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Good good morning.
Welcome.
Welcome to Matt and air on air Jane Matt and air Greg Bach and Calvin Butenoff coming to you live from our studio at Radio Park in Racine You can always join us call her text at the same number eight five five seven five two four eight four two You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook YouTube and what used to be Twitter Kareen Hendrickson
daycare owner and childcare advocate here in Wisconsin going to be joining us.
After the 930 news, a bunch of our childcare providers closed their childcare centers, got other people to run their childcare centers.
So they could take the day off to drive to Madison, to talk to our lawmakers who said, yeah, no, we can't come to an agreement.
We're going to not.
Well,
Jane, I think what you and Karine need to understand is childcare isn't that big of a deal
here in Wisconsin.
People
aren't worried about it or stressing about it or, you know, freaking out
about it at all, Jane.
Yeah, not
at
all.
Yeah.
So Karine Hendrickson, who is one of those childcare providers who actually closed down yesterday so they could go talk to our lawmakers about the critical role childcare plays.
is going to be joining us after the 9 30 news.
Thanks to Corrine.
We set this up last minute.
Really appreciate her carving out some time for us.
It's Friday.
So Dan Schaefer will be here.
Civic Media's political editor and creator of the multi award-winning recombobulation area.
Dan will be here after 10 o'clock.
A number of things we're going to kick around with Dan, including how the budget impasse is affecting Governor Evers decision on whether or not to run again.
Rebecca Cook.
who was running against Derek Van Orton, got kind of a surprising endorsement.
Huge endorsement.
And then Dan has some thoughts on Summerfest.
Ooh, stern of controversy again, that Dan Schaefer I'm telling ya.
He's a rabble rouser.
I've said it before, he rouses rambles
and he gets awards for
doing it.
He does.
So Dan will be here after 10 o'clock and then we'll wrap up the show as we always do with this.
It shouldn't be a thing, Calvin found it.
This is the I'll be checking out early edition.
Put
the
kids to bed for this one.
Yeah.
Stick around for that.
That is coming up at the very end of the show.
Want to start off though with this free ticket Fridays are back.
So grab your phone.
Open up the civic media app and text in the word brew B R E W text in the word brew.
right now and you are in the running for a four pack of Milwaukee Brewers Club level tickets.
They're really great
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Oh, geez, yes.
They're cushy and you have special access to different food areas and you have dedicated bathrooms.
Dedicated bathrooms and also when you walk in that section, it's carpeted.
Yeah.
It's carpet.
It's pretty nice.
So text in the word brew B R E W brew is the word you have until 11 o'clock to text that in via the civic media app and then.
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And good luck.
We're going to talk about this for a little bit.
Summertime.
Today, the first day of summer officially kicks in like 11 o'clock tonight.
Weather is weird.
That's
just the salt.
It's the solstice.
Well, it's the solstice.
And then also there's meteorological summer, then there's summer summer, then there's solstice summer, then there's summer sausage.
Please someone clear it up
for me.
Yeah.
So some are officially kicks in today.
And this is something that we've talked a little bit about, but this is going to be an increasing problem unless again, we can find some way to fix our immigration system.
This is from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, just from a couple of days ago, Sophie Carson with the byline, Wisconsin tourist towns need students with J1 visas.
Trump's pause scares businesses.
Think about all the tourist areas in Wisconsin, especially Wisconsin Dells.
Yeah.
And Dells has been doing this for decades, decades and decades.
Yes.
Hiring kids from overseas just to work for the summer.
Yes.
Because there aren't enough of our kids.
And it's, I want to say this too, it's not even a matter of the common argument of there aren't enough people to do the work.
Wisconsin Dells is a vacation.
destination driven community.
Even if there were enough, there still wouldn't be enough.
You know what I mean?
They need so many workers that it would just be almost impossible.
So yeah, this is what they do.
Wisconsin is particularly reliant on these specific J1 summer worker visas to support the seasonal businesses.
Wisconsin is fourth in the country.
Fourth in the country, in the number of J1 summer workers, last year is more than 5,300.
Yeah.
Filling those jobs, keeping those businesses going.
Employers say they cannot find nearly enough local high school or college kids to fill out their jobs.
They would have to limit their hours and shorten their seasons if they don't have this help.
Most international students do these...
interviews for the jobs and their visa interviews months and months ahead of time.
It's not like this happens in April, you know, for the for the coming season.
So at least for this summer, everything is expected to be fine.
Those visa processes, you know, that's already happened.
And again, summer is underway now.
But hiring managers, again, according to this article in the Journal Sentinel, hiring managers are concerned
if the students whose summer breaks fall at different times of the year, because they do have some for the fall and winter season could be at risk, and they say next summer it could be an absolute nightmare.
Well, and I think
this is a great example.
The policies are not thought out.
There's no long-term planning.
They're just going to cut, cut, slash, slash, get rid of everything.
Then they realize, oh, no, we can't do this.
It's not good.
Businesses.
People who may have voted for us are in trouble.
So let's help them.
Fine.
Let's help them.
But this just shows that they need to think about this further down the road.
And we can't do this.
We can't do this every summer either.
It can't be a, all right.
Well, it's, we're coming up on April.
We're coming up May.
So are J6 visas cool?
Not.
Oh, it's good for the summer.
We'll see, we'll do something, you know what I mean?
There needs to, again, this goes back to clarification.
Clarification, long-term planning, and.
Businesses cannot plan.
No.
And they need to plan, they need to, I don't know, like make budgets and stuff.
Yes, yes.
I just think that.
These kids, this is a smaller example of it, but these kids are once again doing exactly what people have said before, and we talk about it now, in my opinion, too much, but they're doing it the right way.
They're applying for the right visa.
They're talking to the businesses.
They're doing the interviews.
They come here legally.
I don't know if they can stay afterwards, if they can extend it, or what the deal is, but everything that's being done is being done legally.
There's no reason not to make this a permanent process, so it's not messed with.
No one with a J1 visa has to worry.
Businesses don't have to worry.
And they
can plan ahead.
Because also, and I don't want to be, I don't want to be a doomsayer, but we're seeing now what's going to keep ICE from rolling up into the Dells this summer and just snatching people away.
And if you dare say to me, but they have visas, we're seeing examples all the time
visas, stay orders.
Citizens being taken away and deported and oops, sorry, we messed up.
Yeah, whoops.
So.
I'm glad this is happening.
I'm really happy this is happening.
Wisconsin Dells is a fantastic and fun place.
It's not just the Dells,
it's Dore County.
There's all kinds of areas around the state that hire international kids
to work
for the summer.
Jamie Blossom is one of the managers at Al Johnson's restaurant with the
goats on the roof.
She says, as far as next season, honestly, I'm extremely scared.
If anything changes, this could crush and I mean crush.
So many businesses across the country, if we didn't have these 30 J1 employees, we couldn't serve 1200 people a day.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Feels like this is, this feels like what some would call an easy fix.
You just make, you make the process simple and easy.
You protect them.
You protect them from masked.
Ice agents, like it just seems like it also seems like a political win too.
Absolutely.
I think we're gonna talk about this a lot today on this episode.
There are things out there that are.
easy political wins things that people agree with and when they benefit the business they benefit the customers they benefit the people with the visas benefit benefit the state you can get in a town hall and say this is what we're doing this is how we're protecting you this is how we're
doing on behalf of Wisconsin businesses look what we did for you and us
apart from being the right thing to do it's also politically feasible and and and good for you and we'll get you votes that's a little bit of free advice from Greg Bach
Sue from Franklin texting and listening on WAUK.
Yep, we've been here all week.
I'm assuming in the Dells.
We've met many wonderful young people from all over the world.
Many say they have come back several years in a row.
She also said, greetings from our cabin in Door County.
Luckily, I have the app.
And so I can still listen to you guys.
Well, thank you very much.
And she sent a lovely, gorgeous picture.
Oh, nice.
Thank you.
Thank you
very
much.
Oh,
that is a beautiful
picture.
Yes, makes me want to get on the road or something
again This should be something that we can as you said we can all agree upon and going back to This administration's habit of making decisions without looking further down the road without gaming it out to the end Maybe I'm odd
because my father was a mortician and I start at death and work myself backwards.
Everything up is a step up.
But I am a worst case scenario person and I
think when you are making decisions about immigration and things like this, you sit down with your group of advisors and you talk about potential ramifications from these decisions.
They haven't done that in any of these instances.
No, and honestly, Jane, I don't think they will.
and and you know because I think part of the milieu the the appeal of the republican party the trump era republican party specifically is the gut what's my gut saying oh i gotta take care of this my guts telling me to get rid of all of them
well well yeah because my gut is telling me that there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of illegal aliens that are voting okay mike johnson
do you know what the gut doesn't usually uh mess with
logic details logic nuance process and Well, you look to death and work your way back.
I just say what is the end goal solution here?
What are we working towards?
How do we get there?
How do we get to that from here right and just wiping out visas deporting people without even thinking about it just makes you look incompetent and Inconsistent and also just hurts this country from an
from a purely economic
space.
Think about the number of people that the Trump administration has fired and then they've had to rehire.
Yes.
Yes.
All gut decisions.
All gut decisions.
Let's just clear out this department.
We'll get them all out of here.
It'll all be great.
Look at the savings.
And then, oh my God, he has the pass key
for everything.
Exactly.
Whoops.
He's the only one who knows those codes.
Oh, that never crossed my mind.
Exactly.
That's so reassuring.
It's reality versus the gut.
When
we return, we are going to talk a little bit about hot heat.
That's going to be really hot.
Yeah.
And gas prices as well.
What are you seeing?
What are you paying?
855-752-4842.
I've heard recently that gas prices are down to a buck 99 a gallon.
Ooh,
where?
Tell
me where you have seen that.
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Good, good morning, and welcome.
Welcome to Matt and Air on Air.
Jane Matt and Air.
Greg Bach, Sweet Galby on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.
Join us, call or text at 855.
7524842 Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook YouTube and what used to be Twitter after the 930 news Corrine Hendrickson will be joining us stay care owner and childcare advocate Took several hours out of her day yesterday to travel in Madison to talk to our lawmakers who were Putting together the state budget until the Republicans decided.
Yeah, we're not gonna do that
And they were like, Tony won't talk to
us.
Yeah, Tony's the governor's mean.
So we'll be talking to Corrine Hendrickson after the 9.30 news.
Also, just a reminder, grab your phone, open up the Civic Media app and text in the word brew be.
R-E-W, spelling counts.
Text in the word brew, B-R-E-W via the Civic Media app, and you are in the running for a four pack of Milwaukee Brewers Club level tickets.
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Your next chance or your next word will come up during the Tom Hartman Show between 11 and two.
Another word with Todd from two to four and then Maggie Dawn from four to six.
But right now, until 11 o'clock, the word to text in via the app
is Brew, B-R-E-W, and good luck.
Wanted to take a little time.
We're going to talk about the hot weather.
It is going to be dangerously hot this weekend.
That's no joke.
So please be careful and don't take your dogs and your kids along if you don't have to.
Cars can heat up within 15 minutes and really become deadly.
Absolutely.
And yeah, it's been the first week of having to tell Mabel.
Sorry, you can't come
inside.
Yep, can't come.
Yep.
And also, I stopped to fill up gas this morning and it was 309.
And I am fairly certain that our commander in chief said last week that they brought gas prices down to a buck 99.
I haven't seen that.
Also, I believe he once said eggs were down 93%.
400%.
Whoa, they're, they're.
paying you to take
eggs.
We're down 400% under the Trump administration.
And thanks to Donald Trump, gas prices now are at a buck 99.
If you've seen that, I'd love to know where you're filling up because I paid 309 this morning in the Milwaukee Journal.
Sentinel today, gas buddy says the average gas prices in Milwaukee are down by about seven cents this week.
That brings the average to 294 that.
is not a buck 99.
No.
And according to the, I like to go to gasprices.triplea.com.
Okay.
The national average is 321 with the highest, of course, being in California.
Wisconsin is, yeah, but I'm paying 319 a gallon.
Really?
309 some places.
And there's a very, very inexpensive gas station.
There's always one in the city.
It's in Milwaukee.
It's unnational.
They're $2.99, which means gas, they're usually like anywhere between 10 to 20 cents cheaper than everywhere else.
And when I saw $2.99, I said, oh, it's getting expensive out here.
Well, again, with everything going on concerning Israel and Iran and what's happening in the Middle East, gas buddy is predicting that gas prices are going to start rising as that conflict continues.
So just keep that in mind, but it ain't about $99.
Tell me if I'm wrong, please.
Tell me where I can drive to in Phillip for $1.99.
I will celebrate it.
Show your work.
Please.
Show your work.
Just love to know.
And again, the Milwaukee Journal of Sentinel has got a couple articles about the heat this weekend.
It's supposed to feel like almost 110 for Saturday and Sunday.
It gets very, very dangerous for us, for our animals.
And they have a list of 10 things you should never leave in your car when it's this hot.
Some good reminders.
The one thing they put is aerosol cans.
Do we have aerosol cans anymore?
Is somebody buying final net that I'm not aware of?
Well, also like
WD-40 and things that, not just
hairspray.
It's not just hairspray.
It's
not just aquanet.
It was the
hydrofluorocarbons.
There was a stuff in the 80s that was really popular.
Oh no, that was the gel, never mind.
But yeah, if you, yeah.
WD-40, hair spray, other things like that.
Pest killer, if you just happen to be
buying.
Oh,
that's a good point.
Yeah, that's something I didn't even think about that one.
Batteries, don't keep batteries in the car.
Electronics, yeah, you don't want to leave your cell phone or your laptop in your car when it's going to be this hot.
Food and beverages, you should not leave your groceries in the hot car for more than two hours or more than an hour when it's above 90.
Also, don't leave big bottles of wine in there.
Jayne, do you have an experience?
I learned the hard way.
Okay.
I went with a friend.
We took her boat out a couple of summers ago.
It was very, very hot.
And I had just parked in her driveway and we jumped in and took the boat.
And I was probably gone four or five hours.
And I had hit the liquor store beforehand and I had one of those big, big bottles of wine.
The jug?
Was it Prosecco where you drinking sweet wine on the lake?
No.
And I came home and the cork had popped.
Yeah.
And the whole...
Bottle of wine was in the back of my car, so I drove around smelling like a bad distillery for a couple of months.
No, officer, I haven't been drinking.
Are you sure I could smell you an O'Connor Walker?
It's just my upholstery that's been drinking.
So don't leave my 7-Eleven egg salad sandwich on the dash of my car overnight.
Good idea.
Don't do
that.
Cool.
Also, don't keep your meds in the car.
Plastic bottles in the heat can leach even more plastic into the liquid that's in it.
And then this
Just makes me laugh.
It says sunscreen.
Sunscreen exposed to high temps can shorten its shelf life.
Well, doesn't that mean when you put on sunscreen and you go outside, it becomes less effective?
Sure, Jane.
If you open your mind, man.
Sunscreen, why are you trying to screen us from the sun?
The sun's a truth.
Sunscreen
exposed to
high temperatures can
shorten its shelf
life.
The whole point of this is, please, just again, as a reminder, please be careful this weekend.
It is no joke when it gets this hot.
And as Brittany Merleau told us yesterday, too, with the heat affecting the pavement, dogs' pads can burn.
They seriously
can.
So just be careful for you and your pets and your neighbors and all elderly folks and young kids.
And just be careful this
weekend.
Please.
News.
is coming up next when we return.
Corrine Hendrickson will be here.
We're going to talk about childcare in Wisconsin.
Stay close.
You are listening to Matinair on Air on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Good morning and welcome.
Welcome to Matinair on Air.
Jane Matinair, Greg Bach, the board lord coming to you live from our studio here at Radio Park in Racine.
You can always join us, call or text.
The number is the same at 855-752-4842.
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To text in right now via the Civic Media app, the word is BRU, B-R-E-W.
So grab your phone, open up the Civic Media app, text in the word BRU, B-R-E-W by 11 o'clock this morning.
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Free Ticket Fridays, but our word right now until 11 o'clock, the word to text in is brew, B-R-E-W.
Delighted to be joined by Corrine Hendrickson.
She is a family child care provider and a child care advocate who carved out some extra time for us at the last minute this morning.
Good morning.
Karina, you're able to hear us.
No problem.
No problem.
We understand how that goes.
I know that you actually shut down your daycare center yesterday so you could go to Madison to talk to lawmakers about funding childcare.
And then our Republican lawmakers essentially decided, yeah, we're not going to negotiate.
We don't want to do this.
So they just walked away.
is okay to do when that's their job.
pop in and out, it happens all the time.
But yeah, this has been an ongoing issue trying to get something done as far as childcare is concerned.
And then we had a number of childcare providers like Kareen who wanted to talk or at least be there while the discussion was going on.
And then essentially they said, yeah, no, we can't, we're not going to get anywhere.
We can't get anywhere.
The governors mean we're going to take our balls and go home.
Yeah, it's
That's the thing for me is, honestly, like the conversation of Tony Evers is not working with us.
Well, he's worked with you.
He's come to the table with the tax cut plan.
There is compromise there to have.
And the childcare is one of the biggest issues.
So why can't we make this work?
Exactly.
Corey, I think you're on the line now.
Yep, I am here.
Wonderful.
So you and a number of other childcare providers actually took the time.
That's a several hour drive for you.
Isn't it to get to Madison from where you are?
For me, it's only about 45 minutes, but we did have some people come from Cameron, which is three hours away.
I cannot imagine the frustration.
When you got there, had they already decided to walk away or were you like, was everybody halfway there and you find out that the Republicans just walked away?
Oh, no, it was 1245 for a one o'clock hearing.
I was actually outside.
We were the Chamber of Mothers in Ian's Pizza donated some lunch for us.
So I was grabbing that and I received a few phone calls that Senator Roy's office had stopped by at 1245 and told us that the hearing was canceled.
They weren't going to be doing anything.
And our what we could find out yesterday was that they've never actually just canceled it this close to the time, you know, because all of the department heads were there, all of the different people.
for there to testify and, you know, go over their budget pieces.
They had to reschedule things because the way our state does it is you only get 24 to 48 hours notice max.
So I'm sure they had rescheduled.
I had to let my families know I was closed.
Several other people, you know, the ones from Cameron, Bryn, she said that they asked parents to voluntarily keep their kids so that more people could come down.
And so, you know, it's an inconvenience for everyone.
And this is their job.
We have left them to do this.
This is their job.
They should not be
noticing a hearing if they aren't ready to actually have that hearing.
Well, and this whole thing about it is your job to negotiate and negotiations are hard.
That's part of what a negotiation is.
It's called give and take and give and take and you keep coming back and you keep coming back until you come to some agreement.
And this fact that they're just like, yeah, we're not going to get what we want.
So we're going to go home.
Yep, and actually as we sat around the table and Brynne was quoted in an article by the Wisconsin Examiner, we said, you know, we're teachers.
This is what we do.
We negotiate and we help people through, you know, hard decisions and hard problems and hard feelings.
We're more than happy to come and sit down and help you out with that.
Maybe they some need some personal counseling, Kareen.
I think some of our lawmakers
could use some one-on-one, you know, let's talk about your issues.
Where did this hurt you?
I'm not sure.
Something we've talked about in the past, Corinne, is with regard to this subject, because we've talked about the Joint Finance Committee meetings and everyone showing up.
And this is another issue, this is another situation where people traveled all over the state, waited in line to talk to these individuals, and then they do nothing about it.
I mean, they had the meeting, but it was a waste of time for all these people who showed up.
And then also, but one of the most important things they talked about was childcare.
And you are a small business.
Right there, it says, all right, what do we do to take care of small businesses?
And I keep on going back to the notion of if we help these small businesses, we can go back to our voters and say, this is what we did for you.
It just always seems like a win-win, but they just don't look at it that way, or they just don't care.
Oh, absolutely.
They're looking at shutting down 1,000 small businesses in our state because there's 4,000 child care programs and 1,000 is a quarter of them.
And, you know, any other industry, if a quarter of them were going to close, there would be hearings, there would be emergencies, there'd be, what can we do?
You know, there would be none of this.
Oh, this is a handout.
And for Representative Voss to talk about, or to say during that hearing, that press conference that they did, he mentioned that they don't really want to do child care counts or any sort of direct
funding to the business owners because they would rather give it to the people.
And I thought that's interesting because you aren't increasing food stamps, you aren't increasing subsidy for childcare, you're not doing any of the things that would be actually direct money to the people and you're against the welfare state.
And then he went on to say that would be like giving the money to the grocery store owner and hope that they lower the price of carrots and eggs.
And I thought to myself, we're the farmers in this situation in this scenario.
We're not the grocery store owners.
We don't sell the children.
We are the farmers.
We are cultivating the children.
We are taking care of them.
And we subsidize farmers and ag like crazy so that people can afford and access food.
So we are the exact same situation for people to access work, to access schooling, to access all the things that they need and have their child in a safe place to learn and to grow and be cared for and loved.
And I'm also going to point out a fallacy and Robin Voss's argument too, the whole giving the grocery store owners the money and hope they reload their prices.
That's trickle down economics in a sense.
And that's what they're all about.
They're about giving the wealthy all the money and hopefully it will come down on us someday.
It is here in this for 40 years.
Everything he says is, I'm sorry, I'm not going to get it.
We're talking about something else here.
That, that, that, that example just bothers me so deeply.
And also,
We are, and from a country-wide standpoint, I think about the banks.
When the banks were in trouble, like we can agree, childcare in Wisconsin is a crisis, we've been talking about, it's a crisis.
When there was a banking crisis, this US government was none too slow to give away all this money to these banks and- Didn't we help out the car industry?
Helped out the car industry, we helped out, well, the car industry at least paid us back.
The banks just gave it all away to their own.
My point is that it seems like when-
it's not about the crisis or business, it's about which business and which crisis.
And you, Kareen, apparently are not part of the important business because they do not care about helping small businesses, 4,000 of them in this state.
Absolutely.
And that's, you know, the whole thing where like, you just gave up your entire like trickle down economic theory and just said it doesn't work.
There was so much to unpack in that one statement that he thought was such a great answer.
Yeah, yeah.
If you're just joining us, Karine Hendrickson is our guest.
She's a family child care provider and a big advocate for child care providers here in Wisconsin.
And we're talking about the fact that Wisconsin Republican senators yesterday just walked away from budget meeting going, yeah, no, there's nothing we can do.
So we're not going to do anything.
And going back, Karine, to talking about what they had suggested,
They had already suggested giving employers a break if they put in childcare facilities, right?
Oh, yep.
And doesn't that seem like the same thing?
Yeah.
Oh,
also, how is that nuts
up?
Corrine, let me, can I ask you, let me, let me ask you a question in your travels as a childcare provider.
I mean, I'm sure you spoke on the topic of businesses providing childcare.
I mean, I imagine that if you work for a company and they're like, we have free childcare, you're like, I want to work there.
That'd be amazing.
But do businesses really want this?
Does a business who's like, I've got the things to do with.
I have a plastic company.
Do I really want to get into child care?
Because they can't just empty out a conference room and put some toys down be like, there you go.
They have to go through a process of they probably have to be licensed to do it or find someone who's licensed.
These businesses aren't concerned about tax credits for opening daycares.
No, and that's what, you know, on paper, it sounds good.
And a few have thought that that might be what they want to do.
And then they call their insurance company and insurance company says, Oh, no, you're not absolutely not.
I will not ensure you for that.
And then they start talking to the bank and they start talking to the other providers and they look at the 1% profit margin and they're like, there's no way we can make this work.
And then how do we hire people for this?
Because we, you know, there's no teachers.
And then also the next piece of that is if a business or a public school does open up a childcare within their.
within their business.
That means that they're going to be taking teachers from the other programs in the area and shutting down family child care because we don't have more teachers coming into
They're going to take the qualified people, then they can pay us a dollar more an hour and we get benefits from them.
Then the other programs can't rehire.
They cannot find new teachers, especially if this stabilization funding ends.
We're going back to offering people 10 bucks an hour.
We can't find them at 13.
And so you're going to end up actually lowering the amount of slots and space in your community when you do these types of things.
And we've seen it happen over and over again in these areas, or they build this building and it sits empty because there's no teachers.
As we mentioned before, Jane, it almost seems like they haven't thought this through.
And it might be what experts call a bad idea.
Corinne, I'm just...
It's like Korean Hendrickson is our guest.
We are talking about childcare, which is an ongoing problem in the state and around the country.
And I guess what blows my mind the most is we hear so much rhetoric about children are our most precious resource.
We love our children.
We need more children.
Why don't people want to have more babies?
This is part of the reason why this is part of the reason why.
Yes, it absolutely is.
And then yesterday, a survey actually came out and 2,025 people answered it and over 2,000 don't even rely on childcare and 80% said they support state investment and know that it's a problem in our state.
So on top of all this, that's what we've been telling them the whole time.
So maybe they should start listening to us because we are the experts.
I'm sorry, Karine, would you do me a slight favor?
Just give me that statistic again.
How many people answered?
How many people weren't parents and how many people said who agreed with this?
So 20, 629 people answered, 2154 do not use childcare.
And over 80% said that they know it's a problem and that they do support state investment to solve the problem.
See, I think the most residents in Wisconsin understand how important this is and understand the vital role that childcare providers play in this.
The only ones who seem to not want to grasp the reality of it is our politicians.
elected representatives from the Republican Party to be clear because the Democrats have been fighting the entire time and pushing for the funding because they do understand it and get it.
Said that's so much better than I could have.
We're going to continue our conversation with Kareen Hendrickson on the other side.
We're talking all things childcare.
Stay with us.
You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.
We'll be right back.
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Hello, Jared.
Hello, Jared.
Corrine Hendrickson is our guest, a family child care provider who took time and actually shut down her child care business yesterday.
So she could go to Madison along with other child care providers.
And then of course, our Republican representatives said, yeah, no, we can't, no, we're not going to get anything we want.
So we're not going to negotiate at all.
One thing I wanted to cover with you, Corrine, is the importance of child care in readying kids for life.
because it's not just like you're throwing your kid in a daycare and they let them run wild and draw on walls for five hours until you pick them up.
There's actually scheduled things for kids.
Yeah, so 90% of brain development happens in those first five years, so they are incredibly important.
And another piece that people don't like to think about or talk about is that sometimes we are the only consistent adult in their little lives.
Sometimes we are that person that they can count on, whether it's because their parents are working three different jobs in the alternating shifts or because...
You know, something has happened.
They're in foster care or, you know, sometimes a parent is battling cancer or sick or accidents.
Things happen and we are that only person there.
And that actually is how their brains develop.
And we can actually provide the barriers and the resilience for them so that they can go through these.
sort of adverse experiences throughout their lives, and they have that core basic knowledge that their love, their importance, and their brain has the connections that it needs.
And so we do that.
And with the low wages and the high turnover, that's already another interruption.
These children have bonds with us, and then all the time the teacher's gone one day.
doesn't come back from lunch, we've been hearing.
Like people are just walking out the door.
And then these supposed solutions that the assembly Republicans put out in Senate, I guess, did.
have a few sign on is not going to help telling us that 16 year olds now that we have to supervise on top of it to supervise the children or worse let them be in a room by themselves with a bunch of babies as long as there's an 18 year old lead teacher somewhere on the property.
Like, what are you thinking?
Like, there is a place for 16 year olds if we do a true apprenticeship program where they are being mentored and taught and, you know, also like guided through their experiences.
Maybe they stick around, but when you're only paying them 13 bucks, they're not going to stick around.
They're not even coming in.
They can go anywhere else.
And we could do an apprenticeship where the state helps pay for that mentor and helps pay for that child to learn and be an apprentice.
We're not doing that.
That's not what they're looking at.
And the same thing with the family childcare.
They're wanting to give us more work.
to earn the same amount of pay.
And before COVID, I made $20,000 a year.
I was looking at getting out because I could not stay and justify continuing to do that to myself and my family.
And so once COVID hits, my wage increased substantially.
We lost...
half of that.
So then my tuition went up 65 a week to offset that $10,000 loss.
My tuition is going up another $50 a week to offset the next $10,000 loss because I refuse to make and earn $30,000 a year working 50 hours a week with children.
How am I going to make it?
I can't make it.
And I have heard of so many family child care providers who know that they cannot raise their rates enough.
They're getting second jobs.
That's not okay.
We are already working 60 hours a week and we're going to take on a second job so that our parents can afford to stay with us because we care about these kids.
It's not okay and it needs to stop.
And again, you are not, no one is going into childcare because it's so lucrative.
So you can buy a Lexus.
That's not why people are going into this business.
You're doing this because you love and care about the development of children.
Yeah, absolutely.
But at the same time, we should not have to sacrifice ourselves.
We know living wage and it's sold for so long.
That's what happened.
And that's one of the things I keep getting asked by Republican representatives when they actually will take conversations with
is, you know, how did this work before COVID?
I said, because you relied on.
desperate women with young children to start their own family child cares or to go work for a group center so that their child would have care and they could earn a little bit of money.
And this is not okay and it needs to stop and it never was okay.
And it is stopping.
People aren't doing it anymore.
We've basically been on a slow strike for the last 15 years.
Yeah, you make a really good point, though, Kareen, in that this assumption that everything was fine before COVID with childcare.
Our childcare system has been a mess for a long time and has needed to address these issues for a really long time.
Oh, absolutely.
It's never been okay.
We've lost 6,000 child care programs between 2010 and 2019.
This was never anything that was doing well.
And, you know, during all of this whole process, the last five years, we have proven that this pilot program of ensuring that the teachers could get paid a little bit better without outpricing parents worked for the first time ever.
We had more programs opened at the end of the year.
in 2023 when we were getting the full amount that that is what is requested in this budget slash in the standalone legislation for the $480 million.
And we're still not talking about people who are making 60 bucks an hour.
That's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about, I don't know, just a reasonable living wage.
We're actually talking about we're fighting for $13 an hour for our group centers and we're fighting for our family child care to stay around $8 an hour.
Yeah.
And we don't even have enough time to go into the statistics to show that children who are getting good child care, can get better educations, can go on to become productive people of society.
Add to our economy, like it's all a part of that plan.
Absolutely.
Which we can talk about another time, but this has been a fantastic discussion.
This might be a good time to, I don't know, potentially call your lawmakers.
Jane, what do
people do?
Let them know how happy you are that they couldn't even bother to stick around yesterday for all these people who showed up.
Go to myvote.wi.gov, put in your address.
All their phone numbers will call, will come up.
Give them a couple calls today.
I think that would be worthwhile.
Yeah.
Corrine Hendrickson has been our guest.
Thank you so much, Corrine.
Let's stay in touch.
I know we'll get you back on, hopefully, with some better news soon.
Hopefully.
Thank you so much for covering this.
Take care.
News coming up next.
Dan Schaefer will be here after that.
You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network, myvote.wi.gov.
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