Progressive Thinking

Historic reductions in state aid to schools and Madison imposed revenue limits have left cash strapped local schools with no alternative but referenda to fund operations.

ALMA, WI - “Is the strategy in the state to move all funding for schools to the local level?” a local school official asked me.

I hesitated. No one in Madison – that I know – intentionally wanted to increase property taxes. However, one result of historic state cuts to schools is an increase in property taxes.

Ironically, taxpayers themselves are voting by way of referenda to raise their property taxes. But they are doing so because state law has left cash-strapped schools no other options.

Schools are under strict state imposed revenue caps. They cannot just raise local taxes to offset less state aid, but voters can override the revenue cap by passing a referendum to raise property taxes.

Many communities are voting to approve school referenda. According to Department of Public Instruction records, voters are on track to consider over 100 different school referenda in 2016.

The process is not new. However, twenty-five years ago the reason voters passed a school referendum was to borrow money for construction projects, for example to build a new school.

About ten years ago, school referenda for operating costs – the routine expense of running the school – began to replace debt as the majority of referenda in our state.

Even as school boards sought money from taxpayers to operate schools, actually passing the referenda a decade ago was roughly a 50-50 chance.

Now voters approved 78% of all school referenda. Referenda specifically to increase taxes to pay for school operating costs passed at a rate of 82% this year.

Many of us just wrote a check for the second half of our property taxes due the end of July. The memory of a big check you wrote may be fresh in your mind.

Property tax is the largest single tax we pay in Wisconsin. The state uses the value of property to determine how much state aid your local school district receives. The higher local property values the less aid your district gets from the state.

Many of you may remember Governor Tommy Thompson’s promise about state school aid back in the mid-1990s. Thompson promised that two-thirds of the school costs would be picked up by the state.

He then gained legislative support for over $1 billion new state dollars for schools. This action had a direct impact on property taxes. In tax year 1996, the school portion of property taxes dropped by 16% leading to a decline in overall property taxes of over 6%.

Today the state contributes almost half of the money for local schools – well short of the two-thirds funding from years ago. For taxes paid this year (2015 tax year), overall property taxes increased 2.3% to the highest level – $10.6 billion – in the history of our state.

When the referenda passed this year kick in, next year’s property taxes in those districts will be higher.

With eight out of ten referenda passing, and state school aid below 2006 levels, I find it not surprising that people suspect state lawmakers are going to put the whole cost of schools on local tax payers.

Many Wisconsin residents look to Minnesota and see that the state contributes almost 70% of the total aid for schools. Property taxpayers in Minnesota only contribute one quarter of all school costs. Wisconsinites say if Minnesota can do it, why can’t Wisconsin.

To substantially lower property taxes in Wisconsin the state would need to contribute a much larger portion of school costs.

Many of my colleagues say the price tag on school funding reform is just too high. But, without increases in school state aid, property taxes are just too high.

We can solve our school funding problems at the state level. I did the math. I constructed an alternative budget that fully funded State Superintendent Tony Evers’ Fair Funding for our Future, which would reform our school funding formula.

Property taxpayers are committed to their local schools but cannot continue to pick up more of the costs of school. The solution requires a commitment by lawmakers to adequately fund public education – for the sake of property taxpayers and our children’s future.

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There was a time when the state provided two-thirds of school funding but that level of support has eroded over the years. Property taxpayers are committed to their schools but cannot continue to pick up more of the costs. Kathleen notes that she created an alternative budget that fully funds State Superintendent Tony Evers’ Fair Funding for our Future. A commitment by lawmakers to adequately fund schools would reduce the burden on property taxpayers.

Healthcare Must Lead On Climate Change

GREEN BAY - Sustainability and climate change discussion needs a different perspective—human health. Healthcare’s commitment to sustainability principles should not be focused on improving healthcare, but rather improving overall health.  Medical care impacts only about 10% of outcomes that make us healthy.  Life quality and expectancy improvements over the last several hundred years have been made in the basic fundamentals for health: clean air, clean water, enough nutritious food, safe shelter and community, regular physical activity, and stable civilization. Climate change threatens all of these fundamentals through increased air temperature, raised sea levels, and extreme weather, such as drought, flooding, and tropical storms.

Two areas to consider about climate change and health:

1. Health impacts of climate change – The National Climate Assessment released in May 2014 confirms that changes in climate threaten US human health and well-being in many ways and climate change will amplify some of the existing health threats the nation now faces in the future.
2. Health impacts of fossil fuel usage, independent of climate change: Fossil fuels contributes to four of the five leading causes of US deaths   including heart disease, cancer, stroke and lung diseases, while putting our children at risk of asthma and delayed mental development. Particulate pollution, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels and biomass, is responsible for over 60,000 US deaths annually.

Already, impoverished areas see worse asthma, lung, and heart diseases. A warmer world will have more hospitalizations and deaths from asthma, COPD, and heart disease. Warmer air with more CO2 creates a longer pollen season with higher pollen concentrations, worsening asthma and other allergic diseases.

Healthcare executives have not looked widely/deeply enough to see the billions of dollars of potential savings by implementing best practices for climate change.  One study projected a conservative estimate of $15 Billion in energy savings for US healthcare alone. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the use of fossil fuels causes $120B in health related damages/year.  Replacing coal alone with efficient/clean energy could save 10,000 lives and $60B annually.

In Wisconsin, the majority of agricultural land is dedicated to the dairy/meat industries, which negatively impact both our greenhouse gas emissions and watersheds. We import most of our fruit and vegetables which contributes needlessly to emissions. Healthcare and public/private educational institutions need to change how they purchase food and create a market for a vibrant year-round local food economy made up of urban and rural agriculture, delivered through an innovative food distribution system. Reducing our intake of meat—especially beef—will help people maintain a healthy weight, prevent heart disease and cancer, and is important in limiting climate change.

Improving the design of our cities/towns with pedestrians, bikes, and mass transit will reduce emissions and help people become more physically active, lose weight, and fight depression and obesity. Replacing short car trips in urban areas of the upper Midwest alone would save over 1200 lives and 8B/year from cleaner air and greater physical activity.

American healthcare organizations need to both support and encourage regional activism in sustainability and better health outcomes, but also climate change, energy alternatives, and healthy food. We can no longer do things the same way and expect different results. Healthcare can and needs to drive the change necessary to achieve sustainable healthy economic, environmental, and social outcomes.

In December, 2014, I joined a group of national healthcare leaders at the White House to announce our commitment to enhance the climate resilience of our facilities, operations, and communities we serve using the Administration’s Climate Action Plan as a foundation. The plan recognizes that even as we take aggressive action to curb the carbon pollution that is driving climate change, we must also prepare for the climate impacts we are already seeing across the country.  A Climate Change Resiliency Assessment is being tested at our facilities and will be rolled out soon for all to collaborate.

The healthcare organizations that met at the White House are prominent in strategizing and implementing climate change and alternative energy policies, but, healthcare as a sector is not unified in these activities. This lack of unity is harming the local, regional, and global communities they are meant to serve. The work of Climate Change Council is to drive all healthcare organizations to engage their communities in climate change action. Otherwise, inaction will prove to be counterproductive and costly to both their brand and bottom line. Healthcare must take a leadership role in driving for alternative energy and climate change strategies.

Many mainstream Democrats can’t seem to fathom how people could possibly fall for a billionaire reality TV star. But many feel they’ve been left behind and the outcome of this fall’s election may hinge on who best understands and responds to the causes of their anger.

ALTOONA, WI - What happens when history and the here and now collide?

We’re about to find out.

There were two competing storylines at this week’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Democrats made history by becoming the first major party to nominate a woman for president. Then there were the tens of thousands of emails made public by Wikileaks showing how the Democratic establishment played favorites in the race for the nomination and went to great lengths to sabotage Bernie Sanders’ campaign.

In the euphoria of finally achieving the long-awaited and historic selection of a woman to be the party’s candidate for the nation’s highest office, Democrats looked past the fact that their nominee not only is a female but also someone who personifies the political establishment at a time of intense anti-establishment feelings among voters and one who is running as a centrist at a time when there is no center in American politics.

Economist and former Clinton administration cabinet official Robert Reich is wondering out loud if Hillary gets it. He sees Clinton running fast to the middle, and astutely observes this is a place that doesn’t exist in our country anymore. He sees rampant populism, taking the form of both an authoritarian populism embodied by Republican nominee Donald Trump and a democratic populism that Bernie Sanders was tapping into. As Reich says, “If Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party don’t recognize this realignment, they’re in for a rude shock…. Because Donald Trump does recognize it.”

The Democratic establishment and a great many mainstream Democratic voters can’t seem to fathom how people could possibly fall for a billionaire reality TV star whose message begins with fear mongering, race baiting and anti-immigrant nativism and ends with the conceit that he alone can keep us safe, maintain order and make us prosper economically.

If they can’t wrap their heads around it, perhaps it’s because they are not sufficiently clued in to the anger that fuels today’s raging populism in both of its forms. When you or I lose our temper, I mean really blow our stacks, we aren’t rational in the heat of the moment. Emotion overwhelms reason. We later regret things we say or do out of anger. Why should we expect that this all-too-familiar and all-too-human behavior will never come into play when it’s time to vote in elections?

There is a significant segment of American society that feels forgotten and invisible. They see a system rigged against them. They can tell the politicians aren’t listening to them and are not working on their behalf. And they are steamed. When they are told the economy is getting better, they aren’t feeling it. When they are told the nation’s crime rate is actually dropping, all they know is they do not feel safer or more secure. When they are told America is already great, they wonder when some of that greatness is going to come their way.

Is it so hard to understand how tens of millions of Americans who feel they’ve been left behind could be drawn to someone who tells them they are right to feel the way they are feeling and then assures them he will make their lives better?

The outcome of this fall’s election will not likely turn on whether enough Americans are ready to break the ultimate glass ceiling. It far more likely hinges on who best understands and responds to the causes of rising American populism.

County Veterans Service Officers are our most essential direct contact to veterans in Wisconsin, but the State DVA has targeted them and it needs to stop. Why this relentless attack on CVSO officers and veterans by the Wisconsin DVA?

MIDDLETON, WI - Veterans in Wisconsin need only to travel within their own county to have personal contact with another veteran helping navigate access to services. That office is the County Veterans Service Office by statute a “bricks and mortar” office where a veteran can receive support and assistance from another veteran.

CVSO’s are our most essential direct contact to veterans in Wisconsin. Why are they under attack from the Department of Veterans Affairs and Secretary John Scocos? I have no idea, but I want it to stop.

CVSO’s should have easier access to direct service connections with state and federal benefits, but instead, the Wisconsin DVA has been making it harder for CVSO’s to help veterans. From limiting access to benefits programs to blocking grants without proper legal authority, the DVA has targeted CVSO’s and it needs to stop.

There is no reason Wisconsin government should be trying to consolidate veterans services and make veterans travel farther for help, but that is exactly what the DVA is peddling in the Legislature.

I support expanding the role of CVSO’s to help veterans; that is not only logical but good public policy. We have a public health crisis with delayed mental health services for veterans and their families and we should expand CVSO offices to help with this crisis.

Why this relentless attack on CVSO officers and veterans by the Wisconsin DVA?

The answer to that question really doesn’t matter. No state agency should stand in the way of community driven services for veteran-to-veteran counseling and benefit support.

If the DVA needs to cut their budget they should look to their own agency overhead rather than the small grants that CVSO’s get from the state. Recent articles have cited that the DVA spends two dollars on administration costs for every dollar they spend on services; that certainly can be improved.

This should not be a war between the DVA and veterans receiving services in the community through their local CVSO office. Making it a war is a huge mistake for Wisconsin’s veterans. I am hopeful Governor Walker and Legislative Republicans see through the bad public policies the DVA is putting forward trying to consolidate CVSO offices regionally, making veterans drive even further to receive help.

Regardless of the DVA’s poor decisions, there are Legislators just like me committed to supporting county based veteran-to-veteran benefits support and counseling. But we need your advocacy help working together to stop this ridiculous policy push right now.

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For more information on CVSO offices and how to get in touch with your Legislators contact my office at 888-549-0027 or 608-266-6670 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

For more information on CVSO officers, check here.

The major parties are offering voters the two most unpopular nominees in memory. In a little more than three months, voters who are sick and tired of being forced to choose the lesser of evils will be sicker still. Has the time come for the death of one or both of the old major parties and the birth of a new one?

ALTOONA, WI - With pessimism and paranoia and fear of outsiders washing over the countryside, and without a shared sense of national purpose or vision for the future, America will have a presidential election in a little over three months. Here’s a prediction: Nose-holding and lesser-evilism will reach epidemic proportions in 2016.

One party is scary and the other is scared. Scary is coming into sharper focus with each passing day. Scared takes the form of excessive caution and unwillingness to serve up anything more than a main course of status quo with a side dish of incremental change.

The parties have chosen who they want at the top of the ballot, and are offering voters the two most unpopular major party nominees in memory. That’s not to say Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are without admirers. Each has some passionate supporters. Clinton got roughly 15 million votes on her way to securing the Democratic nomination, and Trump got about 13 million votes to win the Republican nomination. But one of them is going to have to convince about 50 million more voters to trust them with the keys to the White House.

The biggest single bloc of these voters who will decide the election fall into either the Never Trump or Never Hillary camps. If the Democrats had not chosen a candidate with so much baggage and who is so intensely despised by the other side, it would be next to impossible to imagine where Trump could find 50 million more votes. If the Republicans had not chosen someone whose appeal to anyone other than angry white men is so obviously limited, it would be hard to see how Hillary could possibly win over another 50 million voters.

Some will hold their noses and vote for Hillary, not because they like her or want her as president but rather because they desperately want to prevent a Trump presidency and see her as the lesser evil. Some will hold their noses and vote for Trump, not because they think he’s fit to be president but rather because they can’t stand Hillary and will do anything to stop her. For them, Trump is the lesser evil. More than usual will vote for one of the minor-party candidates. Tens of millions of others won’t vote at all. The winner will get elected with less than 50% of the vote. Even the party that wins the White House will paradoxically see its standing with the public harmed in the process.

In a little more than three months, it will be over. But voters who are sick and tired of being forced to hold their noses and choose the lesser of evils will be sicker and even more tired. Then it will be time for those yearning to breathe free to get imaginative. Then the time will come to contemplate the death of one or both of the old major parties and the birth of a new one.