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The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

A crucial step toward closing a controversial youth prison gets the green light. Republicans provide a blueprint for their 2023 priorities. A new broadband map has some questioning its accuracy. And students speak out on their campus ceasing in-person classes.

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” the Department of Corrections responds to persistent challenges for Lincoln Hills. A Republican leader sets sights on big tax cuts in 2023. The state challenges a federal broadband map and the big impact of a small campus closing to in-person classes. It’s “Here & Now” for December 16.

Announcer:

Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

The historically very troubled Lincoln Hills Juvenile Correctional Facility in northern Wisconsin comes into another calendar year facing understaffing, even as Milwaukee moves along with trying to locate a new facility on the city’s northwest side. It’s been four years since state lawmakers promised to close the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls because of dangerous conditions there for inmates and staff. For developments on this, we turn to the Wisconsin secretary of corrections, Kevin Carr. Secretary, thanks very much for being here.

Kevin Carr:

Thank you, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

This week the city of Milwaukee Plan Commission approved rezoning the location eyed for the new facility. Why has this closure and relocation of Lincoln Hills taken so long?

Kevin Carr:

Well, you know, just this past spring Act 252 was passed which provided the needed funding in order for us to actually move forward with the plans in a very deliberate way. Prior to that, the funding was not available and our administration has been trying to get the funding and build this new facility since we came into office in 2019.

Frederica Freyberg:

How will moving it to Milwaukee in your mind help the juveniles incarcerated there and their families?

Kevin Carr:

Well, the best science surrounding juvenile corrections suggests that the concept of moving our kids closer to home, closer to the communities where they come from, where their families are, where there are supportive resources and programs and culturally appropriate activities for youth is a positive reason that promotes the reintegration of youth back into our communities and lowers recidivism and keeps kids from entering the adult correctional system.

Frederica Freyberg:

Very key. But meanwhile the court-ordered monitor of conditions at the facility in northern Wisconsin reports it remains understaffed. How many teacher and social worker vacancies are there right now?

Kevin Carr:

I can’t give you the exact number of vacancies but we do have vacancies in our teaching and social worker positions. Not only at Lincoln Hills but throughout the correctional system, whether it’s the adult or juvenile system. We are experiencing the exact same type of vacancy issues that the private sector or the public sector is experiencing in these areas. Public schools are experiencing a teacher shortage. Medical facilities are experiencing medical staff shortages and social work and clinician shortages. This is just not unique to Lincoln Hills and the Wisconsin Correctional System.

Frederica Freyberg:

What effect does that staffing shortage have on the juveniles there in terms of their programming?

Kevin Carr:

Well, you know, I will say this about our staffing problem is that recently we have seen a tremendous increase in the number of staffing vacancies being reduced. So recently we have hired more staff not only in juvenile corrections but in our adult institutions than we have in all of the previous few months. Our biggest classes have been this past fall. With that being said, a lack of staffing in any facility impacts the amount of activities that those who reside there can engage in. So whether that’s education or recreation, some of those activities are curtailed because of a lack of staffing. But we have gotten to the point with our staffing at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake where we have been able to maximize the amount of time that our youth are spending out of their rooms. Some up to 90% of the time of their available time during the day they are spending out of their room, especially with the latest hires that we’ve been able to make.

Frederica Freyberg:

In a perfect world going forward, what should a boy or girl sentenced to Lincoln Hills or Copper Lake, their families or even citizens at large be able to expect of incarceration in state detention?

Kevin Carr:

Well, you know, that’s a great question because when our administration took over in 2019, Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake operated with a more punitive model of corrections. We have transformed Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake into a more treatment-oriented facility based on dialectical behavioral therapy and a new behavioral management system that promotes relationship development and rewards prosocial behavior. So we’re more focused on providing treatment that’s based on best practices in this industry and trauma-informed care principles.

Frederica Freyberg:

Secretary Kevin Carr, thank you very much for joining us.

Kevin Carr:

You’re welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:

This fall’s election saw Republicans in the legislature gain additional seats in both the Senate and Assembly. But not enough to override the veto pen of Democratic Governor Tony Evers. “Here & Now” senior political reporter Zac Schultz sat down with Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu this week to talk about his vision for the legislative session.

Zac Schultz:

Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu says voters in Wisconsin sent a clear and perhaps divided message in the election this fall.

Devin LeMahieu:

The message was sent that voters do trust us but I think we also learned that Wisconsin maybe likes divided government as well by re-electing Tony Evers.

Zac Schultz:

LeMahieu says ironically Republicans helped Evers win by sending him two fiscally conservative budgets to sign during his first term in office.

Devin LeMahieu:

Unfortunately for us, it worked for him but we’ll continue to do what we think is important for the state of Wisconsin.

Zac Schultz:

Republicans and Evers saw each other as adversaries over the last two years so there was little communication between the governor’s office and the legislature. LeMahieu hopes that is changing.

Devin LeMahieu:

Obviously there are some who — people in the state who voted for Republican legislators and a Democrat for governor so we need to try to work together, find some solutions while still making sure we’re being responsible in our budgeting.

Zac Schultz:

The budget will be the first big test of whether the two branches of government can come together. Thankfully, writing a budget when the state has a projected $6.6 billion surplus is a lot easier than when there is a deficit.

Devin LeMahieu:

We have an unprecedented surplus.

Zac Schultz:

LeMahieu says Republicans will start with a giant tax cut.

Devin LeMahieu:

When the state is collecting $6.6 billion more than they’re spending, people are being overtaxed. We need to provide permanent tax relief in that situation.

Zac Schultz:

Governor Evers says his priorities will include more money for public education and local government. LeMahieu says Republicans aren’t opposed to that but he hopes to negotiate the dollar figures with the governor.

Devin LeMahieu:

If the governor is willing to work with us and negotiate, I think we can accomplish some of the things he wants to accomplish while still doing important tax relief, investing in education, expanding school choice.

Zac Schultz:

The next compromise between Senate Republicans and the governor is over appointments. Over the last four years, Republicans have refused to hold final votes on multiple cabinet-level appointments and Evers appointees to governing bodies like the DNR board and the UW Board of Regents. LeMahieu says Evers picks were too partisan.

Devin LeMahieu:

I think we’ve seen some of the appointments lately have been — seem to be more politically charged.

Zac Schultz:

The biggest controversy was over Fred Prehn, who refused to step down from his seat on the DNR board at the end of his term, after Republicans privately urged him to stay on to deny Evers’ nominees a majority. The case went to the Wisconsin Supreme Court where they ruled there was no process to remove him other than for the Senate to confirm a successor. Do you expect Fred Prehn to stay on the DNR board?

Devin LeMahieu:

I haven’t talked to him so I’m not sure.

Zac Schultz:

LeMahieu says it’s up to Evers to appoint someone the Senate will accept.

Devin LeMahieu:

You know, if we’re going to confirm some of these appointments they need to be people who are qualified and serious in these positions and not just political operatives doing the will of environmental extremists.

Zac Schultz:

The legislative session starts January 3rd. Reporting from Madison, I’m Zac Schultz for “Here & Now.”

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you know that you’ve got crummy or no high-speed internet coverage at all where you live? The Federal Communications Commission is out with a new map that shows Wisconsin has 98% broadband coverage. Our own Public Service Commission says not so fast given that its own map shows much spottier coverage in Wisconsin. The PSC is inviting customers to challenge the FCC map. At stake, hundreds of millions in federal grant dollars for upgrades. Alyssa Kenney, broadband and digital equity director at the PSC tells us more. Thank you for being here.

Alyssa Kenney:

Thank you so much for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So why is the PSC inviting customers to challenge the FCC map? Is it that inaccurate?

Alyssa Kenney:

So the new national broadband map, this is a draft of what is our first and most granular address by address version of broadband coverage in the United States. And so — this is the first time that customers and governments can directly challenge the map. It is particularly important right now and particularly before January 13th for people to challenge anything that’s inaccurate in the map because our federal allocation of infrastructure dollars is going to be based on some of the underlying numbers in this map.

Frederica Freyberg:

So we all know that there are places throughout Wisconsin without broadband, notwithstanding the coverage that that FCC map shows. But how many areas or how many people in Wisconsin are without it?

Alyssa Kenney:

So broadband has been a bit of a moving goalpost for the past few years. If you look at kind of the older standard of 25 by three, there is about 650,000 people, or, you know, 230,000 locations in the state where people don’t have access to broadband. There is plenty of other people that I always like to say that can’t afford the broadband that’s available, which is a different and also an important problem for us to be focused on.

Frederica Freyberg:

But then why would the FCC maps not be accurate?

Alyssa Kenney:

So I think the FCC map that you probably have pulled up likely includes satellite. And so the satellite, that high altitude satellite, is something that generally the federal infrastructure dollars and the state broadband programs don’t consider. So what’s really important when people are looking at that new federal map is that they make sure that they filter and look at sort of a more apples to apples comparison. So that 98.1% includes all the people who are able to access that satellite service. And really there are many people in the state that can access satellite service. And so what we want to look at for this map is who can access that fixed wireless or wire line service in their home at 25-3. So that’s where you see the big differences is in that including satellite and while the FCC is technology neutral and includes satellite in their map, the state broadband office does not.

Frederica Freyberg:

Okay. So can you describe what they should be looking for when you say 25-3?

Alyssa Kenney:

Sure. I mean 25 megabits download and three megabits per second upload. That’s the speed of internet. There are a lot of things that go into the quality and the service that somebody has. But that’s the really important number for determining if a location will help the state get additional federal funding. And so — and so what we’re asking folks to do is go into the map and type their address and look at what the service providers are listed are and if any of them are untrue as it relates to availability or that they see a mistake related to availability to submit a challenge.

Frederica Freyberg:

So already more than $100 million of COVID relief funding has been disbursed by the PSC in Wisconsin toward broadband. That’s according to the State Audit Bureau. And this is a boat ton of money going toward high speed internet plus this potential, as you spoke to, of really a billion dollars more from the infrastructure law. Is broadband infrastructure this hugely expensive?

Alyssa Kenney:

Broadband infrastructure is hugely expensive and particularly when you get to these last mile locations in some of our more scarcely or sparsely populated rural areas. And so sometimes you are talking about 1 or 2 locations per mile. Sometimes you are even talking about 1 or 2 miles per location. And so the costs do increase. Wisconsin is a beautiful state but some of our granite bluffs and our cranberry bogs make for unique circumstances for installing the infrastructure that make it especially challenging.

Frederica Freyberg:

Interesting. All right. Alyssa Kenney from the PSC, thank you so much.

Alyssa Kenney:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Consumers have until January 13 to challenge their service by going to the Federal Communication Commission broadband map, entering their address and then clicking on the location or availability challenge links.

In other news, UW-Richland, now a satellite of UW-Platteville, has been part of the community for more than 55 years, even through most of the mergers, restructures and reorganizations for Richland, the two-year campus had once flourished with more than 500 students as recently as 2015. Now with just 60 students, UW System President Jay Rothman is cutting his losses calling in-person classes there no longer tenable given those enrollment declines saying “ending in-person instruction at Richland campus was a very difficult decision. We are facing the same kind of enrollment challenges that two-year colleges are facing across the country. With student enrollment this fall at 60 students, we are not able to provide a high-quality college experience for students while maintaining our fiduciary responsibility to have sound university operations.” This is a devastating development to the students whose numbers may be small but response has been overwhelming.

Jackson Kinney:

We care so deeply about this campus. We just hate to see it go.

Brody Smith:

Really, the biggest thing was affordability. I mean coming here rather than going to a four-year right away is such a big difference.

Autumn Carter:

Love the vibe and the student body is just so together like a close-knitted family.

Haley Zumach:

The location and definitely the affordability. I really liked the close-knit community.

Emily Lund:

There are so many farm kids around here that want to pursue a higher education but they can’t go far from home because they can’t leave the entire farm.

Jackson Kinney:

It’s a critical access point for students in the area and beyond to start higher education.

Autumn Carter:

This has been in the community since the ’60s and has been a big part of the community.

Haley Zumach:

Us as students have been actual advocates for trying to save this place.

Emily Lund:

And after our recruiter was taken away, after all of our faculty was taken away, after — everything has been slowly been taken away from the campus. We’re now losing our enrollment. We’ve been trying but it has been a lack of support from the higher that could have been helping us.

Jackson Kinney:

What are we going to do next?

Emily Lund:

Now that this option is being taken away from me, I don’t know what I’ll going to do.

Jackson Kinney:

I still don’t have all those plans in place yet. Just navigating all of this has been a challenge.

Autumn Carter:

Really sad. Now I have to move away from my family and my community.

Jackson Kinney:

I hope the UW Board of Regents and system president can realize the significance and the importance of this campus.

Brody Smith:

I hope they do look in the mirror hard and then they realize this is the wrong decision.

Emily Lund:

If you’re going to make decisions for us, talk to us because this is our college experience we’re here for. This is our campus we’re here for. This is our community. This is our family and now you’re taking it away from us.

Autumn Carter:

When they make that decision think about us kids losing our access to education close to home.

Frederica Freyberg:

Members of the community are also speaking out on the decision to close UW-Platteville Richland to in-person classes including the chair of the Education Committee on the Richland County Board of Supervisors, Linda Gentes. She’s a long-time administrator and lecturer on the campus. She joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Linda Gentes:

Thank you very much for inviting me.

Frederica Freyberg:

When you learned that UW-Richland will close to in-person classes after the spring semester, what was your reaction?

Linda Gentes:

Well, I was surprised since they told us a couple weeks ahead that everything was going to go as normal and we had been asking for a lot of changes, and there was no indication that they were planning to not have in-person classes at the campus. And then about ten minutes before the announcement came out, a call came to the chair of our county board and he called me immediately and I guess we were both just — found it unbelievable at that moment.

Frederica Freyberg:

Because how important is the college to the community there?

Linda Gentes:

Well, this campus is extremely important to the campus. It — as part of the colleges, we were collectively the third largest — the UW Colleges, we were the third largest in the system and our mission was affordability and accessibility. And of particular importance at Richland is we had the lowest cost per student index of any campus in there. Now that changed over the years, but our community has honored the contract for many years. We have 134 acres. We have seven buildings. We have — the campus is probably worth at least $38 million. The financial impact back to our county, we had two impact studies and one in 2018 and — 2019 and 1 in 2005-2006. It may not be big numbers for some of the people in different areas, it would be around $7 million and $6 million back into our county. For every dollar that our county puts into the campus we receive $205 back. Now, in addition, just recently I just quickly made a list of all the professionals in town who had started their education here and came up with over 200 names without even trying to ask anybody. And our teachers, our lawyers, we have physicians, attorneys, nurses, they’ve all been able to start their education here in the community and then go on and then be able to come back and it was affordable for them to be able to do that. So we feel this is a great loss. It is our future; we’re losing our future for our community and our future for our students.

Frederica Freyberg:

Some of those students spoke to the straight line that they saw from loss of staff to loss of enrollment. What happened to UW-Richland once the system started its cost-saving measures and then restructuring to make it a satellite of Platteville?

Linda Gentes:

Okay. Many things happened here. A brief explanation — I’ll give you a brief explanation of that. Seven years ago, we had a million dollars in revenue for the campus. We had 500 students. We had 50 international students here. We were a thriving, inclusive educational environment. When regionalization and then when UW-Platteville happened, we lost 55% of our financial support from the UW system and then through Platteville, we lost the dean’s position, a recruiter, 11 out of 18 faculty members, student services staff, an international coordinator and a continuing education director. And in addition, there was no marketing plan nor any strategic plan and youth options and academic alliance programs were ended. The campus was actually told it was no longer a separate entity and that we were — we didn’t have our own campus culture. We tried to explain to them how it worked in that way with our community. And our active governance was lost and recruiting was stopped even though our foundation offered to hire a recruiter. And we had students wishing to apply from around the state and all our international students wishing to apply and they were deflected from applying at the admissions office at UW-Platteville. So there was no autonomy at Richland and that’s really what has caused the demise of our wonderful campus.

Frederica Freyberg:

I’m sorry to hear that from you, someone who is so involved as a supervisor on your county board there in Richland County. We know that the UW system president has asked the Platteville chancellor to come up with a plan as to a way forward without in-person classes there by mid-January. But Linda Gentes, we need to leave it there. Thank you very much and good luck.

Linda Gentes:

Thank you very much.

Frederica Freyberg:

For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSwisconsin.org and click on the news tab. That’s our program for tonight. We’ll be back in the new year. Until then, I’m Frederica Freyberg, have a good weekend and happy holidays.

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Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.