University Place

Wisconsin Rural Partners Employer Workforce Panel

– Good afternoon.
My name is Bill Korrer,
and I’m going to be your
moderator for the next session,
which is the employer
workforce panel.

I’m with the Wisconsin
Counties Association,
and while our
office is in Madison
overlooking the capitol
right on the square,
I have the luxury or pleasure,
whichever way you
want to look at it of
working out of a home
office up in Minocqua,
in northern Oneida county,
which is one of the more
rural counties in Wisconsin,
not as rural some, but,

we have a composition
of urban counties,
urban rural, and rural
counties across Wisconsin
and as my colleague John
Hokmer said this morning,
our mission is to look
out for the interests
of the 72 counties
across the state,
no matter what their
size or their population,
or the diversified interests
that they all have.

On our panel today,
we have Lori Katcher from
Rice Lake Weighing Systems,

Margaret Bau with Home
Health Care Cooperative,
and Ray Woodruff from the
Department of Corrections.
The way we’re going to run
this afternoon session is that

the speakers are going to
have roughly 15 minutes
to give their thoughts,
and then at the end of that
we’ll have somewhere around
10 minutes for questions,
I ask you to hold your
questions ’til the end.
I’m going to go out on a
limb and make the assumption
that since everybody’s been
here for about five hours,
they’ve had a chance to
look at ahead at the bios,
and have a rough
idea of what the,
who the speakers are,
but in case you haven’t,
the speakers will give a
snapshot of who they are
and where they come from.
And because Lori’s the
top one on the agenda,
I guess we’ll start with her.

– Lori: Good afternoon everyone,
can you hear me okay?
All right, sounds good.
So just to introduce myself,
my name is Lori Katcher
and I’m the human
resource supervisor
for Rice Lake Weighing Systems.
I moved here back in 1991, and
planned to be here for a year
and move to Minneapolis.
And so I’ve been
here now 28 years,
and so yes, small
towns are cool.
So, yay!

So how many of you in the room
know about Rice Lake
Weighing Systems?
All right, I’ve got some hands.
So that’s going to be a
refresher for some of you.
Others, I’m going to
let you know about us.

So we are established in 1946.
Right here in Rice Lake,
so 73 year old company.
We came here because
of the dairy industry.
We came here because of rural.
And that’s what we needed to
do is, we are making scales.
We’re actually a family
owned and operated
third generation organization.
We make scales in the
weighing industry.
So everything from a big
truck scale, to a deli scale,
and agricultural scales.
So anything that you can think
of in the weighing industry
or test weights, that’s
what we’re manufacturing.
And we’re located just two
blocks east, northeast of here.

So.

We have over 900
employees worldwide.

And we have multiple locations.

We’re both in the US and have
international presence now.

Our founder was
Donald B. Johnson,
first generation founder
for the organization.
He said if we take
care of the customer,
the rest of the business
will take care of itself.
And that is embedded
in every single job
that we have at Rice
Lake Weighing Systems.

Our growth, our
vision was to grow.
But in order to grow, we
also needed to improve.

In 1946, Donald B.
had one employee.
That’s Lester B. Gunderson
that’s sitting next
to him on the scale.

In the 1980s, we were
close to 100 employees.

And today, in Rice
Lake Weighing,
or at Rice Lake,
Wisconsin’s facility,
we’re over 500 employees here.
And again, over 900 worldwide.
Our location, our
headquarters is in Rice Lake.
We also have
facilities in Alabama,
which I visited last week.
Nevada.
We’re in Washington,
in Connecticut.
The Netherlands, Mexico,
India, and Italy.

All but two of these,
we have either acquired
or developed in
the last 10 years.
That’s how quickly we’ve grown.
So, in the time that I’ve
been with Rice Lake Weighing,
we’ve actually tripled in size.

So we have common concerns.
I’ve heard them today.
I’ve heard so many things
that I can connect to.

We have rising
health care costs,
and a lack of availability
sometimes, to get into a doctor.

We have a skills gap
with technical careers.
We have a lot of welders,
machinists, maintenance.
That’s what we do, we need
to manufacture things.
We need these positions, but
a lot of them are retiring.
So we have a skills gap here.

We have a competitive
labor market.
Everybody’s hiring.
You see signs all
over the place.
We have a low unemployment rate.
Dave Armstrong was talking
about that earlier.

So in order to get new results,
we have to have a new mindset.

You’ve heard of think
outside the box.

A new mindset is think
like there is no box.

So we need to start
looking for solutions,
that’s what we do at
Rice Lake Weighing,
the vision is there.
We want to be the
best by every measure.

And so what we need to do is
not only look at the concerns,
think about the concerns,

but try to come
up with solutions.

So with health care costs.
We came up with a no
cost health care option
for our employees.

And I’ll talk about that
in a little bit here.
With the skills gaps,
we talked about what can we do
to train and develop
our employees?
Both new employees coming in,
as well as incumbent workers.

We have a competitive
labor market,
so we need to look
at career pathways.
There’s a lot of talk
about engaging the youth.
We do that at Rice
Lake Weighing.
We really focus on that,
and it’s extremely
important for all of us
to get engaged in that.
Labor shortage.
We need to come up
with new programs.
With those solutions
it makes a smile.
And as my director says,
if we have concerns,
the answers exist.
So we just have to
look for those answers.

So Cedar Ridge Health
Center was established
by Rice Lake Weighing in 2017.
It is actually a health care
for Rice Lake Weighing employees
and their family members.
It’s a near site clinic, less
than a mile from our facility.
They offer physicals,
HRAs, sickness, exams,

just for acute illness,
lab testing, referrals,
preventative health
and wellness,
chronic disease management,
and prescriptions.
And again, the benefit is,
there’s no cost to the employees
and dependents of Rice
Lake Weighing Systems.

We also focus on TeleHealth.
We heard earlier today
about the shortage
of behavioral health.
That’s a major concern in
our markets, a major concern.
So our employees now have 24/7
access to physician services.

They have convenient and
alternative no cost options,
to be able to call in.
They have behavioral
health that they can call,
and coordinate with.
Even on a weekend,
even at night.
And in turn, it
saves us as employer
that urgent care cost
or emergency cost.
So it is a win-win for everyone.

So what did we do with
training and development?

We look at a robust internship
program, every summer.

We host high school job
shadows on a regular basis.
I’m talking to the
local high schools
and setting up pathways
for each of the students
that are in a career class.

Plant tours for
students of all ages.
We do occasionally have
grade schoolers come in.
They like to touch a lot.
Middle schoolers are a little
unruly, but it’s great.
We plant the seed.
We try to keep it
interesting for them.
And high schoolers
are very interested,
we can talk about what their
pathway is after school,
or even during school.

So we present to local
high schools and colleges,
we’re members on the
advisory committees.
We sponsor manufacturing
and industry events.
Actually there’s one coming up
in a few weeks here at WITC.
And we partner with Wisconsin
Youth Apprenticeships,
which has been huge.

So the internship programs
we have every summer.
We actually host up
to 50 college interns.
Some of them actually
might be just graduating
from high school and
know that they are going
to go into a field in college.
They might work on the
manufacturing floor
to understand manufacturing.
And then the next year,
move into a college
level internship.

These are just a few
pictures of our past interns.
We also, 2015, we
actually were awarded
a Fast Forward grant from
the state of Wisconsin
for training and development.
We created our own on-site
weld development program.
We love coordinating
and working closely
with the local colleges.
We work closely with WITC,
that’s one of the
advisory boards.
We hire from WITC.
We also look at other
weld development programs
and training programs.
But the truth is,
everybody wants welders.
Everybody wants
machine operators.
So what do we do
to fill that gap?
So by creating these
programs on site.
And it might be an
incumbent worker
that just can’t possibly
leave a full time employment
to go back to school
at that point.
So we’ve also added recently
the on-site CNC
development program.
We actually used the model from
the weld development program
to create that CNC development.
These programs have
been a pipeline
to keep skilled
positions filled.
So it isn’t just the only
pipeline, again I mentioned,
we work very closely with
the technical campuses,
because we rely on them.
But this is an additional piece.

We work with the Youth
Apprenticeship Program.
Very connected with that.
Statewide school
to work initiative
for high school students
who want to learn hands-on.
A lot of students need
to learn, tactically.
They need to actually
do to be able to learn.
So the Youth Apprenticeship
has helped us attract students,
retain them from an early age.
We talk to the schools, we work
with the local high schools,
people that are
interested in coming in,
and coordinating
with this program.

So this is an example of
the weld training program,
this is Tony, he
actually started
in the weld development program
while he was still
in high school.
And now he works for us.
And he’s very proud.
He takes pride in his work.

We have career
advancement opportunities.
Luke went from a
senior in high school
to a senior robotics technician.
“If you have a good work
ethic and do the right job,
“the opportunities
are limitless.”

So how many of you have
heard of Project SEARCH?

All right.
So we have 21 Project
SEARCH sites in Wisconsin,
and over 500 worldwide, and
Rice Lake Weighing is a host
for one of the Project SEARCH,
and there’s a quick video here.

[pleasant music]

– Project SEARCH.
– Project SEARCH.
– Project SEARCH.
– Project SEARCH.
– Project SEARCH
– Is a nine month
– Internship
– program.
– And we learn
– All kinds of different
– Jobs,
– Skills,
– With the goal
– To obtain the job
– In the end.

[pleasant music]

– Female narrator: Project SEARCH was developed in 1996
by nurse J. Erin Riehle.
At the time, she was the
emergency department director
at Cincinnati Children’s
Hospital Medical Center.
Since then, Project SEARCH
has grown to include
hundreds of programs
across the United States,
and even programs
internationally.
Our local Rice Lake area
Project SEARCH began in 2016
with eight interns with
intellectual disabilities
from area school districts.
Project SEARCH interns
who complete the program
have an 88% success rate of
procuring gainful employment.
The Rice Lake Area Project
SEARCH strives to ensure
all interns who
complete the program,
not only gain employment,
but learn skills
that will enable them to
lead more independent,
and fulfilling lives
in the community.

– Paint manufacturing,
where I plug in boxes.
– I work in the weight lab at
Rice Lake Weighing Systems.

– The garbage.
– Well I make different
types of foams
for the electronics
department where they can
make the foams to
put in the boxes.

– We exercise.

– I like playing Kahoot.

– I have fun and
make new friends.

– Narrator: A day in the life
of a Project SEARCH intern
includes many
different activities.

From stretching and
exercising in the morning,
to team building and
communication activities,
to on the job training,
interns have a full schedule.
To ensure interns have the
skills to be successful
in their jobs,
they meet every day
in the Project SEARCH classroom,
on-site at Rice Lake
Weighing Systems.
– My name is Mary Gruber.
I am the instructor
at Project SEARCH
at Rice Lake Weighing System.
I’m a cross-categorical teacher,
and love my job.
At day one, when the interns
started Project SEARCH,
we just saw a lot
of young people
who were uncomfortable,
unsure of themselves.
And we started, they started
participating in activities
that made them a team.
And pretty soon they just
felt more comfortable
with who they were and
what they could do,
and so I’ve seen a lot of growth
from the day one ’til now.
And so there will be days that
something will be going wrong
and they’ll say, “You
know what, that’s okay.”
And you just see, you know.
It’s not like they’re kids.
They have become adults
who are ready for
the world and being a
part of the workplace.
My name is Colleen Strasburg,
I’m a skills trainer
for Project SEARCH.
I can only really guess
as to how Project SEARCH
has impacted each intern’s life.
I can tell you what I see,
and I see pride in each
one over a good day’s work,
and I can hear the excitement
when they talk about
their plans after
Project SEARCH.
And I feel they’re way more
confident in themselves
and in their abilities.
I have watched an intern who
was afraid of her own shadow

on day one, blossom into
this more confident woman
who is not afraid to
start a conversation
in her work environment.
Who has, you can just see
the confidence in herself,
I can do this,
and maybe, I think she is
even starting to wonder,
I thought I wanted to do
this when I got through
Project SEARCH, and I think
she’s able to look up here
and say, I know I can
do this sort of a job.
– I am Jenifer Solie,
I’m a skills trainer
for Project SEARCH.
The skills that I’ve seen
the interns all develop
are computer work, learning
how to build their resume,
write a cover letter, and
to all around be independent
persons in their own life.
– [Lori] I’m going to go
ahead and just keep going,
’cause I’m going to run
out of time, I’m sorry.
So again, the Project
SEARCH program so far,
we’ve actually had 18
Project SEARCH interns
who have participated in this
skills development program.
All program graduates
thus far have graduated,
and have been gainfully
employed, so that is our goal.
We work with reverse
job fairs,
we bring in local
employers to come in
and meet the interns,
and actually find out
about their
abilities and skills.

We also have recognition
on any level,
is extremely important.
This is Take Your
Legislature to Work Campaign,
and Brent graduated in 2017,
hired by Rice Lake Weighing
following graduation,
and received the opportunity to
Take Your Legislature to Work.
And we have Representative
Romaine Quinn here actually,
that came to that program.
So, also Dave Armstrong
is a huge advocate,
is part of our steering
committee, so we do,
it’s a collaborative
effort for Project SEARCH.
It’s a win win,
while the interns are
gaining the knowledge
and job skills,
we’re also locating
employment opportunities
that will fill
openings here locally.
So I’m going to
leave you with this,
that one of the greatest
talents is to recognize
and to develop
talents in others.
Doesn’t matter what level.
But we all can learn.
So, thank you.

[applause]

– [Margaret] Well as we’re
getting the slides set up,
my name is Margaret
Bau, and I actually work
for USDA Rural Development.
I’m based out of Stevens Point.
I worked for the state rural
development for 17 years,
and for the last three years
I’ve been on the
national office team,
but still remain based
in Stevens Point,
which is a real blessing.
So anyhow, I would
like to talk to you
about a novel idea
for recruiting and
retaining a workforce,

and that’s where
you actually allow
the work force to co-own
the business together,
in the form of a
worker cooperative.
And I’m going to
talk specifically
about the home care industry,
and how we hope to form more
home care worker co-ops.
And not only in Wisconsin
but across the country.

So just a little
bit of background
about the home care industry.
As we know, we’re getting a
little bit older in our country,
the senior population
will double.
And in rural areas,
we are the future.
We are needing that, we
have older populations,
as compared to urban areas.
And plus, people
with disabilities,
we have more people
with disabilities.
People are surviving
injuries and illnesses
that before would
have been fatal.
So we have a larger
population of folks
that need a little bit of help
in order to meet their needs.

So what exactly is home care?
It’s anything that helps a
person stay healthy, happy,
in a safe and sanitary
place of their own choosing.
So it can be activities
of daily living,
anything that touches a
person, bathing, grooming,
toileting, et cetera.
Or the home care, to keep
the home safe and sanitary,
which would include
medication reminders.

Home care is the fastest
growing job occupation
in the United States.
But as I believe it was,
Fortune magazine observed,
home care is the worst
paying, fastest growing
job category in America.
So you would think with
all this growing demand,
that supply, that
wages would go up
and there would be
a greater supply.
But that has not been the case.
We have some pretty dismal
labor force conditions
in the home care industry.
The median wage
is $11.03 an hour.
That’s 2018 statistics.
The most current statistics
I have for Wisconsin is 2017
at $10.47 an hour.
But because of
inconsistent hours,
the average wage is about
$15,100 a year, annually.

So it’s a case of
the working poor
caring for the hidden poor.
One of two caregivers
have to rely
on some form of
public assistance,
it’s primarily a
female work force.
And the Fair Labor Standards
Act was finally extended
to caregivers, 75 years
after implementation.

So, not surprising
with those low wages,
we have a labor force crisis,
and it hit rural Wisconsin
about four years ago.
The average annual
turnover of caregivers
across the country is 67%.
Imagine that.
This is providing the most
intimate of care imaginable
in people’s own homes,
and you don’t know
who’s going to show
up at the door,
if anyone’s going to
show up at the door
to provide that care.
67% annual turnover.

So, what would
happen if caregivers,
people providing
that direct care,
would actually own and
democratically control
their livelihoods through the
form of worker cooperatives?

The very first home
care worker cooperative
was formed as a
welfare to work project
in the south Bronx of New York
City back in the mid 1980s.
And that particular
co-op had a few spinoffs
in urban areas in the Northeast,
but then it inspired the very
first home care worker co-op
right here in Wisconsin,
in Wautoma, Wisconsin,
and which actually, a 2003
top Rural Initiatives
Award winner.

A while ago.
So, that’s something
quite exciting, to share.
And what’s exciting, why this
is of interest to all of us,
is that the average
annual turnover rate
at the home care
worker co-ops is 30%.
For the more well-established
home care worker co-ops
it’s about 20 to 25%.

When people own
their businesses,
they have a vested
interest in it,
and they make
different decisions
that keep them grounded
in what they’re doing.

On average, home care
worker co-ops offer
an additional $1.84
an hour more in wages.
Then you have
additional benefits,
plus something called
patronage refunds,
which is profit sharing

in the talk about co-ops.
And what we’re also seeing is
that there’s reduced reliance
on public supports, and
caregivers also report
that they have more control
over their schedules
and working conditions
when they co-own their
businesses together.

So, co-ops, and especially
worker co-ops, can create,
we’ve heard of vicious cycles.
Well it can create
a virtuous cycle,
in which the worker
centered business
increases job satisfaction,
enhance job satisfaction,
reduces that turnover rate,
and then that reduced turnover
results in higher quality,
more consistent client care.

So, as this map shows, the very
first home care worker co-op
was in the south Bronx,
back in the mid 1980s.
There were a few replications
in the Northeast.
Cooperative Care
came along in 2001.
And then there
wasn’t much activity,

until the last two
to three years.

So a fair question would be,
if home care worker co-ops
are such a great idea,
why aren’t there
hundreds of these co-ops
across the country?

Fair question, I’ve asked
it many times myself
as I’m laboring in doing this.
And a major reason
for this is the,

this isn’t a true
free market situation.
75% of all care is
paid for publicly.

Primarily Medicaid.
Some Veterans Administration
and some cases of Medicare.
There is long term
care insurance.
10% of the market
is out of pocket,
people that can afford
to pay for services.

But primarily, this is
a public paid situation.
And frankly there hasn’t been
enough investment in Medicaid.

So, Medicaid rates
are insufficient to
pay living wages,
so you’ve got this failing
recruitment and retention
and we’ve got that
labor force crisis,
that has really hit the
fan here in Wisconsin,
about three to four years ago.

So it’s interesting,
we’ve seen an uptick
in the number of home
care worker co-ops,
and it’s giving us a great
hope across the country.
Could we do more of these
by market innovation,
totally by accident
in Washington state.
The cooperative,
the Northwest Cooperative
Development Center there,
was approached by

a woman whose
father received care
in Bellingham, Washington.
And she had been a member
of the hodag cooperatives
that were tree planters back
in the 70s in Washington state.
And she was really concerned
about the situation
of the caregivers that were
providing care for her father,
and she said, “What about
forming a worker co-op?”
And so they did, but Washington
state has some of the most
stringent regulations
concerning home care.
And that you have to be an
agency for at least three years
before you could be eligible
to receive Medicaid
reimbursements.
And so they thought,
“Well, we’ll go ahead
“and we’ll form a co-op
and we’ll do private pay,
“and see how it goes,” with
the idea that eventually
they would start providing
services to low income folks.
Well it turns out, because
they were receiving clients
that could pay out of pocket,
they were able to charge more
and pay higher wages,
and lo and behold,
there wasn’t the turnover.
So, what’s wrong
with this picture?
Why would we go after
the public pay market?
Pursue private pay.
And that’s why we’re seeing
home care worker co-ops
popping up across the country.

There’s a group of
us across the country
that are trying to figure out
ways to go to scale with this.
We’ve had assistance
through the Cooperative
Development Foundation,
out of Washington, D.C.,
along with a lot of
pieced together grants
from the agency I work for,
with different co-op
development centers,
trying to figure
out how to do this.
And we’re trying to come
up with some strategies.
And it’s going to end up
being multiple strategies.
Organizing additional co-ops
like this from scratch.
That’s long, that’s
time-consuming.

The build and recruit model,
that’s being experimented
with right now in California,
where a nonprofit organization
would actually form
an agency with the idea of
converting that business
to worker ownership over time.
And then another interesting
aspect would be converting
existing agencies
to worker ownership.
Buying out the owner and
converting it over time,

training the workers,
empowering the workers
to take ownership.
And in order to do that,
we’re going to need
systemic supports.
I call it the co-op
whisperer, of helping out with
governance and
operations, to go forward.

So if you want to learn more,
I gave you a really
crash course here.
If you would like to learn more,
probably the best description
I’ve heard about the industry
and solutions, including
this cooperative solution,
was put together by the
Nonprofit Quarterly.
They’ve got podcasts that
are called Tiny Spark.
So if you’ve got 30 minutes,
you’re on a treadmill,
or you’re driving somewhere
across rural Wisconsin,
listen to this post,
it’s excellent.
They do feature cooperative
care out of Wautoma.
And then also
there’s a resource,
the Cooperative
Development Foundation
has some great resources
on seniors.coop.
And that’s a picture of Stacy
Hodge and her client Richard
looking very very lovingly
at her [laughing].

And if you’d like to
learn more information,
please feel free to contact me.
I’ve been around for a while
and I’d be happy to talk
with you more about it.

[applause]

– Ray: All right, good afternoon.
Sorry I don’t have a
PowerPoint for you,
I’ll just try to tell some
exciting prison stories
or something, I don’t know.
[laughter]
My name is Ray Woodruff,
I’m a policy advisor
in the secretary’s office
for the Wisconsin
Department of Corrections.
I’m excited about the
opportunity to be here today
to talk about some
of what we’re doing
in the Department of
Corrections to prepare people
for their eventual
release to the community.
I mean I recognize that
I probably represent
one of the most
nontraditional populations
when we’re talking about
workforce development.

But I think the reality
is, when we look at
the number of individuals
who are coming back
to the community
from incarceration,
we’re really talking about
an untapped population
that we can look at.
In Wisconsin alone, we
have around 24,000 people
that are incarcerated in our
prisons throughout the state.
That doesn’t include
county jails,
so just our state facilities.
We have about 65,000 people
that are on
community supervision
throughout the
state of Wisconsin.
So these are people who
are on probation, parole,
extended supervision,
things of that nature,
most of whom have actually
never been to prison.
They’ve committed some
sort of criminal offense
for which they’ve
put on supervision
and likely that will be
the end of it for them,
they’ll never go to prison,
they’ll do their term
of supervision on
community supervision
and hopefully one day
be off of supervision.
But we release around 8,500
to 9,000 people every year,
from incarceration, that’s
just our prison population
that we’re releasing
back to the community.

That’s a substantial
number of people
coming back to the
community every year
that are not being
counted when we talk about
engaging in the workforce.
That’s a lot of people
that we can try to

put meaningfully
into opportunities
that make sense for them and
make sense for the community.
It probably won’t
surprise you to know
that a lot of those folks go
back to southeastern Wisconsin,
which is where they come from.
So there’s a substantial
number that go back there.
But the reality is
people come back
everywhere throughout the state.
Almost nobody goes
to prison forever.

That’s just not the
reality, there are a few.
You know, there’s some
high profile cases
that have happened recently
that we can think of
that people are going
to prison forever,
but that’s just not the reality
for 97% of our population.
97% of our population comes out.
Meaning they come back home.
They’re not going to some
far off island somewhere
where we never have to
think about them again.
They are us.
One in three people in
America has a criminal record.
One in three, I don’t know how
many people are in this room.

But the reality is it
touches a lot of people.
The criminal justice system
touches a lot of people.
And whether it is
your own history,
or somebody that you
love and care about,
or somebody that
you don’t know yet
that you’re going to meet.
The criminal justice system
impacts a lot of people.

Nationally, one in 38 people
are under active
correctional supervision.
That means they’re in
prison, they’re in jail,
or they’re on community
supervision in the community.
So again, that is us, right?
That’s the people
that we interact with,
that’s the people
that we know and love.
So the important thing for
us, is to really think about,
you know, I primarily
work with our folks
that are incarcerated, but,

for us it’s thinking about
what do we want to do with them
to prepare them for
that eventual release
to the community,
because prison, for most
people, is a temporary thing.

They’re coming back
to the community,
and we need to prepare for that.
So a couple of things I just
wanted to talk about today
and I know I didn’t say my bio,
but hopefully it’s in the
packet that you can read.
I’ve worked in corrections
around 15 years,
both in the states of Ohio
and here in Wisconsin.
And I want to talk
about a couple of things
that are pretty
innovative and exciting
that we’re doing in the state
of Wisconsin, I think, to
both give folks skills
that are coming back out
of incarceration, as well
as benefit the community.
As I mentioned, we have
8,500, 9,000 people
that are coming out
of incarceration.
In our prison system,
you know, prison is not
typically what people think
from watching TV and movies.
I know what Shawshank
Redemption’s like,
I’ve seen that movie, I
love the movie, right?
That’s not the reality, when
we go into our institutions
around the state of Wisconsin.
People are engaged,
people are working
on bettering themselves
through programming,
through work in
the institutions,
through preparation for
eventual release, you know,
people aren’t just laying
around, watching TV,
and soaking up the sun, right?
That’s not what it looks like
for people that
are incarcerated.
So some of the unique
and exciting things
that we’ve been doing, probably
over the last five years,
I’ll just touch
on, and then I know
we’re going to have
time for questions.

Over about the last five
years, we have recognized,
so the Department
of Corrections has
career and technical
education programs
throughout our facilities
throughout the state.
We have about 17 institutions
in which we have some form
of career and
technical education.
Welding, masonry.

Carpentry, cabinetmaking,
you name it.
We’re probably training in it.

But those are in our brick
and mortar facilities, right?
And with changing industry
demands, we cannot
typically be responsive and just
pluck up one of those programs,
and put something
new in its place.
We don’t have the funds,
we don’t have the ability
to do that sort of thing.
So over about the
last five years,
we’ve been pretty
innovative in working
with our workforce
development partners,
our technical college system
partners throughout the state,
to develop short-term
training opportunities for our
folks who are incarcerated in
minimum security institutions,
in work release facilities,
so that we can take them
from a work release facility
to a local technical
college, get trained
in the course of
three, four months.
A lot of training in the course
of that three or four months.
And then put them
out on work release.
We’re doing it with Gordon
Correctional Center,
which is about 15
miles from here.
Along with WITC Superior,
where we’ve trained
folks in welding.

In this case it’s the eight
credit gas, metal, arc welding
program with WITC.

And then the hope is
to transition them into
work release opportunities.

We’ve done similar projects in
Rhinelander area, in Madison,
all over the state, to
really be responsive
to the changing
demands of industry.
And when we’ve done that,
we’ve really worked closely
with workforce
development systems,
in whatever area we’re in,
the local technical
college, and employers.
It’s really a partnership
between all involved
to say, “What is it that
Rice Lake Weighing needs?
“What skill sets
are you looking for?
“Well, we can tailor
a training for that.”

I don’t want to, you know,
we don’t want Rice Lake to
monopolize our entire population
but that’s kind of what
we’re trying to do,
is find employers that
are engaged and invested
and want to hire
this population.
So we can work directly
with employers,
and local technical colleges,
to try to make a match that
makes pretty good sense.
And we’ve been,
again, we’ve done that
throughout the state, we’re
going to continue to do that,
we got additional funding
in the last budget,
to increase those types
of training opportunities,
which are totally free
to the participant.
But you know, when we think
about the 24,000 people
that we have incarcerated,
you have to work your way
down to the minimum security

status, so that you can take
part in these sorts of things,
so the individuals that
we’re talking about training
are getting close to coming out.
They’re probably already
working in the community,
you just might not know it.
They just happen to come
back and sleep at night
in one of our facilities.
We hope they come
back at night, right,
that’s part of the deal.
[laughter]

Another quick thing I
just want to mention.
There’s a lot of initiatives
that we have going on
in the Department of Corrections
and I think there’s
a lot of space
where we can collaborate on
meeting the changing demands
of industry and issues
that you might have
with recruitment and retention,
in whatever agency you
might be a part of.
Recently in Oregon, Wisconsin,
which is just south of Madison.
We created an institution
based job center.
The first of its kind, an
institution based job center
in one of our facilities.
Oregon…
Oak Hill Correctional
Center, Institution,
is a minimum
security institution.
About 700 inmates, who, you
know, are approaching release,
at some point.
Historically we
have not had access
for our inmate population,
to access the Job Center
of Wisconsin website.

We had very limited
access, right?
It’s prison, now, so you
could get on a computer,
and you could maybe see jobs
that were available
three months ago.
You can’t click on anything.
It’s like a piece of
paper, quite frankly,
giving to an inmate.
But now we have the ability
for inmates to
access the internet,
create inmate email
accounts that are monitored,
again, it is still prison.

Create resumes, apply for
jobs, take job interviews
and potentially accept positions
prior to even coming
out of incarceration.
So it’s an exciting
initiative and partnership
with the Department of
Workforce Development,
the local workforce
development board,
that we’re looking to branch
out throughout the state.
In this governor’s
budget, there’s funding
for four additional job centers,
but budget process is one
of those interesting things.
But the hope is that we can
create additional job centers
throughout the state to serve
different areas of the state,
right now, we’re focused
on south central Wisconsin.
Obviously we’re going to look
at southeastern Wisconsin.
But the hope is to come to
northwest, western
Wisconsin as well.
So really innovative things
I think that are happening,
because the reality
is, we know that people
are coming back out of prison.
And if somebody was
coming out of prison,
they were living
next door to me,
I would want to make sure
they had all the opportunities
available to them to
better their lives before,
you know, before they got
out to the community, so,
some really cool innovative
things that we’re doing
and the hope is that

if you’re having difficulties
with recruitment, retention,
I think there’s some
opportunities that we have
that can help you with
some of that stuff.
So, I’ll leave it there.
Can save exciting stories for
later, and take any questions.

– Woman: So when you said
this is one from Madison,
what kind of programs
are there for youth
that are caught in the
middle of corrections?
– Bill: The question is, are
there any programs for youth
that are in corrections?

– Ray: Yeah, so, the
State of Wisconsin,
as you know probably know,
is a county-run system,
and so each county gets
to determine what it is
that they wish to do with
their, for the most part,
what they wish to do with
their adjudicated youth.
A small percentage
of those folks
impacted by the justice
system actually come
to the Department
of Corrections.
But we do obviously
have a Lincoln Hills,
Copper Lake School
in Irma, in which we have
a full range of programs
and initiatives, up to
and including education,
substance use, sex
offender treatment.
A whole host of interventions
for our population.
Really the youth that are at
Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake
are involved in some
sort of programming
and or intervention
throughout the entirety
of their stay there.

One that I’ll mention
down in Oregon
is called the Grow Academy.
It is sort of one of
these experiential
sort of environments
where youth who are impacted
by the justice system
can learn all sorts of things.
How to grow plants,
and how to can,
and actually, on
a monthly basis,
they sell the things
that they make there
at our, at the central office
for the Wisconsin
Department of Corrections.
And I think at the Grow facility
there’s probably a dozen
youth that are there,
dozen to 15 probably would
be an accurate number.
So those are some of the
initiatives that are in place.
Obviously we know, with
the current landscape,
some things are going to
be changing, very likely,
down the line, but
we continue to offer
as many opportunities
as possible,
particularly to not only
youth, but young adults
within our adult system.
We have a youthful offender
facility in Racine,
which focuses on
youth, on young adults,
that 18 to 25 range.

And again, intensive
programming at that age level.

– Bill: I’d like to thank the
panel for their contribution.
[applause]