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Across the state of Wisconsin, Daybreak with Brian and Jamie is back.
Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Hopefully you are having a great start to your Thursday.
If you're in Wisconsin Rapids listening on WFHR in Hayward listening on WBZH or in the Appleton in Oshkosh area listening on WISS.
We are glad that you decided to spend your morning with us.
My name is Jamie Martinson.
I'm Brian Noonan.
Glad you're here.
If you want to get involved in the program throughout the rest of the morning, 855-755-CIVIC.
855-752-4842.
People go, slow down on the number.
Remember, 7-5-CIVIC.
That's all you need.
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Spell.
Or you can always just go to one of our social media platforms and messages there.
Watch us on YouTube, messages there.
You know.
I patterned myself after the administration.
I try to be an isolationist whenever possible.
All right, let's look at some headlines from the war that we're still in, the war of choice.
Brent crude oil prices, the global benchmark surged above $126 per barrel this morning after setting a new wartime high as the president lays the groundwork for an extended blockade of Iranian ports.
Iran's oil minister meanwhile urged Iranians to cut consumption.
Also in news from the Middle East, the strategic significance of the Strait of Hormuz is nothing new, as the Strait remains effectively shut today.
Iran's regime is seeking to display the country's centuries-long control over the crucial waterway in its celebrations of Persian Gulf Day.
Celebrated every year since 2004, this event marks Iran's victory over Portugal in 1622 when it expelled Portuguese troops from the island of Hormuz.
In the midst of all of
this,
call in more ways than one.
Time for some shit you need to know.
That's the Trump administration.
That's what they're considering.
If approved, this rule would cut monthly federal benefits meant to support disabled adults and indigent, older people who live with family members.
ProPublica first reported on the proposed change on April 28th based on information from four federal officials, internal emails, and a federal regulatory listing.
The organization analyzed actuarial figures from the Social Security Administration and found that as many as 400,000
poor and disabled people and indigent older people could have their support cut or eliminated.
The supplemental security income program run by Social Security Administration provides an average monthly payment of $737 to about 7.4 million people with severe disabilities and to indigent older and I've said indigent now more than I've said it in the rest of your life.
Yes.
Indigent older people as of
as of early 2026, according to Congressional Research Service.
One factor Social Security considers when determining SSI eligibility is whether a person lives in, quote, a public assistance household.
For decades, Social Security narrowly defined a public assistance household as one where every person in the home had to receive some form of public assistance, if even one person in the home.
did not receive such benefits it would hurt the disabled person's chance of qualifying for SSI supplemental nutrition assistance programs or SNAP was not among the qualifying programs the proposed rule change would remove SNAP from the list and again require all household members to receive public assistance so if you if you have an older parent living with you who gets those benefits
This would erase their benefits.
And again, their whole financial care would be on you.
And these are very rough numbers.
But right now in this state, more than 30,000 adults with intellectual and developmental abilities live with family members.
We're talking at home with parents, siblings, loved ones.
And here's the part that a lot of people don't realize.
About a quarter of those caregivers are over the age of 60.
So
that
means if you have aging parents as you rightly pointed out 60 70s even older and they're still providing daily care for adult children with disabilities
This is something you're going to want to pay attention to.
And across the state, about 1.1 million Wisconsinites are actually caregivers in some form.
That's nearly one in four adults.
And on average, they're providing 26 hours of care every single week, often unpaid, helping take care of those family members through the assistance that they get because of the federal government.
But we didn't vote for this.
We certainly certainly did not a lot of people did not vote for this in fact, but Okay,
We talked about that a few weeks ago on the show.
When the president released his budget for the upcoming year, it was the most unfriendly people budget that I think we've seen in this country in maybe ever.
but it was very defense friendly.
And here's the thing, I believe our military should have what they need to defend this
country.
I
I believe that our military, our police forces should all be funded in some capacity.
They should have what they need to do their jobs, but at the same time, I also believe people should have what they need to live and take care of themselves.
Open Records advocates have landed a major legal victory for transparency throughout the state.
In a decision that was released on Tuesday, a Dane County court sided with the Badger Project and its co-plaintiff, the Invisible Institute.
This is a Chicago-based journalism organization in their lawsuit that demanded that the state to
Department of Justice released the names and work history of every certified law enforcement officer in the state.
Judge Rhonda Lanford gave this ruling and Tom Kamnick, who is the lead attorney and founder of the Wisconsin Transparency Project, that's a law firm dedicated to enforcing the state's open records law, said, quote, this decision is a powerful victory for the right of the public to know who has been entrusted with a badge and a gun.
filed a lawsuit in 2023 when the state DOJ partially denied the request for the policing data.
The department cited safety and privacy concerns, especially for undercover officers.
The data requested would include an officer's name, birthday or birth year, zip code, and his or her work history.
In response to that denial, the Badger Project and Invisible Institute sued in 2024.
The plaintiffs argued that since undercover officers don't actually use their
true names, releasing them wouldn't put them in jeopardy.
The state DOJ's 2023 denial was unlawful, the court wrote in the opinion that was released on Tuesday.
Citing an earlier decision, the judge noted that law enforcement officers necessarily relinquish certain privacy and reputational rights by virtue of the amount of trust society places in them and must be subject to public scrutiny.
That's a mouthful this morning.
box.
I think they should be available to agencies and law and, you know, the state to
conduct investigations to conduct oversight, all of that.
I don't think you and I need to have access to police officers information that is going to lead to nothing but trouble.
There's no reason unless I'm part of a lawsuit.
And again, the law firm would be able to get the information, the state will be able to get the information.
You and I don't need to do that.
No.
Everybody who's disgruntled because they got a speeding ticket every lunatic who has some gripe either real or imagined can get I just I don't like it and the The defense of undercover is really flimsy.
Yes, because
I thought it was interesting that as part of this ruling as you read through it and the courts make it clear that transparency for them is what still matters here.
I thought that it was interesting they point out that without that type of transparency
We can't track the misconduct.
We can't understand how officers move from one department to another.
And we can't have fully informed conversations about policing in our communities.
And I don't agree with that.
I don't think we need to be able to track misconduct.
I feel like that should be done at the hands of the government and the people in charge of those departments.
But I don't really need to know why police are moving from one department to another.
I feel like sometimes that's done just like anybody else.
Maybe you need to move to a different department for your own health reasons or because maybe you don't want to be on the street anymore.
Maybe you want to do more of a desk job.
I don't feel like I need to know that.
I think at some point we have to trust our police forces.
Listen, I know a lot of people have questions about how police operations are run across the country.
But I think at some point you also have to step back and...
not community police, everything too.
Because I don't know if that gets us very far.
If we're constantly tracking what's happening in our police departments.
I feel like this is more of a, this feels like one of those public scanner type things to me, right?
The public does not need certain information.
All right, but we need to know why gas prices are going up and up and up.
And finally, pardon me, and as you need to know,
Gas prices in southeast Wisconsin are expected to spike now through the first few days of May.
The main cause is a power outage at the BP Refinery in Whiting, Indiana, which is where the bears will be playing, Frank, a key supplier for eastern Wisconsin.
ongoing labor disputes and seasonal refinery maintenance mean there means there's less backup supply available.
Analysts say some stations may raise prices sharply while others will increase gradually over several days.
Now Wisconsin's average gas price is already up to about 393 per gallon rising quickly from last week and last year.
Southeast Wisconsin is going to be hit the hardest while western parts of the state are seeing lower prices due to a different supply source.
Prices could top $4 a gallon in some areas.
Global factors are also at play, including tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, affecting oil supplies.
Experts say the spike could last four weeks before prices stabilize.
So I took your advice, Jamie.
You said yesterday was supposed to be one of the highest days.
I went and filled up.
Stick or shock?
Yeah.
Again?
I'm like, how does it go up every day?
drink?
We'll get to that after this on Daybreak on the Civic Media Network.
Local news, community stories, and the conversations that matter most.
Now, more Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
events,
But some people take it to an extreme.
So what's the craziest thing you've ever brought in to a game or a concert?
8-5-5-7-5, Civic 8-5-5-7-5, 2-4-8-4-2.
This was this question was spurred by a Milwaukee area fan and his friends and conjure We had to double-check this was not Parker and his buddies last Saturday.
Mitch Kreps is 32.
He's from St.
Francis.
He organized a full spaghetti dinner inside the stadium during the Brewers win over the Diamondbacks on the 28th, which was Tuesday.
That was Tuesday's game.
The group, and this is all legal, by the way, because the Brewers are one of the few places you can bring in your own snacks.
You're not at the mercy of their concession stands, which are top tier.
but they're a little pricey but yes.
So they brought in all the ingredients under the stadium's carrying policy in which fans can bring personalized size food items if they fit in a clear plastic bag.
So Krupp's and his five friends divided up the meal responsibilities.
One brought noodles, one brought garlic bread, somebody brought Parmesan cheese, meatball sauce, even paper plates.
It wasn't hot by the time they sat down.
But it is hilarious.
It's spaghetti.
It
Now is it like a quart-sized Ziploc bag or can you bring the gallon-sized Ziploc bag?
I think you can bring the gallon size.
I'm pretty sure these are gallon sized.
I could fit like four brats in there.
Oh, you could fit it.
You could fit probably.
Yeah, a lot of stuff in a gallon size Ziploc bag.
There's a lot of spaghetti.
I've had leftover spaghetti that I put in a Ziploc bag.
You could fit a lot of spaghetti in a gallon size Ziploc.
I just wanted to make sure nobody looked like they were eating out of a trough.
off in that 13 to two win because that could get a little messy.
But I mean, I think this is actually genius.
Now, Kreps is actually already known among his friends for some of these very creative stadium traditions, including drinking Ham's beer with a slice of lemon, something that has gained a lot of local popularity.
He
And despite all of this viral attention that he's gotten, he says that he doesn't see himself as any sort of influencer, joking that he's just someone that people enjoy watching.
I don't know, you got a hot dog club and you started Hams with Lemon.
I think that you are totally a brewer slash stadium influencer, no matter what you want to say about
And dude, now we're talking about
you on the show for your spaghetti dinner.
All right, Parker, now you, your friend, the last couple of weeks, you've gone to a couple brewers games with your friends.
What are you, what are you going to do?
Thanksgiving dinner, you're going to bring a whole, all
That's good.
She's taking care of you.
Yeah, sure.
All right, well, we need to be taking care of the schools, and we haven't.
We'll talk to Miranda Dunlap from Wisconsin Watch about what's happening to the districts whose referenda did not pass in the current election.
We'll get to all of that and more.
This is Daybreak on the Civic Media Network.
Now back to more of Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
I'm Brian Noonan.
Over a billion dollars in referendums from 73 school districts were on the ballot earlier this month, voters approved 37 of the 63 operational referendums, which asked to raise money, of course, to fund the cost of running schools.
The 12 other proposals wanted capital revenue to cover construction costs, things like that.
Nine of which passed.
Wisconsin Watch did a thorough breakdown of the effects of the referendums on school districts.
Joining us to share some of those findings is Miranda Dunlop from Wisconsin Watch.
Miranda, thanks for being here today.
So prior to the election, a Marquette University Law School poll warned that voters were more worried about property taxes than school funding.
So was it still, though, a shock to see how many of the referendums failed?
I don't know if the number of referendum that failed was necessarily a shock.
I mean, the passage rate taken all together was pretty in line with previous years, if a little bit higher.
So I wouldn't say that it was a total shock.
I think the poll also helped warn us that people are becoming wary of
out of taxes so um no not really a shock.
Um sure I you know fold this closure I'm not um
super well-versed in exactly what happened in Fond du Lac.
It was definitely a detail in the story, but I wasn't following it in the lead up to the election.
So probably not the best person to give a full breakdown of that, but they did have a $30 million referendum on the ballot and it did not pass.
There have been budget cuts in previous years ahead of this.
So this is kind of like solid wound a little bit.
you're looking at even more cuts moving forward because of that.
And the changes that have been made in the district in just the week since they found out that they're not getting that added revenue, it's moved pretty quickly.
They've already announced closing two schools, which is a big decision to make.
They're cutting dozens of staff and there's gonna probably be
program shut down, things like that.
So, you know, pretty quickly finding out after after voters rejected that, that there's going to be pretty direct impacts in the schools because of that.
Absolutely.
I think the
main point that we're trying to draw here with this story is that this is a trend.
This is not just one district where a referendum didn't pass and now they're making changes and they're an outlier because of it.
This is happening everywhere.
All over the state, in the places in the two dozen districts where these referendum did not pass, all of them are opening up their budget books and saying,
Okay, where can we find the money to plug this gap basically?
So not alone in that.
After these referendums don't pass is that, I mean, obviously schools have to make hard choices.
So that seems kind of typical.
But does this feel more like an accelerated situation this time with the schools?
Because it seems like they had plans pretty much set just in case at this point.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't think it's a stretch to say that things are becoming more and more.
consequential.
I mean, at this point, a lot of these school districts would say that they've been operating with tight end budgets for years now because they haven't seen a substantial increase in school funding that's keeping up with the the factors that they're taking on like inflation and declining enrollment and those sort of things.
So they these school districts would probably say that they're doing they've been doing more with less, which makes
these rejections hurt even more because they were relying on it more, if that makes sense.
So I think as far as the speed with which the changes have been made, I'm not super sure if this has happened in the past like this, but it does definitely feel like it's becoming more urgent.
I want to go back to something you were saying a couple minutes ago, Miranda, about trends.
Augusta County, you reported on, had a relatively small request, $750,000.
So when even a small need like that doesn't pass, what does that mean looking forward for not only taxpayer support, but then where
have there been discussions of where they can find this money?
If they can't get it from the people in their community for guessing not a huge increase per person with only $750,000 asked, what's the future hold for them?
Yeah, you know, they're definitely looking at where they can make cuts, where they can trim up their budget, lose staff, those sorts of things.
I think
the district superintendent was also someone who called on our lawmakers to, you know, change something and give them some reprieve, come through maybe with a little bit more money.
I think there's sort of like two things that school leaders are thinking about after voters tell them no is one is
Can we go back to them again with a different ask that they might be more willing to say yes to?
And the second is, can our lawmakers do something about this?
And for lack of a better term, bail us out of this.
Before we let you go, Miranda, there's been a lot of talk that if these referendas don't fail for some districts, we're going to have to move into something that Wisconsin has not seen before, and that's consolidation.
Has there been much talk or as you were talking to these districts, is that something that seems to be coming either immediately in some places or down the road for other districts?
Absolutely.
It's definitely a topic of conversation.
Three of the school districts that I spoke to and you know, not all of them called me back.
So that
was
a good share Said that they were either one is planning on closing entirely Unless something changes, I believe that is the plan they canceled summer school and you know, they're done at the end of the year And the other two are thinking about how they can one is thinking about how they can merge with maybe a nearby school district and
have students take classes in those buildings or kind of just, you know, be absorbed by a nearby place and another is thinking, you know, if we don't, if we're not able to pass a bond in the next cycle or referendum, sorry, in the next cycle or is that something that we're going to have to talk about is closing entirely or merging?
Yeah.
Yes, absolutely.
It's a big topic.
time, Miranda.
We appreciate
That was a pretty big, pretty big ratio.
And as Miranda said, it's not too out of line.
I want to know if your district had a referendum, it didn't pass.
And if it didn't, especially if it didn't, if your kids go to school in a district that a referendum did not pass, or if you live there and it did not pass,
How is it going to be addressed in your community?
855-75 Civic 855-752-4842.
I mean, we've talked about this on the show, and I've been pretty public about my experience growing up.
And I know for a lot of folks in Wisconsin, seeing a school consolidate is somewhat new.
You know, growing up in South Dakota, I'll be honest, you have sometimes two, three, four school districts that consolidate into one because of the size towns that we're dealing with in South Dakota.
You don't have a lot of major population, right?
have a lot of small towns that are completely separate little entities of about 100 to 150 people, sometimes two to 300 people.
And those towns cannot afford to have their own school districts.
So they actually have to go out and find other school districts and other towns to partner with.
So in one case, you had the Plankington, Ethan, I'm trying to think, Emery, and Parkston School District.
There are four school districts combined into one on that.
particular instance.
I came from a school where there were three school districts combined into one.
And yes, travel is a problem.
You bus.
Uh, you
have to
it does
And in parts of Wisconsin, that may be the only option, which is not...
There are bad points to it, but there's also some good points where you can bring together some of that money and you can create a better environment for the kids because now there's shared money that will get facilities.
It will get all kinds of stuff.
Linda is on the line.
She's in Eau Claire.
She wants to join us now at 855-75 Civic.
Good morning, Linda.
Hi.
The topic you're talking about here gets really frustrating.
For many of us who for years have been watching what's happening with the public school system.
Do you know that since the 90s when vouchers first came into being in Wisconsin, over four trillion dollars has been taken out of public schools?
No one is talking about this, the effect of vouchers, how they are killing public schools.
You're right
think it's gotten out of hand, and with the voucher schools, it's become a way of, again, kind of like what we've talked about this morning.
There's been a running theme with the Voting Rights Act of basically making sure that some people don't have the same rights as others.
That's what the voucher school program has eventually, effectively become.
I'm a product of public schools until I got to college, and then I ended up in private colleges for my continuing education, but I am very much a product of public schools.
I'm very proud of my education in public schools.
for the people who don't have that luxury.
This is the Civic Media.
to Lake Michigan.
This is Wisconsin's Morning Conversation.
Bray, with Brian and Jamie.
I'm Brian Noonan.
Wisconsin's manufacturing sector lost about 86,000 jobs in 2025.
Is that something we should be worried about?
Is the number a little misleading?
Where did that job loss actually come from?
Ricardo Torres is a journalist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and he was covering all of this.
We are happy to welcome him back.
Ricardo, thanks for being here.
We appreciate it as always.
Okay, so that's a pretty big number.
Is that number a little misleading or does that mean companies are just bailing or is the number coming from somewhere else?
Oh,
one big point of clarification.
It's 8600.
Not 8600.
you are
Yes.
Yes, slight difference.
And this was, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, their data has been coming out this last month.
There was a slight delay because of the government shutdown and accumulating and benchmarking that data to see if what has been reported turned out to be accurate.
And in Wisconsin, yes, manufacturing jobs contracted by 8,600.
One of the things that we thought that was very interesting.
We didn't have some big layoff We didn't have some big company shut down a factory close or things like that and just in talking to people in the industry a lot of this has come from people retiring and then those jobs not being filled or people switching jobs and They're not being enough workers to fill those jobs
Milwaukee Tool has job openings.
There are jobs available at it, and they're having difficulties filling some of those positions.
And it's not a unique problem to manufacturers in the state.
What a lot of companies are doing is they're looking to robots.
They're looking to AI and other forms of automation to continue to get their products out there.
I was at Rockwell a few months ago.
And I was watching robots move pallets that are hundreds of pounds that normally a forklift driver would do.
And these robots are just kind of moving around the floor by themselves.
They have cameras, they have sensors.
They could pick up things, move it.
other places without there being real much risk of injury to other people.
But so that's kind of what manufacturers are doing.
laugh.
I'm
But to get back to the
not being able to fill the jobs.
Are the manufacturers making the choice to go more automated?
Because we know there are people who are looking for work.
Is it the type of jobs that are opening that just there are no qualified candidates?
Or is it one of those where it's in the long term for these manufacturers, it's more cost effective to go with automation rather than a human employee?
I think it's a mixed bag of several of those things.
We have job openings.
But we have a labor shortage.
We don't have enough workers in this state able to fill those jobs.
And we could fix that by having more people from out of state relocated to Wisconsin, obviously more from immigration and people coming into the country and coming to Wisconsin to help solve some of those issues.
And so out of necessity, companies are moving more towards robotics and automation.
But also, they're still dealing with this stigma of your grandfather's factory.
And it's not anymore.
It's not anymore.
But there's that stigma that lingers out there that it takes some more effort to break through to younger generations that these are careers worth going into.
We're talking with Ricardo Torres.
He's a reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Jsonline.com if you want to check out some of his work.
That was my question.
Are younger workers just not interested in these types of manufacturing jobs?
Is it a skills gap?
Is that something that we could see helped by our technical schools training programs?
So yes, but also we're not having as many kids as we were 50, 60 years ago.
So even if you had, say, from a percentage standpoint, the same percentage of workers that in the past were going into these jobs, you're still ending up with a deficit of or having a surplus really of more job openings than there are.
people to fill them.
So there are trades that are going out there.
They're trying to be competitive with their wages, with their benefits to attract more more workers.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it doesn't.
It's it's kind of a mixture.
So the biggest issue that we have in Wisconsin's economy is this labor shortage that we have companies that want to hire workers and are having trouble finding the right workers to fill them and having enough qualified applicants to fill them.
And this is some of that's persisted with the state for a while, and it's going to continue, at least in the short term.
That's probably the biggest thing that companies and economists worry about is how long is this labor shortage going to go on for?
Well, it is always a pleasure to talk to Ricardo Torres.
He is a journalist from the Milwaukee Journal Center.
You can read all Ricardo's fine work at jsonline.com.
Good to talk to you, buddy.
Thanks for being here.
We'll talk to you again soon.
Thanks for having me.
All right, there you go.
So
This is it convince people to move to Wisconsin.
I know people like we don't want any more people moving here Well, we there's jobs here.
You could come and get people
Network.
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