
decisions being made there.
This is our attempt at the state level to implement something so that we can see the
figures, we can get the data.
Once we get that kind of reporting done, and we as a legislature and the stakeholders
interest in this topic, this issue, we can bring forth further decisions, further funding,
further modifications that would need to be taken place.
I mean, this is going to be a continued work in progress.
Is there some concern on the part of lawmakers that just a lot of money is thrown at these,
you know, mental health programs, again, without the return of the evidence-based success?
Is that kind of what's partly driving the idea here?
A hundred percent.
So last session, I've had superintendents in my office during budget talks this spring
and summer here to where last session, they just funneled out a whole bunch of dollars
to our school districts.
One school district received $4,000.
That's not going to pay for staff.
That's not going to, you know, get what that school district may need to provide mental
health services to their students.
Now, I did share options with them, but for example, that school district, they had a
guest speaker come in and talk to the students.
So we can do better and with that funding, they didn't have a, they didn't have to report
back on what they use that money for.
And that was every school district in our state.
There's something wrong with that.
We need to know how our dollars are being spent, the impact that it's having in our
schools, especially when it comes to our youth.
And that's how we're going to learn and, hey, what's successful working in this school?
Can we look at other schools that have done the same thing and how many schools are doing
that, get the data on how it's improved the children's grades, improve their communication
skills, improve their coping strategies.
All this stuff is important data that we need as we further advance into the future on
how we're going to help provide the best school environment for our children so that they
can feel comfortable at school when it comes to the mental health crises.
I think we're taking some huge steps and a lot of school districts across our nation
now are banning cell phones in schools.
That's a huge contributing factor to students' mental health.
And I would have discussions with anybody on this.
And even the students say that as well, because when I talk to the students in the schools,
I ask them about it, of course, they don't want to see the cell phones removed, but we
can do modifications and stuff where there are certain times like my daughter's school,
or certain times where they had access to their phone.
I'm okay with that.
So there's things that we can do.
It's all about communication, negotiation, and compromise.
So speaking of that, does this pilot have the support of legislative leaders and the governor?
Well, the funding element is always the issue of the session.
That's the number one thing because it's like, well, the money's not in there.
How are we going to fund it?
This is the political gamesmanship that's played in Madison.
You know, we'll get the bill to the floor.
The money would be appropriated.
I mean, if it passes our Senate and it passes our assembly, the GFC, I would wholeheartedly
feel that the funding would be put into the budget to cover this.
This was the figure that I put out there, the $850,000 over two years for two schools,
the right fiscal note, as it were.
Yeah, it was, yes, that's correct.
All right.
Well, we leave it there.
Senator Jesse James, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
Have a great day.
You too.
Marissa, I have some ideas on what to do with that.