Here & Now

Here & Now for Sept. 22, 2017

Frederica Freyberg:

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 will 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.

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Funding for “Here and Now” is provided in part by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Scott Walker:

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]

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Jim Boebel:

Thank you for the invitation.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is your reaction to the veto that takes away the funding increase for low spending districts?

Jim Boebel:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

Was that unexpected, that veto?

Jim Boebel:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

Had you kind of factored that in to your accounting mix there already or how did you handle that?

Jim Boebel:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Jim Boebel:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

What will that difficult budget mean in the classroom and in other areas of your schools?

Jim Boebel:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

What's the appetite for those kinds of referendums in your district?

Jim Boebel:

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.”

Frederica Freyberg:

Are lean budgets and deficit budgets something that students and parents notice?

Jim Boebel:

I'm sorry. Could you say that again, please?

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Jim Boebel:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Jim Boebel:

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 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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Jim Boebel:

Thank you so much.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Gordon Hintz:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Gordon Hintz:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Gordon Hintz:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do you do that? How do you pull out of the hole of that overwhelming GOP majority?

Gordon Hintz:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

How does that look different from what the minority has been doing since the election of Scott Walker?

Gordon Hintz:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do you get that message out?

Gordon Hintz:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

So tell me then what your main message would be for those people? You have a soap box right here, right now.

Gordon Hintz:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Gordon Hintz:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, thanks very much for joining us.

Gordon Hintz:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Dana Wachs:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well I wanted to know what you think sets you apart from the other Democrats running for this office?

Dana Wachs:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

How are you set apart in that way from some of the others in this race?

Dana Wachs:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

On the issues, in your mind, what is the most important thing that Wisconsin needs to do for its education system?

Dana Wachs:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

Should the Affordable Care Act remain in place? If you were elected governor, would you choose to accept expanded Medicaid?

Dana Wachs:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

You talked about education and the Wisconsin idea, but what is the best way to grow good paying jobs?

Dana Wachs:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

On Foxconn though, how difficult is it to turn down the prospect of potentially 13,000 jobs?

Dana Wachs:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Dana Wachs:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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 1500 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.

Derrick Herndon:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

In seasons like this, do people get hurricane fatigue?

Derrick Herndon:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

And yet you said this isn’t necessarily an unusual season?

Derrick Herndon:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

What’s responsible for that?

Derrick Herndon:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

So that does make people think about climate change?

Derrick Herndon:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

How important is rapid intensification when we’re talking about places along the U.S. coastlines where there’s big populations?

Derrick Herndon:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Derrick Herndon:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

Was this technology really started here at UW-Madison?

Derrick Herndon:

Yes, some of it was. The wind features that are derived from the satellite imagery was a product directly developed here.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Derrick Herndon:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

You had some other things that you were showing on the screen as well, showing the eye.

Derrick Herndon:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

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Funding for “Here and Now” is provided in part by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.