>> I'm Frederica Freyberg.
Tonight on "Here and Now,"
a first look at the governor's budget vetoes,
a closer look at the Dems running for governor.
Dana Wachs is here.
I'll talk with new Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz.
And an inside look into how UW space scientists
forecast and measure hurricanes.
It's "Here and Now" for September 22.
>> Funding for "Here and Now" is provided in
part by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
>> The state's two-year spending plan is in the books tonight.
Two months past due but signed into law late this week
and before the end of summer as the governor promised.
Also this week, the governor signed the multibillion dollar
incentive package to bring the Taiwanese technology company to
southeast Wisconsin.
With the stroke of a pen, Governor Scott Walker this week
signed the bill approving up to $3 billion in state subsidies
for the Foxconn plant to locate in Wisconsin.
>> And I'm proud to say that not only will these LCD panels be
made for the first time in America,
they'll be made proudly here in the great state of Wisconsin.
[applause]
>> More strokes struck items in the bill by way of the
governor's veto pen, including the elimination of legislative
oversight of $250 million in highway borrowing for I-94,
a stretch of road that will serve Foxconn.
The location of the plant is pegged for a 1,
000 acre quadrangle along I-94 in Racine County.
Some land owners with property where the company expects to
build a $10 billion plant have said they've been offered
$50,000 an acre.
The state and Foxconn still have to sign a contract detailing the
incentive package and certain requirements for job creation
and wages.
Governor Walker had a big week.
He also signed in to law the two-year state budget.
A $76 billion spending plan that plumps up education funding,
but fails to find a long-term funding source for roads and
highways.
He made extensive use of his veto pen in the budget.
He appeased some Republican senators by making repeal of the
prevailing wage take effect immediately
rather than in a year.
In all he vetoed nearly 100 items
in the spending plan as passed.
A key one eliminated a funding increase for low spending school
districts saying that would result in a substantial increase
in property tax capacity.
Joint Finance Republican Co-chair John Nygren expressed
his disappointment in that veto saying, quote, as a result,
over 200 school districts across the state will lose over $90
million in funding over the next six years.
One of those districts is also sorely disappointed by the veto
because the item written in the budget by the Legislature's
Joint Finance Committee would have increased the maximum that
low spending districts could spend for each student by $300
over two years, getting those districts up to $9,
400 per student.
The increased funding would have come from a combination of state
aid and property taxes.
The Adams-Friendship district
was looking forward to that bump.
We checked in with its district administrator Jim Boebel.
Thank you very much for being here.
>> Thank you for the invitation.
>> What is your reaction to the veto that takes away the funding
increase for low spending districts?
>> It's a disappointment.
In our district and statewide, that was one of those
opportunities in which we could have helped all the students
in our state.
And it was taken away.
>> Was that unexpected, that veto?
>> It was.
All of the news reports that our people had been informing us
going into the signing of the budget was that there was a
great chance that that revenue cap would be raised.
And then, boy, it started about a day before
where we started hearing stories about
there's potential that it will be vetoed out.
>> Had you kind of factored that in to your accounting mix there
already or how did you handle that?
>> Well, we factor everything from worst
case to best case scenario.
And our school budget the last two years
has been a deficit budget.
So we are trying to be responsible stewards with our
taxpayers' money.
Going into next year, this year and next year
we also projected deficit budget.
So having that money, that revenue cap stay where it is,
it makes us become even more-- we have to be more careful with
every dollar that we spend.
That it has to go directly into student learning.
>> Let's unpack that deficit situation a little bit.
What is your deficit going into this school year?
And how might that grow going into next?
>> Well, currently projected for this school year,
it's about $350,000, and that for me is a sizeable amount when
our total budget is around $18.5 million.
Last year we ended up $650,000 negative.
So those decisions that we have to make are so impactful
and it makes it even more difficult for us,
because we are a rural district.
We're 500 square miles.
It costs a lot to bring our students in.
And we have declining enrollment.
Those factors all point towards
a difficult budget to get through.
>> What will that difficult budget mean in the classroom and
in other areas of your schools?
>> Well, we're doing everything we can to keep those cuts away
from student learning in the classroom.
What it's going to force us to do is go to our taxpayers and
ask for more funds.
>> What's the appetite for those kinds of referendums in your
district?
>> An operating referendum we haven't passed before.
So this will be a new venture if that's the decision we make.
The board hasn't decided that yet.
But looking at how the numbers are stacking up,
it certainly looks like a possibility.
One thing I do know is my family moving into the district here
just recently, this place cares about their kids.
And as long as the district can prove we're doing this and this
will help our students learn and we will be able to sustain it,
I'm confident going forward the community will say,
"Yes, we'll support it."
>> Are lean budgets and deficit budgets something that students
and parents notice?
>> I'm sorry. Could you say that again, please?
>> Are these lean budgets and then deficit budgets something
that students and parents notice and talk about?
Or is this mostly just the burden in the front office there
of the district office?
>> I don't know if a student would talk about it but
certainly the parents are aware.
They're aware of how we are trying to make the most with
what we have.
And we're trying to do our best as a district to educate our
parents and our taxpayers as far as here's what we can do.
And here's the best option.
And here's how, not only today, because we really have a duty to
serve our students that came to school every day this year.
But we also have to plan ahead, three, five years down the road,
too. >> Right.
You are however glad about the overall bump
in per pupil spending in the budget.
How far might that go towards easing your deficit?
>> To be clear, we're ecstatic.
The per pupil categorical increase of $200 this year,
$204 next year.
That is the best thing that we could hope for.
The problem is it didn't adjust
or it didn't impact the state funding formula.
And that is where a district like Adams-Friendship in which
we have high property values because of the lakes.
So the formula looks at our district and says high property
values, you have of the money to support,
but what it doesn't factor in is that 68% of our students
are in poverty.
I wish it would calculate that into the factor.
>> You are in a difficult circumstance.
We appreciate you talking with us about it.
Jim Boebel, district administrator, Adams-Friendship,
thanks a lot.
Good luck. >> Thank you so much.
>> A big week for Governor Walker and a change for
Democrats in one chamber of the legislature.
The Assembly's new Minority Leader is Gordon Hintz,
Democrat from Oshkosh.
He joins us from his district.
Thanks for doing so.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> Before we go, we should say we asked Republican leadership
to also join us tonight and they declined.
But what is your response to Governor Walker's budget
and the vetoes he made?
What stands out for you?
>> Well, it's one of disappointment and really
missed opportunities.
The reality is the biggest challenge going into the budget,
actually the last three budgets, is coming up with a long-term,
sustainable funding solution to our transportation
infrastructure.
And once again, the governor and the Republican majority have
punted resulting in delayed projects, crumbling roads,
increasing costs to taxpayers and probably a budget in the
next two years that'll be even harder to fix.
>> As for your new position as minority leader taking over from
Peter Barca, you've said the Democrats in the Assembly are
not united.
Why aren't they?
>> Well, I think it's been a challenging six years, just,
you know, with what's happened to Democrats nationally and
certainly in Wisconsin under Governor Walker.
We've had the most partisan redistricting maps.
We've had changes to campaign finance law that's really made
it difficult for us to be as competitive.
But we're at a time where this is really about looking forward
and figuring how we can best get the democratic message around
the state so we can be competitive.
And make sure the 2018 election cycle is one where we pick up
seats and change the direction that Wisconsin
has gone in the last few years.
>> How do you do that?
How do you pull out of the hole
of that overwhelming GOP majority?
>> Well, I mean that's really the challenge.
I mean part of it is by making sure all 35 of our members are
invested in what we need to do to be successful.
Serving in the legislature is not an easy job.
We all have obligations with different districts,
different constituencies.
But you know, Democrats despite their diverse opinions,
really unite around the values of opportunity, fairness,
community and building off those shared values.
And making sure not only that we're holding Governor Walker
and the Republicans accountable for their decisions but we're
offering an alternative vision about why Wisconsin
can do better.
And why there'd be more opportunity for people under
Democratic agenda.
>> How does that look different from what the minority has been
doing since the election of Scott Walker?
>> Well, I mean, look.
Part of it's we've been playing a lot of defense.
Our first role is to try to do what we can with Republicans to
best serve our constituents.
And there's certainly been some bipartisan legislation.
A lot of times we are trying to improve, fix, amend.
And a lot of time we've been trying to stop bad things that
undermine Wisconsin values from happening.
I think there's a recognition we also need to be better at
reaching people with what our agenda is.
And what a Democratic governor's agenda would be.
To counter that, we should be in a better place than we are right
now after eight years of national economic growth.
>> How do you get that message out?
>> Well, a lot of that, you know,
media is a lot different than it was 20 years ago.
News is more disbursed.
People get their information from online, social media,
cable news, some from traditional print.
But I think we're going to have to spend more time actually
getting out to a lot of the areas where
maybe we haven't been doing so.
And not guessing what things might be appealing,
but making sure we are listening and that our message
is resonating with people.
And they understand what a future-oriented narrative
would look like.
>> So tell me then what your main message would be
for those people?
You have a soap box right here, right now.
>> Sure.
Well I think Democrats are big believers in the fact that you
need to invest in infrastructure
unlike Governor Walker and Republicans.
That that is key to an economy, especially in a manufacturing
producing segment of the state here in northeast Wisconsin.
We make things here.
You need to be able to get them to market
safely and quickly and efficiently.
Second, we believe in investing in people.
Whether that's through education or higher education or
recognizing there are 1 million student loan borrowers with
significant debt that are unable to move forward with buying a
home, being able to work in a job they might like better than
one that has to pay more.
And the last one is supporting small business development.
The majority of new jobs are going to come from new
businesses that are created and entrepreneurship.
Not by throwing taxpayer dollars at a foreign company who has no
investment or skin in the game in Wisconsin.
>> Very briefly, as we kind of close out,
for his part Majority Leader Jim Steineke
this week congratulated you.
And said he stands ready to work alongside you
to advance shared values.
Now that is certainly conciliatory.
But how can an outspoken critic of the Republicans
such as yourself work alongside them?
>> That gets back to the balancing act
that I said earlier.
All of us are charged by our constituents to serve and try to
get things done that benefit the state of Wisconsin.
And that is always going to be our goal.
I look forward to sitting down with Majority Leader Steinke
and Speaker Vos.
I've got some ideas on things that I think can be bipartisan.
The speaker has been very good about creating some committees
that try to address issues from foster care
to the opioid epidemic.
But again, it's about work together when you can.
Hold them accountable when you have to.
>> Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, thanks very much for joining us.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> A closer look now at the governor's race and the next in
our series of interviews with those who have announced their
candidacy.
Tonight we meet Eau Claire attorney and state
representative Democrat Dana Wachs.
Thanks for being here. >> Thanks for having me.
>> Well I wanted to know what you think sets you apart
from the other Democrats running for this office?
>> Well Frederica, I've spent my entire life being an advocate
for people in the middle class
and people trying to get into the middle class.
I've spent my life being an advocate in the courtroom
for those folks.
When I was elected to the Assembly,
I was absolutely shocked.
When you get to Madison, you realize Madison isn't hearing
what the middle class and folks like that are trying to say.
Madison hears nothing but what powerful,
wealthy special interest groups have to say.
Legislation is passed primarily in reaction to campaign
contributions down here.
And that's not the Wisconsin way.
That's not the American way.
I think being an advocate for the middle class,
I think I'm best suited to take our case into that building and
make sure that the middle class is being heard.
>> How are you set apart in that way
from some of the others in this race?
>> I've been an advocate my whole life.
I grew up in western Wisconsin.
I'm a firm believer in pragmatic,
being a pragmatic progressive.
I'm a hunter and fisherman.
And I've tried cases and represented people
all over the state of Wisconsin.
You get to know what people are about.
What their values are.
What their thoughts are and what their needs are.
When you're actually with people and representing them
in the court system.
>> On the issues, in your mind, what is the most important thing
that Wisconsin needs to do for its education system?
>> We need to support education.
We need to support education as best we can.
I tell you.
We come from a long tradition of the Wisconsin Idea .
Where education actually permeated our society both from
the capitol through all industry in our society.
We all profited from.
We all were the benefactors of Wisconsin's education system.
We're last in the nation in start-ups.
You can't get any worse than last.
What we need to do is reincorporate,
reinvigorate a Wisconsin idea.
We need a new type of Wisconsin idea to get start-ups working.
To make sure people have jobs that are paying well.
And to utilize what we have, a wonderful capacity in our
educational system.
>> Should the Affordable Care Act remain in place?
If you were elected governor, would you choose to accept
expanded Medicaid?
>> Absolutely.
Just by accepting that, we're going to have tens of thousands
of additional jobs in Wisconsin.
And most importantly, we're going to cover our citizens.
Our citizens need this coverage.
There's no excuse.
This money should have been taken from the first place.
And we need to keep our eye on the ball on what Wisconsin
citizens need.
We need to have healthcare for our citizens.
>> You talked about education and the Wisconsin idea,
but what is the best way to grow good paying jobs?
>> We need a steady hand on the economic tiller.
Scott Walker is going for this Hail Mary pass
with this foreign company Foxconn.
What we need to do is invest in start-ups,
home grown businesses.
That's the kind of business community we need.
It's diverse.
It's widespread and it's effective.
For instance, in Eau Claire there's a company called Jamf
that's now a partner with Apple computer.
It's turning our downtown completely around.
It's a home grown company that will stay here.
And in Madison, you have another example Epic.
It's a home grown company that will stay in Wisconsin and
provides thousands of jobs.
That's the safe economy.
That's the economy that works for our people.
Home grown businesses will stay.
They will flourish and they will employ thousands in Wisconsin.
>> On Foxconn though, how difficult is it to turn down
the prospect of potentially 13,000 jobs?
>> Here's the deal with Foxconn.
Number one, they're rushing this through.
Every time in my career, somebody is
trying to rush a deal through or rush a settlement through.
You hit the brakes and take a hard look at just what exactly
is going on.
We're missing things.
They're rushing things through to keep it from people.
This business, investing $3 billion in one company with one
industry makes that business too big to fail functionally.
That company will come back.
They'll say we need to retool
for a different type of TV screen.
And they'll ask for another $100 million.
And we'll have to give it to them in that scenario.
I think this is a terrible idea.
It has terrible environmental implications as well.
If we're putting the blinders on our environmental protections,
regulations, and laws for this company,
other companies are going to come in and they're going to ask
for the same thing.
This is not the way to do business in Wisconsin.
We need to invest in people.
The way things are working around here,
there really isn't an investment in people.
There really isn't policy for human beings in Wisconsin.
It's mostly political paybacks.
That's what's going on in Madison.
And that's gotta change.
>> Very briefly with about a half minute left,
you've just been through the budget cycle and the issues with
transportation funding.
What in your mind would be a good way to get
some kind of sustainable funding for transportation?
>> Should never have unindexed the gas tax.
That was a mistake.
Years ago that was a mistake that was made
that should never have happened.
We've got to do adult things, and we have got
a billion dollars, a couple billion dollars infrastructure
that's crumbling beneath our tires.
This has got to be invested in.
We need to be adults and come to the table and deal with this.
>> We need to leave it there.
Dana Wachs, thanks very much.
Now to science news and the role UW-Madison scientists play in
hurricane forecast and research.
Even though Wisconsin is 1,500 miles away from Caribbean
pathways of a hurricane, the UW plays a key part in the study
and forecasting of those storms.
I caught up with member of the UW Tropical Cyclone Research
Group, Derrick Herndon, who works in the Space Science Lab,
a space they call "the cave."
I started by asking what they're tracking at the moment.
>> Currently we're tracking Hurricane Maria.
So Maria just made landfall on Puerto Rico.
And then exited the coast of Puerto Rico and is now passing
north of Hispaniola as a category 3 hurricane.
This was a category 5 hurricane.
It's weakened some to a category 3.
But it's forecast to continue to the northwest and pass just to
the east of the Bahamas before it moves north into the Atlantic
>> In seasons like this, do people get hurricane fatigue?
>> I think you get a little hurricane fatigue.
When the hits kind of keep coming you know.
I know a lot of people in Texas were concerned that their story
was basically being lost because it was followed very quickly
by Irma, which was a deadly hurricane and damaging hurricane
in Florida.
So it can be very difficult in terms of moving resources to the
right places because we have so many storms making landfall and
impacting land and people's lives.
>> And yet you said this isn't necessarily an unusual season?
>> It's not unusual so much in the terms of we've had some very
strong storms this season.
And we've had quite a few of them.
We could go back to 2005, which wasn't that long ago to a season
where we have five category 4 or stronger storms.
This season has set some records.
Hurricane Irma did set the record for the strongest
hurricane ever in that part of the Atlantic.
And we've also seen some storms that have undergone
some fairly rapid intensification.
And we'll need to go back at the end of the season
to analyze that data.
>> What's responsible for that?
>> The main culprit really in this season's activity is the
waters are very warm.
The waters in most of the Atlantic are actually a little
bit above normal in terms of their temperature.
The upper level environment is also very favorable.
So just about all the disturbances that have had a
chance to develop have become hurricanes
or very strong hurricanes.
Some of that is due to short-term time scales.
And there's also a bit of a climate component
in there as well.
>> So that does make people think about climate change?
>> Yeah, I think it definitely does.
And I've had a number of questions from friends and
colleagues and stuff about, "How does this fit
within that perspective?"
The answer is we think with the warmer ocean,
we should see stronger storms.
And the probability of rapid intensification
should be higher.
>> How important is rapid intensification when we're
talking about places along the U.S. coastlines
where there's big populations?
>> That's one of our biggest concerns.
So it's kind of a bit of a nightmare scenario in terms of a
storm that is a fairly weak storm but then becomes a strong
storm very close to the coast.
So we don't have a lot of lead time in terms of our forecast.
Harvey is a bit of an example in that case.
It went from a tropical storm to a category 4 hurricane
in only 36 hours.
When you consider we're going to issue a hurricane watch 48 hours
out, that gives us very, very little time to evacuate the
coastal communities.
>> And the satellite imagery that you work with here to track
and forecast these kinds of storms,
what application does that have?
I mean, who uses it?
>> One of the direct users of this data
is the National Hurricane Center.
They use our satellite data and the products we can derive from
the satellite data.
So information about what is the environment that the hurricane
is developing in.
Are the upper level winds favorable?
Is the water warm?
Is their ample moisture for the hurricane to use?
And we have products developed here at UW that can basically
derive those perimeters and the Hurricane Center can look at the
data and determine if the environment is favorable for the
storm.
>> Was this technology really started here at UW-Madison?
>> Yes, some of it was.
The wind features that are derived from the satellite
imagery was a product directly developed here.
>> And the technology you've described has really made huge
strides in the past decade.
You can do things now and understand things now that you
wouldn't have been able to 10 years ago?
>> Yes, that's very true.
We've basically cut our forecast track errors in half over the
last 15 years.
For example, a 72-hour forecast
would be off by 100 miles 15 years ago.
Now it's off by 50 miles.
That's substantial improvement.
Unfortunately some of that's been offset a little bit by the
fact that we need longer and longer lead times to evacuate
because there are more people to evacuate
and more people know the coast.
>> You had some other things that you were showing on the
screen as well, showing the eye. >> Right.
One of the things we've been working on recently is while
we've made great strides in forecasting where hurricanes
will go, our ability to forecast the intensity of storms
has not kept pace.
We have not made substantial improvements there.
This particular product is a product developed here.
It takes satellite imagery in the microwave spectrum
and morphs that imagery into an animation.
And basically we can look at the internal changes of the
structure of the storm.
In this particular case Maria is crossing the Caribbean and is
undergoing what we call an eyewall replacement cycle,
where the small inner eye is replaced by larger outer eye.
And that has implications for the short-term forecast.
So the Hurricane Center can use that information to improve
their forecasts.
>> Now for an update from Washington.
The U.S. Department of Justice
is announcing changes to the program
that produced a federal draft review of the Milwaukee
Police Department earlier this month.
The DOJ's Collaborative Reform Initiative helps police
departments introduce reforms and improve trust between the
departments and their communities.
The announced changes would shift federal focus from
improving these relations to helping departments with police
procedure such as providing active shooter training.
The changes stem from a memo released by Attorney General
Jeff Sessions which outlines goals of the department that
include promoting officer safety and morale.
The memo does not include provisions for improving public
trust in the police.
That is our program for tonight.
I'm Frederica Freyberg.
Have a great weekend.
>> Funding for "Here and Now" is provided in part
by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.