Announcer:

The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Howard Marklein:

We will be taking our Wisconsin state budget process back to basics.

Frederica Freyberg:

The Legislature’s powerful budget-writing committee began its work in earnest Thursday to carve out the state’s fiscal roadmap for the next two years. The state’s tourism industry expects a booming season, as more people no longer need to be safer at home. And rural community members are trading ideas to keep their communities thriving.

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” members of the legislative Joint Finance Committee describe their fight to defend their party priorities in the state budget. Representative Mark Born and Senator LaTonya Johnson are here. It’s national travel and tourism week and we check in with Wisconsin Dells Visitor and Convention Bureau. Marisa Wojcik hears from experts about how travel and tourism could be impacted by so-called vaccine passports. And we hear from the Wisconsin Rural Partners about an ongoing summit that aims to increase rural prosperity. It’s “Here & Now” for May 7.

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

The heavy lift of crafting the state two-year budget got underway in the Legislature in earnest this week and the Republican majority voted to lift a lot out of the governor’s executive budget, more than 390 items, including big-ticket ones like the expansion of BadgerCare. Tonight, we talk with two members of the legislature’s budget committee. In a few minutes, a Democrat. But first Republican Co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, Mark Born of Beaver Dam and thanks very much for being here.

Mark Born:

Good to be with you again.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why did you vote to remove so much from the executive budget?

Mark Born:

Because of the way it was built, you know? It was unrealistic. We just couldn’t move forward with a budget that was really built on sand with a lot of massive tax increases, welfare expansion, a lot of divisive policy. You mentioned on your open the number of things we took out, almost 400 items. Director Lang from the non-partisan Fiscal Bureau said it was one of the biggest lists ever as far as the number of policy items that the governor put in his budget. The co-chair Marklein and I, from the very beginning of the budget process, asked the governor not to fill it with divisive policy and massive tax increases, to work with us on a reasonable budget and that’s not what he put forward. So we’re going to go back and start from the base budget we all agreed to a little less than two years ago. Governor Evers and the Legislature agreed to what we’re operating under now and we’re going to work from there and build a budget from that.

Frederica Freyberg:

A lot of it obviously comes down to a political philosophical divide. Governor Evers would reduce tax credits for manufacturers and increase taxes on capital gains, for example. One Democrat called your budget action, “politically selfish, not helping those who can’t fend for themselves.” How do you respond to that?

Mark Born:

I don’t agree with that at all. Obviously, you know, working on a budget process like this there’s political differences, there’s difference of opinion, there’s different ways to accomplish things. And we’re going to focus on investing in priorities for the state of Wisconsin that will do a lot to help people and help businesses and help us grow our state. That’s the track record we have for the last decade in the Republican Legislature and they have different ways of doing it. The Democrats want to make things reliable on government and government programs and tax people more. We want to send money back to the taxpayers and invest in their priorities with the large surpluses that we have to build this budget now.

Frederica Freyberg:

Perhaps the largest bone of contention, which I don’t have to tell you, is the governor and Democrats want to again expand Medicaid in Wisconsin to allow some 90,000 more low-income people to qualify for BadgerCare. Why is it stricken from your budget document when expanding it would mean an infusion of $1.6 billion from the federal government?

Mark Born:

Because it’s a massive policy change. Like you’ve said, we’ve been having this debate for several years now that nothing has changed. The feds throw some more money at it but it’s about the fact that we don’t believe you need to expand welfare, the government-run insurance program, to insure these folks. We set something up in Wisconsin several years ago that allows people to have access. We don’t have the coverage gaps. People that currently are not insured is because they’re not choosing to take advantage of those opportunities. We have folks that are on private insurance through the exchanges. We’ve subsidized that as a state. The feds subsidized that very heavy and in fact, with the current federal legislation, it subsidized the premiums at 100% for folks up to 150% of the poverty level so we can get you on private insurance and have access to health insurance that way. It’s just a difference of they want everyone on a government program and we believe there are better ways to do this and we don’t have coverage gaps in Wisconsin because of that.

Frederica Freyberg:

As for the $3.2 billion in federal COVID aid coming into Wisconsin, the governor sees that money as supplemental funding, not replacement funding. How do you and the Republican majority see it?

Mark Born:

I think you can say it’s supplemental, but it still works with the state funds. I mean, if we’re accomplishing goals that we need to accomplish, whether we’re using federal money or state budget, a large part of the state budget includes federal money, includes other program revenue. It’s not all state dollars. So as we build a budget, federal money plays in a role in that. And to pretend that it doesn’t, either you don’t understand how this stuff works or you just don’t want to work with the Legislature on it. If the governor wants to work on how to figure out how to craft this stuff so we can work together and so that the funds can work together to do the best for Wisconsin, we should certainly be looking at all of the money, not just certain pots of it.

Frederica Freyberg:

Because you’ve made entreaties to meet with the governor to nail down where he’ll spend that money, but he asked you to come to any meeting with a plan of how you would spend the $1.6 billion coming from expanding Medicaid. Is this meeting going to happen? Has it happened?

Mark Born:

We’d certainly be happy to meet with him and talk about the federal funding coming into the state. I don’t know why we would come forward with a plan for money we’re not going to take on a welfare expansion. I don’t think that’s a good use of our time. We made that decision yesterday, as well as several other times. I don’t see why we continue to talk about that.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. All right. We leave it there. We will be watching, of course. Representative Mark Born, thanks very much.

Mark Born:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

On the Democratic side of the aisle and in the voting minority on the Joint Finance Committee, we are joined by Milwaukee Senator LaTonya Johnson. And, senator, thanks very much for being here.

LaTonya Johnson:

Thank you so much for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how do you regard the actions of the Finance Committee, which is controlled 12-4 by majority Republicans?

LaTonya Johnson:

It was really so just frustrating to see so many of the governor’s budget items being pulled out, especially those items that were extremely popular among the public. We heard about those items from our listening sessions. So that was just really disheartening.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, you told a personal story before the panel of why expansion of BadgerCare would help people, describing how you were uninsured before you were elected to the Legislature and only then discovered a large tumor for which you underwent surgery. Why is your story a cautionary tale on the expansion of Medicaid?

LaTonya Johnson:

Because people who can’t afford insurance, they’re just going to go without. And when you go without health insurance, you’re going to end up with complications that’s going to be much more costly to the state. In my case, I had to have major surgery, and it doesn’t just end there. I still have and will continue to have life-long complications from that. And so many of our Wisconsinites suffer those same fates every day. And it’s just so much easier and cheaper to provide adequate health care like something as simple as a checkup on an ongoing basis than to deal with those problems that are extremely costly to taxpayers in the end.

Frederica Freyberg:

Republican committee members asked why people who are of low income can’t simply now sign up for ObamaCare or plans on the marketplace. Why can’t they?

LaTonya Johnson:

They can sign up, but for individuals who are struggling to make ends meet, the money’s just not going to be there. And what we saw when the Republicans chose to kick 90,000 people off of Medicaid, a lot of those individuals were parents. And so doctors and, you know, third-party billing such as Molina talked about how children who were receiving regular checkups because their parents and themselves were covered were now missing those checkups because their parents were no longer covered. So it wasn’t as convenient to take a day off work and take everybody to the doctor versus just having the kid seen. And so we want to make sure that Wisconsinites are as healthy as possible. And we’re leaving $1.6 billion on the table to cover less people. And that’s the concerning part.

Frederica Freyberg:

As to that kind of loss of $1.6 billion of federal money by not expanding Medicaid, what about the argument that expanding it just fosters the growth of welfare programs?

LaTonya Johnson:

That makes absolutely no sense because these are human beings. These are individuals who just can’t afford health care. And we’re leaving $1.6 billion on the table when this state has so many needs, such as community investment programs, health equity grants. That could help both the inner city and as well as the rural areas to staff themselves with doctors. The expansion of a welfare program holds no water because these are individuals that need coverage. And I think that comes from a place of privilege. For so many of those elected officials, they see things that way because we ourselves are being covered medically by the state so why shouldn’t we expect our constituents who can’t afford healthcare to be able to do the same.

Frederica Freyberg:

One of the other 390 items removed from the executive budget by Republican vote this week, 190 of them were deemed policy items by the Fiscal Bureau and those are regularly stripped out. But of them, were there priority items in there for you and your constituents?

LaTonya Johnson:

There were. One of those priority items for me was Bucky’s Promise, being able to allow students to go to any of the UW System schools for free if their parents earned under $60,000 a year. We have a shortage crisis in this state of teachers, nurses, social workers, psychiatrists and psychologists. And giving those students the opportunity to be able to pursue a college education is pivotal to being able to change things in this state. And for so many of those students, the parent [?] portion is the most difficult piece to come up with. And to just be denied that type of educational opportunity because your parents can’t afford it, I don’t understand when the state has such a great need.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there. Senator LaTonya Johnson, thanks very much for joining us.

LaTonya Johnson:

Thank you.

Tony Evers:

People of Wisconsin are really resilient. You know, we fight over whether to wear a mask or not wear a mask and all that stuff. But setting all that kind of political stuff to the side, people in Wisconsin are really resilient and the people that work in the tourism industry, obviously they have to be. They’ve been knocked down, but they’re standing back up. They’re resilient. They’re looking forward to this summer.

Frederica Freyberg:

Governor Evers visited Door County Wednesday to promote Wisconsin tourism. Newly-released data from the Wisconsin Department of Tourism shows visitor spending and taxes were down nearly 30% in 2020. Despite this hit, the tourism industry is optimistic that the 2021 season will look better with more people vaccinated every day and many anxious to take vacations that were postponed last year. To talk about the upcoming tourism season, we are joined by the president and CEO of the Wisconsin Dells Visitor and Convention Center Bureau, Romy Snyder, and thanks very much for being here.

Romy Snyder:

It’s my pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the governor just described Wisconsin and its tourism industry as resilient. How hard, though, was the last year for top-tier travel sites like the Wisconsin Dells?

Romy Snyder:

The tourism industry, and certainly statewide, but nationally and internationally, probably took the biggest hit from the results of the pandemic. You know, when we — when Wisconsin went to the “safer-at-home” orders, our businesses were shut down, the nonessential ones. So some hotels were able to stay open, but restaurants, retail, etc. were asked to shut down. So they used that time to really look at their safety protocols, their measures and were already thinking when we can open again, how will we do it so that we can ensure a safe experience for both our guests and our visitors. And that’s basically the frame of mind they’ve had now for the past year, is constantly assessing, pivoting and retooling their operations. But they are very resilient and we’re ready to go this year.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, the good news is that surveys show that 87% of people plan to travel in the next six months. Are you seeing evidence of that with bookings and interest?

Romy Snyder:

So we actually surveyed our own database. So these are visitors who either ordered literature from us or who asked to be on our research database. And we know that 84% of our database will be traveling between now and the end of August. So that’s an incredible number, very optimistic for us. But absolutely. We had a record spring break this year. For the first three months of 2021, we’re already up 9% from 2019. So we’re not going to compare month-to-month over last year, but the last normal year we had we’re already almost 10% ahead of last year.

Frederica Freyberg:

People really want to get out. What role do you think an uptick in vaccinations plays in getting people out and spending their money?

Romy Snyder:

No question. I think as we continue to see the percentages of individuals who have had the first vaccine and then the second vaccine, I think that will play a huge part in people feeling comfortable and getting out to travel. No doubt.

Frederica Freyberg:

I understand that one major sticking point, though, is that it is hard to find employees. What is that situation in the Dells?

Romy Snyder:

So this year, because the demand for travel will be so high, we would already feel some sort of a pinch to get an adequate number of labor, which in past years hasn’t been an issue. This year we have the added situation where our J1 visa cultural exchange students, there’s a variety of ways that different — the countries and the embassies are handling the issuing of the visas. So we are optimistic that we are seeing more and more embassies issue visas. But we absolutely are doing an extra push to recruit seasonal staff for the Wisconsin Dells summer season, June, July and August. We’re going to have job fairs and we have a website that people can go to to apply for jobs right online. So there will be a lot of job opportunities available for anyone who wants one.

Frederica Freyberg:

At this point, does a lack of workers mean some reservations have to be turned away at all?

Romy Snyder:

Not that I’ve heard of. Hotels probably have the most flexibility in terms of how they manage their operations with guests. Certainly in the case of restaurants, where there are capacity limits, we are hopeful that that will not be the case. But they may — I know in the early year we’ve seen restaurants that had maybe one section closed. Again, we are hoping that that is not the situation. We will continue to actively recruit workers. And our goal, of course, is to have a sufficient supply so that we can ensure a really high level of guest experience.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, good luck as the summer crush comes your way. Romy Snyder, thank you very much.

Romy Snyder:

You’re very welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:

In anticipation of getting back to activities that resemble life before the pandemic, like traveling, concerts and restaurant dining, questions are being raised as to whether or not people have to show if they’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19. Some call these vaccine passports. Others say it’s more of a health certification. Marisa Wojcik spoke with Josh Michaud, a global health policy expert from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Laura Albert, a systems engineer researcher from UW-Madison, about the practical applications of a vaccine certification.

Josh Michaud:

What different people mean by the passport can be broken into I think two main categories. One is sort of this idea that there is some kind of certification or a pass that people can get to show that they’ve been vaccinated which allows them to travel more easily from one country to another. But another way that this idea of a certification or passport can be used — and some places are already using it this way — is as a way to access certain activities. I don’t think that we’re going to get to the point where you’re going to need to show this kind of vaccination certificate to access sort of everyday activities. But there will be employers, locations and activities that might need it.

Marisa Wojcik:

Is this something that could help jump-start or just kind of get some life back into a big part of our economy, and especially in the tourism industry as people are either touring around the state or coming from out-of-state into Wisconsin?

Laura Albert:

Absolutely. I think last summer we looked at whether or not to travel and not traveling was the right decision based on what we knew last year. And now it’s how we travel. This virus is going to be around for a long, long time. And so there is going to be ongoing challenges to manage it. But as we pointed out, we’re in transition. We’re going to develop some things. There’s a lot of nuance in the conversation. And where we will be in a month or two from now is not going to be the same place where we’ll be a year from now or even five years from now.

Frederica Freyberg:

You’ve no doubt heard that the housing market is on fire and along with that the cost of housing. It’s because demand out strips supply. That’s especially so for affordable housing. This year the annual Rural Summit put on by the non-profit Wisconsin Rural Partners kicked off its five sessions, talking about housing and what to do about the lack of it, specific to the rural housing landscape. We’re joined by Steve Peterson from Wisconsin Rural Partners and he joins us from Kendall and thanks a lot for being here.

Steve Peterson:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So I heard in this week’s session of your summit that since the great recession, just not enough houses were being built to meet demand. So this is a longstanding problem. How big of a problem is this lack of housing and affordable housing in rural areas?

Steve Peterson:

Well, the one thing we’ve seen in the rural areas is it’s multifaceted as far as where all the shortages are coming from. One, as you mentioned, just not enough houses being built but we also see the boomers that probably would go into transitional housing but they don’t have it in their hometowns and they don’t want to leave their hometowns, so they’re actually retro-ing their houses so they have ramps, railings and everything. They’re not moving to open those up for family dwellings. So that’s a problem. And then prices of houses are just going crazy. As you know, you list a house and you’ll have five or six offers and a lot of times more than what you were looking to get for it. And that’s causing an issue too. And building costs are high. There’s just a lot of things all attacking the housing market from different areas.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how would more housing help rural economies?

Steve Peterson:

Well, because of the COVID pandemic we found you can be pretty portable when it comes to working from home. We think a lot of people are leaving the urban areas and wanting to move into those rural areas for quality of life. They want to be closer to their lakes and they want to be out in the great outdoors. We’re seeing small town rural communities, if they can have broadband supply in place, you’re going to see people wanting to move from the big cities out to the rural areas. I think the rural areas have an opportunity to really grow quickly It’s just if they can keep the infrastructure going to keep up to the demand. But right now we just got to get housing started and built. We just don’t have the developers we used to have. That never came back from that 2008 bubble burst.

Frederica Freyberg:

It was also super-interesting to understand the implications of how second homes and the conversion of existing homes to short-term rentals for the tourism industry pulls even more units out of the housing stock in rural areas. You just spoke about people coming back to the lakes and such, but how does out-migration of young people in rural Wisconsin exacerbate this problem of maintaining vibrant communities?

Steve Peterson:

Well, you know, when you’re looking at the younger generation of your workforce, they’re not looking for the big houses. You know, they’d like to have a loft. They’d like to live up above a building, a storefront. So you’ve got that component to work with. But we’re seeing the comeback of some of our younger generation that leave. They want to see what life is really about, but then all of a sudden they want to settle down and they want to go back into their home areas. We’re seeing that boomerang effect where people have left and they’ve maybe gotten a taste of life and now want to go back home where they have all the good memories. If we can get the broadband and we give companies that are comfortable having people live back in the rural areas, I think the rural areas have tremendous potential if we can just get the demand covered by getting some of these homes built. That’s what we’re working hard on that through Wisconsin Rural Partners.

Frederica Freyberg:

What other topics are coming up in your Rural Summit series?

Steve Peterson:

It’s all dovetailing together on how can we make our rural communities stronger? How can they recover from the pandemic and how work together in collaboration because we’re seeing a lot more communities and regions now collaborating together, sharing resources and revenue streams. So we’re pushing that a lot more. We have Deb Brown from Save Your Town that’s going to be talking about how to make your community more idea-friendly. How can you work together as groups instead of little pockets of ideas and quit having meetings to have meetings and how about if we roll our sleeves up and actually make things happen. Our biggest, most popular session will be coming up on May 19 and that’s broadband in your backyard. We anticipate a huge amount of attendees for that and we’re covering all aspects of the broadband issues in that session alone.

Frederica Freyberg:

Great news. We’ll be doing some reporting around broadband as well coming up later this month. Steve Peterson, thank you so much and thanks for your work.

Steve Peterson:

Thank you for the support and helping Rural Partners get the word out. Let’s get our rural communities back on track again and see this state really grow.

Frederica Freyberg:

Let’s. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

The Oneida Nation held a healing and blessing ceremony Wednesday after a shooting at the tribe’s casino last Saturday left two people dead and one in the hospital. Tribal members burned tobacco and offered prayers during the outdoor event and called the smudging ceremony a responsibility of the Oneida people to care for the recovery and spiritual needs of the community.

Steve Ninham:

Our thoughts are with the families of those taken from us and our colleagues who remain hospitalized. We gain solace from the fact that you understand that our team needs and deserves time to privately grieve and cope from this life-changing event.

Frederica Freyberg:

The investigation into the shooting is still ongoing. Next Tuesday, Lac du Flambeau Tribal President John Johnson, Sr. presents the annual State of the Tribes address at the state Capitol. Wisconsin Public Radio will broadcast the address live with coverage starting at 1:00 p.m. Streaming coverage can also be found on our website. For more from “Here & Now” and the PBS Wisconsin news team, visit our website at PBSwisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. And that is our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a great weekend.

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