Broadband Expansion: Rural Wisconsin Needs the Real Deal

                       Today we are featuring another insightful article from Senator Kathleen Vinehout.

"All we seek is help to get the basic broadband services that you all take for granted,” Justin Fortney from Clifton Township in Pierce County wrote to me. “It has been frustrating for us families to watch the digital revolution pass us by…We often…pack the family into the car and drive to a relative’s house or commercial business to use their Internet.”

According to the federal government’s most recent information, Wisconsin ranks last in the Midwest in both rural and urban broadband access with only 44% of rural folks accessing download speeds of 25 Mbps. 

Both federal and state governments responded with grant programs to expand broadband but there are problems with assuring that residents actually receive the promised services. 

With much fanfare, Governor Walker recently announced his plan to add money for broadband to schools and rural areas. Later, Senator Marklein released a different bill. The Senator’s bill was voted out of his rural affairs committee and is headed for final passage soon.

Sen. Marklein’s bill is false advertising. The bill is neither “rural” nor “broadband.” As now written, nearly every Wisconsin county would be eligible for expansion grants. “Broadband” for awardees is defined at the “turtle-slow” speed of 5 Mbps download and .6 Mbps upload. In addition, such a paltry amount of money is used for grants that would not cover my small rural county with broadband even if we used all the statewide funds. 

More problems exist with the federal grant programs.

Mr. Fortney described the problem in his email. He refers to one federal program known as “CAF-II.”

“Our area is CAF-II Subsidized Area, but still no Internet. These limited funds are being used by the…company to further increase the speed of areas that already have broadband.” Mr. Fortney described how both large companies near him said they have no plans to provide services to him. Yet both companies received large grants to expand broadband.

The two large companied mentioned by Mr. Fortney sent representatives to a community meeting I attended last year. Neither company would commit to expanding service in Pierce County. In the words of one company representative, “I don’t want to promise you fiber where fiber is not going to come…It’s not a great business investment to put in copper or fiber,” and “We’re not going to go trenching through a bluff…[we are looking for] where can we grab the low hanging fruit.”

What can Wisconsin do if these large companies do not intend to use federal dollars to bring the 21st Century to rural Wisconsin? 

First, we should agree on WHAT IS broadband. The federal definition – 25 Mbps download speed and 3 Mbps upload is a good place to start. Unfortunately, Senate Bill 49 (the bill speeding for hasty passage) will award grants to those providing much less. 

Second, money for “Rural” broadband should go to rural areas. Senate Bill 49 – and the current state grant program – makes nearly the entire state eligible for awards. The Public Service Commission has broad latitude to send the money to just about any county in the state. This should change.

Third, Wisconsin must invest enough money to actually make a difference in the problem. To date, the state awarded 42 grants totaling approximately $3.9 million. This money is not enough to provide broadband for just my small home county. In comparison, Minnesota appropriated $65.5 million and Governor Dayton is proposing spending another $100 million.

Finally, Wisconsin should independently verify that companies keep their promises to the state (in their grant applications) and to consumers. I frequently hear of companies promising one speed and delivering another, of broadband maps that show an area as served and it is not, and of companies using poor service in an area to apply for a grant and then not delivering services to the neighbors.

Broadband is the 21st Century equivalent of electricity. Someday most of us may plan a visit to a rural area or are going to need to contact someone in a rural area. All of us are going to eat something grown in a rural area and these days you need broadband for farming. We need to make sure the promised “Rural Broadband” bill is the Real Deal for rural Wisconsin.

Audit Hearing Highlights Problems and Way Forward with Transportation

From Senator Kathleen Vinehout

"Deputies are trying to figure out what caused a bridge on a rural road west of Arcadia to collapse.” The WEAU-TV story broke the same morning as a recent Legislative Audit Committee hearing on the State Highways Program. As horrifying as the bridge collapse was, the story highlighted problems locals, others and I warned about for some time. Summer storms and floodwaters weakened older roads and bridges. State funds for local construction and maintenance did not kept pace with costs. The recent audit, conducted by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB), shined a light on long-standing problems with the Department of Transportation (DOT). Many lawmakers, including myself, advocated for this audit because an analysis of DOT programs has not been conducted for many years. Road conditions have gotten worse over five years (2010-2015). Using information from the audit, I calculated 38 Wisconsin counties have less than 5% of local (concrete or asphalt) roads rated “good”. Using the “International Roughness Index” measure of road conditions, Wisconsin ranked lower than six Midwestern states and the national average. Sixty percent of Pepin County’s state highways rated “poor” or worse than “poor”. The state road through the village of Pepin is so bad that dandelions sprouted in the cracks. Village officials asked me for help after they were told the DOT could not help with paving – even though this state road is slated for repair. I met with DOT officials and requested money for Pepin and over a dozen other road projects in western Wisconsin. I received the same answer I often hear, that it is a “local decision” and assistance to deal with the “local problem” was not forthcoming. Highway commissioners and town supervisors tell me that pushing blame onto local officials without sending additional local resources is a problem that got much worse in recent years. Auditors reported similar findings. For example, 70% of county highway commissioners who responded to an LAB survey indicated roadway maintenance funds for state highways in 2015 were “less than adequate”. The audit contains two very interesting charts of county road conditions. I reviewed the proportion of state highways in “poor or worse” condition. I discovered half of the counties ranked in the top twenty-five percent as worst in the state were in the western Wisconsin and included EVERY county that touched the Mississippi River. When I raised the issue of how money was spent by region of the state, newly appointed DOT Secretary David Ross could not answer me. The audit did highlight solvable problems within DOT. Secretary Ross shared his willingness to accept all the audit recommendations and to work on fixing what he could right away. But many of the problems are serious institutional issues related to the way DOT does its work and will not be resolved by the time the Legislature passes the 2017-19 state budget. Our transportation fund has an imbalance that worsened in recent years. Projections show by the end of the next budget, nearly one in four dollars spend on transportation will go to pay debt – leaving less money available for roads and bridges. Delaying some projects is inevitable but every delay only drives up costs. Governors of both political stripes paid for this transportation debt from the general fund. Governor Walker used more than $900 million of the General Fund – over three budgets – to pay for transportation projects and debt. This transfer left less money in the general fund to pay for needs like schools, the UW System and local government. Robbing Peter to pay Paul should no longer be an option. Spending more and adding unsustainable debt cannot be the ‘go-to’ option again. To fix the transportation fund we should improve efficiencies. The Audit Committee introduced a bill to adopt the legislative considerations in the audit. We will keep careful watch on the progress of the department and its new secretary and require periodic written reports. However, efficiencies alone will not provide all the help needed to fix the deteriorating roads, bridges and other transportation needs of the state. Lawmakers should revisit the revenue options detailed by former DOT Secretary Gottlieb and figure out how to fix the long-term problems we face. Related story, paved roads returning to gravel in Wisconsin as Travis Tranel, Scott Walker and their Tea Party bosses lead Wisconsin backward.  http://www.wpr.org/small-wisconsin-towns-paved-roads-return-gravel

Wisconsin Grassroots Festival

Searching for the "Reform Dividend"

From Senator Kathleen Vinehout

Overall, our common-sense reforms brought us here – to the point we have a significantly better budget outlook.” Governor Walker said in his recent Budget Address. “We call this the Reform Dividend. And wow, as the fiscal bureau pointed out, that’s a whole lot of money.” What is the “Reform Dividend” the Governor spoke about in his budget address? Where is it? How much is it? An inquiring mind wanted to know. Rita Brunkow from Mondovi asked me. “Do you know what this “Reform Dividend” is? Who’s reforming what and where is the dividend coming from?” Rita did her homework, and before she emailed me, she wrote to the Governor. “I asked what reform it came from and where the money (dividend) came from…I got back what appeared to be a short press release statement similar to what I had already read in the newspaper.” Ms. Brunkow wrote a second time, “making it clear I was not seeking a vague general statement but looking for specific answers as to where this money was coming from. I did not get a reply a second time.” So, I went looking for the elusive “Reform Dividend.”   I examined the details of ten “economic forecast” and “general fund tax revenue estimate” reports prepared by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB). I studied over fifty revenue collection reports from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. I read the Governor’s Budget in Brief, the administration’s November “Agency Requests and Revenue Estimates” for the new budget and the administration’s 632-page summary of the Executive Budget. To keep the numbers straight I created a spreadsheet. I learned a few disturbing details. In Fiscal Year 2014, tax revenue actually dropped below the prior year. This almost never happens except in a recession. For the budget ending this year, the LFB revised expected revenue downward several times. If there was a dividend, numbers should be going up, not down. By Saturday morning, I still had not found any evidence of a “Reform Dividend.” At breakfast, my husband suggested maybe I should look across the river. I went looking at Minnesota’s budget numbers and revenue estimates, their jobs numbers and economic activity numbers. If Wisconsin has a “Reform Dividend” Wisconsin numbers should be better than Minnesota, where there was no “reform”. Here is what I found. Since 2011, when Governor Walker first took office and passed his “reforms,” general fund tax revenue grew 18%. In Minnesota, over those same years, general fund tax revenue grew 31%. No evidence of a “Reform Dividend” there. I looked at jobs numbers. Since the Great Recession (2008-09) Wisconsin did not gain back all of the lost jobs until 2015 – an entire year after the nation recovered and two years after Minnesota recovered. No “Reform Dividend” there. I then looked at state economic activity from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Most recent annual numbers (from 2015) showed that since 2012 the Minnesota economy grew faster than the national average and Wisconsin’s economy grew slower than the national average. No “Reform Dividend” there. Where else to look? I remembered a conversation from last week with a county official, who attended a County Association meeting, at which the state budget director talked about the extra money in the budget and how it would be spent. During the follow-up questions, someone in the back of the room pointed out the recently announced increase in expected revenue was only an increase over the governor’s own November estimates. Isn’t this new estimate actually lower than the estimates made in 2016 and 2015, the questioner asked, and is this really new money? The state budget director smiled and congratulated the man for doing his homework. The “Reform Dividend” disappeared. Replaced by a smile.

Tomorrow is the most important day of this year.

Greetings Friend

The Democratic Party of Grant County would like to remind you of the importance of tomorrow's election.  You have heard it many time before because it is true "Democrats who don't vote, elect Republicans."

We hope that you will make it to the polls tomorrow and also encourage others to do the same.  Supporting incumbent Tony Evers as State Supervisor is one of the most important political races in Wisconsin in recent years.

IF YOU DON'T....then here is what is going to happen.  A Tea Party/Republican extremist is going to be put in charge of the state's public schools.  If that happens, we will within just a couple of year's, lose all of Wisconsin's public schools. I know that sounds extreme and so rotten that you don't even want to think about it, but it is true.

Both the neoconservative candidates running against Tony Evers plan to replace all public schools with voucher schools.  The Scott Walker administration has been passing laws for years getting ready with their voucher school plan.  Which includes replacing teachers with unqualified party loyalists who won't need to have even a degree in education, they will not even have proper criminal background checks which endangers our children.

There is almost no oversight of voucher schools and the curriculum would be based on the ideology of the Tea and Republican Parties who as they are always fond to point out, do not believe in math or science. Just imagine the indoctrination they would try to force on our children instead of educating them. On top of all this, those voucher schools would raise taxes as they cost more, because those voucher schools are for-profit.  So you have to pay for the schools, all new textbooks and materials which won't include science and then you have to pay the owner's of the schools to guarantee them their millions of dollars of our tax money.

We know you don't want that to happen, heck, most Republicans who know what is going on do not want this to happen.  But Scott Walker and the Republican Party of Wisconsin are going to try to ram it down their throats anyway.

Record numbers of Democratic voters have been turning out in recent Grant County elections.  We have faith that you won't let us down tomorrow, and that you will support Tony Evers, our children and their future by turning out the vote Tuesday February 21st.

A Few Budget Details that Didn't Make the Headlines

 By Senator Kathleen Vinehout

Governors are a bit like salesmen,” I recently told a reporter. “They put good news in the headlines and bury bad news in the small print.” Governor Walker recently released his two-year state budget. Amid much fanfare, he touted providing much needed money for schools, roads, and the UW. I went digging through budget documents released by the Governor. I knew there was more to the story.  First, I must say Wisconsin has one of the most opaque budgeting processes I have ever seen. For example, there is no clear table comparing actual spending in each fiscal year to budgeted spending. We are still waiting for some details the Governor has not yet released. For example, his capital budget, which includes total proposed borrowing, is not yet available. In the next month, the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) will compile an independent analysis of the budget proposal. The LFB will provide details on where money comes from and how it is spent. Until then, we have documents prepared by the Governor’s staff and those who write our bills – the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB). The small print I refer to came from the LRB, the Governor’s office, and state agencies’ requests. How much will Wisconsin spend over two years? The total budget without borrowing is $76,097,880,600. (The final budget will likely be closer to $77 billion, as road fund borrowing and other building projects are added.) This budget (without new debt) is $2.8 billion more than the last budget and is the largest in state history. Of course, EVERY new budget is larger than the previous budget. Governor Walker made a special point of reminding people his school and road spending is the “highest ever.” Maybe someone should remind him, total spending is also the “highest ever.” The budget includes money from state taxes and fees including gas taxes, as well as tuition and money from the federal government. The Governor’s structures his budget around the budget requests from each agency in state government. Governor Walker proposes spending $68 million more than the agencies themselves requested. Almost one-third of the budget goes to Health, of which ninety-percent is the Medicaid program. This is the largest and fastest growing part of spending. We often think of Medicaid as care for poorer families (BadgerCare). But, roughly two-thirds of the Medicaid budget is spent on long-term care for the elderly and disabled. Over the next few months, we will learn much more about the budget details. In the meantime, here are a few items of small print that didn’t make it in the Governor’s Budget Address. The Department of Natural Resources lost 43 positions while Circus World gained ten new positions. The new budget added almost 500 positions to the Department of Administration (DOA). All but one of these jobs listed were “Supervisory and Management.” This staff increase is almost half (47%) of the DOA workforce. Some positions are transfers to DOA from other agencies. Overall, the Governor increases net staff (some lost, some gained) by a little more than 400 full-time equivalents. Buried in the small print is the elimination of the stray voltage program. This service helps farmers deal with stray electricity that has dire effects on animals and humans. The governor claimed the problems are mostly resolved. However, constituents tell me, in western Wisconsin, many problems remain.  The budget proposes eliminating the Wisconsin Natural Resources Magazine. The last issue of this ever-popular magazine is set for winter of next year.  The budget eliminates the Educational Approval Board. This agency oversees for-profit colleges. Eliminating state oversight of for-profit colleges is foolish when some colleges closed, fraud investigations of others are continuing, and students question the value of the education. Budgets are plans to spend resources based on our priorities. The process must be an opportunity for us to discuss our ideas and concerns for our state and invest money in solutions.  Debate on our priorities for state spending will occur over the next four or five months. Please add your voice to the decision-making process. The state budget is the most important bill lawmakers will take up and it deserves the input of all Wisconsinites!

Some things in Wisconsin are very wrong right now.

           Recent news and happenings from around the state.

                                         Prosecuting rapists ignored, 
                                        commemorative coins adored.

 "It's an outrage that the misplaced priorities and reckless spending by Brad Schimel have left thousands of rape kits untested," said Analiese Eicher, program director at One Wisconsin Now. "Victims deserve honest answers from Brad Schimel immediately."  With a growing backlog of untested rape kits building up in state custody, (and preventing prosecution) Schimel ordered resources be diverted to pay for coins celebrating himself.  When pressed to answer how many total rape kits have been tested so that victims can have their day in court, Schimel reluctantly answered "a total of 9."

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2017/02/02/state-has-tested-only-9-backlogged-rape-kits/97360924/ 

What plan do the Democrats have to improve this situation?  Use the full extent of the law including the possibility of jail time to force the Attorney General to do his job and spend our tax dollars on enforcing the laws of Wisconsin, rather than what Schimel has done which is ordering custom made, commemorative coins celebrating his false sense of "kick-ass"performance.

http://wbay.com/2017/01/06/wis-attorney-general-drops-10000-on-kick-ass-coins/


                                                    Gerrymandering.

"This happened in 2012 when Republicans got only 46% of the presidential vote but still won 60% of the Assembly seats.
It happened in 2014 when Republicans got just over 52% of the vote for governor but captured 63% of the Assembly seats.
And it happened last fall when Republicans and Democrats virtually split the presidential vote, but the GOP won 64% of the Assembly seats."

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/blogs/wisconsin-voter/2017/01/28/more-evidence-skewed-gop-map-wisconsin/97184730/ 

What would the Democrats do to make redistricting fair to everyone?  Pass legislation to use the nonpartisan "Iowa model" for drawing new district maps which are incapable of favoring any given political party or candidate.

http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Gerrymandering-Not-in-Iowa-1336319.php   

The Republican Party of Wisconsin stated that there is "no end" to how much taxpayer money they will use to defend their use of illegal gerrymandering.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-wisconsin-gop-redistricting-fight-20170202-story.html

http://www.jsonline.com/story/opinion/editorials/2017/02/02/editorial-turn-back-latest-secretive-power-play-legislative-leaders/97418852/ 
                   Women's March at the Capitol.
                              
Upwards of 100,000 mostly Wisconsin women and their male allies held a peaceful rally to protest inequality and laws that treat them as second class citizens which have recently been passed by the Tea Party controlled Republican Party.  They also wanted to draw attention to the very real possibility that even worse laws will be passed in Wisconsin as a result of the Trump presidency.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/21/thousands-gather-madison-womens-march/96882846/

What is the Republican response to peaceful rallies which show the unpopularity of their legislation?  Wisconsin is looking into following precedent set by five other states recently with laws which would essentially make it a felony to walk in the street during a rally.  Far worse though, is another piece of legislation which would make it legal to use a vehicle to hit, injure or kill people engaging in peaceful demonstrations.

                                            Legalized Murder???

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/19/republican-lawmakers-in-five-states-propose-bills-to-
criminalize-peaceful-protest/

"Although the bill ostensibly requires drivers to have acted “negligently” or accidentally in killing a protestor, the bill’s co-sponsor, Republican state Rep. Keith Kempenich, has said that some accidents might occur if motorists “punched the accelerator rather than the brakes,” according to the Bismarck Tribune."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/us/nd-protest-driver-bill-trnd/

"Legislators are supposed to honor the will of the people, not criminalize it,"


                                     Paul Ryan

Paul Ryan is of course, doing the only thing Paul Ryan has ever done in all his years in office.  Take away the retirement and medicare which you've been paying for while working your whole life.

"Medicare is being targeted by key congressional leaders for a sweeping set of changes that would dramatically increase healthcare costs for seniors and ultimately leave them paying more for their healthcare while getting less."

http://time.com/4653571/aarp-paul-ryan-medicare/