>> The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original
production. >> Whiplash at the Capitol.
This week as a Republican candidate for governor.
Whip Democratic votes to kill a bipartisan bill.
[MUSIC] And with warmer temps and
more ticks, cases of Lyme disease are on the rise.
[MUSIC] I'm Frederica Freyberg.
Tonight on "Here& Now", a full breakdown of the
political mashup that held more drama than results.
And we hear from the bills, cheerleaders and
challengers. [MUSIC]
infections has physicians cautioning for education
and prevention. It's "Here& Now" for May 15th.
[MUSIC] >> Funding for Here and Now
is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and
Friends of PBS Wisconsin. >> A deal that made strange
bedfellows of Republican candidate for governor Tom
Tiffany and Democratic state lawmakers fell apart
this week. Governor Tony Evers and Republican
legislative leaders had negotiated a $1.8 billion
spending package that sent $600 million more to K-12
schools, including half of that for special education.
The spending designed to lower property taxes. It
also eliminated taxes on tips and overtime, and gave
$850 million of the state's projected $2.5 billion
budget surplus, directly back to income taxpayers,
in the form of $300 checks to singles and $600 for
married filers. But when it went to the full
legislature, the state Senate voted it down with
three Republicans and all Democrats rejecting the
plan. Tom Tiffany had come out earlier lambasting the
measure, calling it an Evers backroom deal, saying
it's, quote, another Madison gimmick that fails
to deliver lasting tax relief for Wisconsin
taxpayers that put him in sync with Democrats like
Senator Mark Spreitzer. >> This is money that is
simply not targeted to those who are actually
hurting in this economy. And with a price tag that
we simply don't have the money to actually fund.
>> For his part, Governor Evers torched Tiffany,
saying he purportedly made phone calls to help tank
the deal and that needed investments and tax
reductions wouldn't happen because some Republicans
and Democrats would, quote, rather do what's best for
the next election than what's right for the people
of our state. Of those who voted no, many didn't care
for the fact the package was hatched by leaders not
running for reelection and a lame duck governor also
not running. The bill saw bipartisan passage in the
state Assembly, with ten Dems voting in favor, along
with all Republicans, among them Republican
Representative Toni Kurz of Wonewoc, vice chair of the
Joint Finance Committee. He joins us now. And thanks a
lot for being here. >> Oh my pleasure. Thank
you for having me. >> So how surprised were
you that this blew up and failed?
>> I was incredibly shocked. I'm actually you know,
we're how many days after the fact and I'm still I'm
still a little shocked and dismayed, to be very, very
frank with you. >> Why?
>> I just think it's a good package. Really? Since
January, we've been working with the governor in good
faith on this. So for those that say this was done out
of the blue, that is not true. This is something
that we've been working on. And anybody inside the
Madison bubble know we've been working on that.
That's what kind of shocks me the most that we
couldn't get this across the finish line, even
though people knew we were working on this personally.
And I'm just speaking for me. I hope the governor
calls us back in for a special session. I really
do. >> On this or other matters.
>> On this particular matter. I mean, what what
bothers me the most about this entire package is, you
know, you have some of my Republican colleagues that,
you know, obviously, you know, they want to save the
money for a large tax cut next year. Okay. That's
fine. And then you have my Democrat colleagues that
obviously want to save all this money for next session
because, you know, they they have their various
programs that they want to do. The problem is people
are hurting right now. And the further we keep pushing
this down, the down the road is we're another year
behind. pot sweeteners that were
going back and forth? >> The property tax
exemption for disabled veterans, that was part of
a sweetener. That is something incredibly
important to those organizations. We thought
that was going to help disaster relief. That is
something that and that's had broad bipartisan
support as well. You know, in my area, we had just had
some tornadoes a couple of weeks ago, you know, up in
the Wausau area, in the Milwaukee area, the
flooding last year. So we thought that was a way to,
to sweeten the pot. But once again, this is this is
an opportunity for them to come back to us and say,
hey, we'd like to maybe see this. Or I'd like to say
that they wouldn't even entertain that. That's
what's kind of frustrating about the whole thing. We
got to the point where, you know, they didn't even want
to sit down and talk in a reasonable way.
>> Just coming back around on this a bit. Tom Tiffany
also called the measures in this temporary gimmicks.
What about that? >> I don't know, tax on
tips and no tax on overtime as a gimmick. I, I, I
respectfully disagree with that. You know the the
special education funding once again that that is and
if you want anybody to blame in like the state
legislature on who really is a hawk on, on the
special ed, it's me because as you know from your
experience, once we put money into special
education funding, regardless of what the
economy does, that is money we as a state can never
pull back because we have a federal requirement. Once
we put a dollar amount in special education, it has
to stay there. We can never claw that back if we have
another horrible economy. So I am a little careful on
what we do for special ed. Do we need to do it?
Absolutely. And so to say that's a gimmick. Once
again, I respectfully disagree with that. That's
permanent funding for our schools. So I, I disagree
on on the premise on both of those.
>> So as to the economy, some people wanted to be
prudent, hold on to any projected surplus in case
it sours, you know, potentially more than it
has. What about that persuasion?
>> You know, I, I've heard that that's an argument
some have tried to make. The fact of the matter is,
we had a really good state budget coming out of the
state budget late fall. We saw our projection numbers
higher than anticipated just in January. You know,
the numbers really like our economy is doing better
than we anticipated, even on Monday. You know, Monday,
the fiscal Bureau and wonderful Bob Lang and his
incredible team over there came out with another. It's
going to be another $300 million that we are above
projections. So I would never. And let me repeat
this, I would never sign or vote on a bill if I knew
that was going to put us in financial peril. That's not
the way we've been doing budgeting over the last 4
or 5 budgets. We live within our means, and this
budget and the proposal that unfortunately failed
Wednesday night lives within our means. Once
again, people think about if this was all said and
done, we'd still probably will well over have
probably nine 800 to 900 million $1 million in our
checking account. But then a lot of people don't
forget about the rainy day fund. Rainy day fund is
like our savings account, and that's well over $2
billion and that's earning interest. It's almost $7.5
million a month just in interest. So financially,
the state is doing very well. And I would never
once again, I never would put any of that in jeopardy
if there was a question about if we could not
afford this or not. >> Representative Tony
Kurtz, thank you very much for joining us.
>> Hey, thank you for your time. I hope you have a
good, good weekend. help us better understand
the broader motivations and implications of this deal,
we turn to our reporters at Inside Wisconsin Politics
Zac Schultz of PBS Wisconsin and Shawn Johnson
and Rich Kremer from Wisconsin Public Radio.
>> To me, this is a political Rorschach test.
How you view this particular deal kind of
matches your view on politics for some people
and for a lot of ordinary people around the state,
this was the epitome of a compromise. And as we're
about to run for election, those are things that
normally you'd want to see politicians pass. The other
side of that test is political purity. And there
are a lot of people looking at this deal saying, this
isn't as good as I would like it to be, and I think
we can do better when we have more power next year.
>> We had a very unusual scene kind of play out. The
assembly met after waiting all day to see what the
Senate was going to do. They passed this bill in
short order. The Senate is meeting at the same time,
and it's clear that things are not going well there.
And this bill actually fails on a vote of 15 to 18.
And I know people probably think big deal things pass,
things fail. Bills don't actually get to the point
of failure hardly ever in the state legislature. If
it doesn't have the votes, it does not come to the
floor, especially something as big and dramatic as this.
And for the governor to negotiate this and his
Senate Democrats stand unified against it to help
kill it with a few Republicans is something we
do not see every day. Zac, what do you think was
motivating Senate Democrats here?
>> There's two factors. I think. First is they were
insulted. They were left out of the loop.
>> That is huge, actually. >> That everyone knows they
need at least a couple Democratic votes and
probably more so. The fact that they were not
consulted did not have any input on this bill, and
made it clear from the very first time it was announced
that they were unhappy with it, showed the second part
of why Senate Democrats were not in line with this
comes next fall. And that's what the reelection there.
They are not quite certain, but very confident that
they're going to flip the majority in that chamber
and that when they come to power in the next session,
they will not only have a say, they will be the
deciding factors in how any bills are passed and how
budgets are passed, and so they can direct where that
money goes. And if they think they get lucky and
there's a Democratic assembly, then they're
going to say, all this money will be available for
us to spend in ways that we prefer instead of having to
compromise. clear cut case where
circumstances matter completely. You know, if if
Tony Evers were running for election in November and he
said, this is my big bill, Democrats, this is what I
want to run on. I mean, they would have voted. They
would have voted yes. No. Republicans probably
wouldn't have brought it up in that case. So, you know,
it's a it's a theoretical exercise. But but Senate
Democrats, I'm confident, would have been with him.
He is not on the ballot, though, this November, as
Diane Hesselbein noted, and Senate Democrats are poised
to. They think, take that majority. She has
essentially been a co majority leader on some of
the big bills that have come through the Senate
this year, from the budget to gambling. And so to
freeze them out of talks like this, which is the way
they viewed it, certainly, and to end up with a bill
that was pretty Republican in nature, about a billion
and a half in tax cuts, was not something that they
enjoyed, you know. >> Well. And don't forget,
there is another factor when it comes to everyone
looking at the next budget and the next year. And that
is there's a lot of people who think we may be looking
into a recession. Yeah. So most of this surplus is a
projection of what the economy is going to bring
in for tax revenues. If there's an economic
downturn in the next six months, that money
disappears all by itself without having been sent
out. So you send it out. Even though most of this is
one time spending, it may not be there next year. Now,
they say even in the worst of circumstances, at least
the state will have a little bit money to start
the next year with. So that is a legitimate concern
considering where gas prices and grocery prices
are right now. And with no end to a war in Iran, that
the economy could shift and go down and these tax
revenues may not materialize.
>> Rich, one question I had for you that we kind of
traded notes on throughout the night was, will voters
actually remember this? Like, will anybody be
rewarded or punished? >> You know, it's it's a
huge question. You all of what you're saying makes
sense to me, someone who's been really following this.
But, you know, I also remember being at a Supreme
Court election night event and a fellow at the hotel
not knowing there was an election that day. So
there's a part of me I'm always skeptical that this
sort of thing will stick in voters mind. It's different,
I guess, if you're getting your door knocked
consistently and people are reminding you of that, or
if you see a lot of commercials. But, you know,
in the grand scheme of things, a $300, $600 check,
that's a big deal. But, you know, all the political
infighting and everything like that, I just I'm not
sure if people will carry that all the way to
November. >> A provision in the
spending package would have given $50 million in state
aid to Wisconsin technical colleges, the aim being to
reduce the burden on local property taxes. Technical
colleges across the state serve 300,000 students on
16 campuses. Leaders of the system report being
underfunded by the state and didn't like the
provision, as it would replace locally controlled
funding with state controlled aid. Wisconsin
Technical College System President Layla Merrifield
joins us with more. Thanks for being here. Thank you.
So describe to us how getting $50 million from
the state is not a good thing in your mind, right?
>> Technical colleges are local units of government,
and we have always been a state and local partnership.
So we think both local funding and state funding
are both important. However, we would like to hang on to
the remaining property tax levy that we have access to.
It has been capped by the legislature, so
rising. We are not the cause of rising property
taxes here. The. The issues are.
>> That being. >> That being other local
units of government. And certainly we know that we
have K-12 funding issues in in Wisconsin that probably
need to be addressed. >> So in the last budget,
you saw additional state funding, but it came in $36
million. I think less than you requested. Is that an
example of the uncertainty kind of of state aid?
>> That's exactly it. We have not competed very well
in recent state budgets for lawmakers attention and
their priorities. And because of that, we have
come to really think about property taxes as as
ballast in our in our budget. It's a relatively
small portion, maybe about 28% of our overall budget.
But it's an important portion that stabilizes our
budgets and keeps things reliable, flexible, and
allows us to really be responsive when local
communities come to us for help.
>> So when you when you looked at the numbers,
where would it have left the system? If the 50
million in state aid offset would have passed.
>> It would have been about 10% of our overall levy
that that went away. But bear in mind that our
property taxes in the technical college system
are only around 3.5% of the total property tax burden
here in Wisconsin. So it's just not very much money.
But it's a big deal to us to have flexible dollars
that we can direct where communities are asking for
help. >> Were you surprised about
this provision? >> Surprised? No. This has
been an ongoing conversation in Wisconsin.
It's certainly something that we talk with our
policymakers often about and try to make the case
that local funding is important for our system,
and that community and technical colleges continue
to make decisions in the towns and counties where
they are most affected, and that we're able to respond
when, again, there's maybe a factory that closes and a
lot of Wisconsinites are laid off, or even when we
have shortages of firefighters and EMTs,
things like that, which we're experiencing right
now in our rural areas. >> Did it hurt you to think
that potentially state lawmakers and the governor
didn't appreciate what you're talking about there?
>> Well, I think it's an ongoing conversation. They
are certainly familiar with my side of things, and they
have their own points of view. But we'll we'll get
to a compromise position eventually, I'm sure.
>> What challenges do state tech colleges have right
now? >> Waiting lists and a lack
of resources are are the main things that are on my
mind and that keep me up at night. We have thousands of
students who are waiting to get into high demand, high
paying fields. And on the other side of that equation,
we have employers who are looking for our graduates.
So we would like to put those two people together
and and make sure that we can move more Wisconsin
students toward those careers and pathways that
are so important to maintaining, for example,
our manufacturing industry in this state, our health
care industry in this state, and really maintaining
Wisconsin's quality of life. >> What are those high
demand fields? >> There are many right now.
Dental hygiene is one. We have long waiting lists and
we are hoping to grow, continue to grow cohorts
there. We recently saw a one time funding infusion
for that for that particular field. But we
need ongoing revenue to make that happen. We are
also seeing ongoing demand from manufacturers. Again
CNC machinists tool and die. All sorts of advanced
manufacturing fields that continue to be in demand.
We are also now seeing more demand from manufacturers
to integrate AI into their automated processes. So we
know that we need to invest there, and we are seeking
the resources to do that. >> All right. Very quickly,
in the next state budget cycle, do you have concerns
that they'll try to move more funding for tech
colleges over to state aid? >> Well, again, every state
budget is different. And in some ways, some of those
conversations continue to to rise up. So we will
continue to engage with our policy makers and make sure
that we do what's best for Wisconsin.
Merrifield, thanks very much.
>> In other news, with spring starting earlier and
warmer weather lingering deeper into the fall, the
tick season is expanding. Wisconsin is already a hot
spot for ticks in the U.S. second in the nation after
some locations on the East Coast. And with the deer
tick prevalent across the state, cases of Lyme
disease are also on the rise, spiking already this
month ahead of last year and 2024 marked a record of
nearly 2500 Lyme disease cases in Wisconsin. Could
that be surpassed this year? Researchers at Gundersen
Medical Foundation are staying on top of the
disease. Doctor Eric Sabin leads the research there,
and he joins us now. Thanks for being here, doctor.
>> Happy to do it. >> How alarming is it that
the tick population is growing. And with it cases
of Lyme disease. >> Well I think that it's
it's not going away. And I think that as a disease in
our region, I think we should get pretty
that it's a threat that will probably become more
common over time, especially when you figure
in changes to weather and how often people are
outside doing outdoor recreation. It seems like a
thing that's going to be with us going into the
future. >> And so what should
people do about that? I know that you have said
that, you know, prevention is better than a cure. So
what's the best prevention here?
>> Generally speaking, be aware that if you're going
outside and you're going to be in a place where ticks
might be, we know that if you remove these things
from you before they've had a chance to attach for too
long, the transmission risk of Lyme disease is very,
very low or negligible. So we recommend people be very
vigilant to that sort of thing before they once they
come back in from a recreational outing.
>> If you do a contract Lyme disease, is there a
cure for it? >> There are exceptional
treatments. We've been using antibiotics for a
very, very long time. Yes, people can be cured, but
it's a pretty serious illness and a lot of folks
and certainly has no no limits on its ability to
produce misery and those who get it. But yes, we can
usually treat people very effectively, especially if
we catch the disease early. >> So what are some of the
worst symptoms of it? >> The ones that patients
have told me are the most disturbing are the ones
that involve the joints. And I've had patients that
have very significant problems with their
mobility and very significant joint pain
going into months, sometimes almost a year.
And for people who are otherwise real active or at
a real active phase in their life, it can it can
significantly disrupt their, major degree.
>> So does it matter if it is diagnosed and treated
early versus later? >> The way that the disease
operates is that it produces inflammatory
reactions in the human body that that have a tendency
to progress, change, and worsen over the course of
time if the infection is not treated. Generally
speaking, it's better if you take care of it sooner
rather than later. Lots of the cases don't get
recognized until weeks or even months have elapsed,
and at that point, the symptoms have oftentimes
been much more dramatic. But generally speaking,
it's a good idea to try to get antibiotic treatment
for people very soon, and they have a tendency not to
then progress into the real serious joint or cardiac or
neurological complications after that.
>> How would you know that that you had it early?
>> Well, there are certainly tests that we can
use. A lot of things in medicine depend on clinical
context. And so the it starts with somebody
seeking care and bringing up the idea that they may
have been outside or may have had tick bites or may
have been exposed to ticks. And then it relies on the
part of the health care provider to recognize that
it's in our area. And it has a pretty diverse array
of presentations. And so you combine, you know, the
right place at the right time kind of risk factor
profile with the person presenting with the right
And at that instance, you know, you take action, you
can give people treatment. A lot of times you can
prevent things from getting much worse.
>> So has research developed good tests to
diagnose Lyme disease? >> I'm biased. I think that
the testing can work and can be effective in some
circumstances, but it has a lot of limits by virtue of
how it works. Most of the present testing is based on
immunological reactions through a process we call
serology. And there are pros and cons to that.
Those tests have advantages and that they can show us
immunological reactivity and recognition, but they
also can be very difficult to interpret. They don't
behave, so to speak, the way that a lot of other
serological tests do, because it's a strange
disease and we don't really have tests that I think are
colloquially as well understood as something
like a pregnancy test. A pregnancy test doesn't
leave much doubt about what the result means. The
problem with Lyme disease testing in current use is,
is that it's just simply not that straightforward.
In a lot of cases, it can be ambiguous.
>> And so in that instance, if the results are
ambiguous, should a patient ask to be treated anyway.
>> I would suggest that any patient have an individual
discussion with their provider and make some
decision making on what makes sense for the risk
benefit. Pros and cons you know scenario. You should
always be forthright with your doctors about what you
know you think is going on. And health care
practitioners should be attentive and mindful of
what patients might have experienced in medical
school. They told me, you can't diagnose what you
don't think of. And a lot of times things that are
not being considered are diagnoses that can get
missed or delayed. >> Well, thank you for
doing that work, doctor Sabin, thanks for joining
us. >> I appreciate it. Thank
you very much. >> Finally tonight we relay
the news with sadness that Jon Miskowski, our PBS
Wisconsin director of television, has passed away
following a long battle with cancer. Jon Miskowski
was director since 2015. Originally from Stevens
Point, he started his career here as a volunteer
at a TV back in 1984. John's vision brought many
firsts to this station, including LS Lambeau
welcoming home Wisconsin's Vietnam veterans.
>> I want to thank you from my heart.
>> Other initiatives John developed include. PBS
Wisconsin Education, Wisconsin Hometown Stories
and Tribal Histories. Upon his retirement earlier this
month, John said, my 40 years in public television,
including my time as PBS Wisconsin director of
television, have been a source of inspiring
challenges and creative joy from all of us here at PBS
Wisconsin. Thank you, John, for your leadership. John
is survived by his wife, two sons, and the light of
his life. His granddaughter, Jon Miskowski, was 65.
[MUSIC] life and legacy at PBS
wisconsin.org. That's our program for tonight. I'm
Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.
>> Funding for "Here& Now" is provided by the Focus
Fund for Journalism and
friends of PBS Wisconsin.