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 policy makers and make sure