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Welcome, welcome to MidMornings on Civic Media.
My name is Greg Bock.
I am your host.
I'm your guide.
I'm your friend.
We're really happy you're here today with me along with sweet Cal B on the boards.
If you want to be part of the conversation, the number is 855-752-484-2855 75 civic.
You can leave a comment on the live stream.
We're currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform that we still call Twitter.
We have a fantastic show for you on a Friday.
But first, before we get to the rundown first, Calvin, how are you doing this morning?
I'm okay, you know,
There it is.
Calvin is like it's snow.
So right in, we're live at radio park in Racine.
It is snowing right now.
It's just like it was earlier this week.
As far as the, the traffic is slow going.
So we just, if you are being affected by the snow right now, please drive safely, drive logically.
Remember red lights are not suggestions.
They are to be adhered to.
And please don't just go rolling through them because you can.
Yeah.
Another snowy day.
We're not supposed to get a lot of accumulation, but it certainly is making the roads awful looking.
But again, just drive safely.
If you have any questions or concerns or wondering what the roads are like right now for you and your drive, you can always go to 511wi.gov.
It's a, yeah, that's right.
511wi.gov.
That is for traffic updates.
You can put it on your phone.
It's available as an app.
You can look at it on your computer.
You can see, you can see maps showing where there are accidents, slowdowns, where there is construction.
You can also access cameras to see where these accidents are taking place and how bad they are looking for your drive time.
But yeah, that's again, that's 511wi.gov for all traffic updates, especially on times like this.
in Snowfall, Wintery, Wisconsin.
Now, as we said before, we do have a great show ahead of us today.
Got lots of great news to talk about.
Actually, great news.
I don't know if we're talking about great news, but it's going to be a great show.
But we have Kareen Hendrickson, who is running for Wisconsin State Senate for the 17th district.
She will be here at 9 35 after the 9 30 news to talk about her campaign, to talk about all things that are happening on the trail for her, what she is seeing.
from her visits with people as well as, you know, probably get into childcare.
And as you probably know, if you've heard the show before, Karine Henderson was a childcare expert or childcare, she rented childcare.
So I'm sorry, right now, if you, Calvin, can you see this right now on my screen?
My monitor is totally tripping up right now.
So it's kind of like, so I'm just going to look at Calvin right now.
So Karine Henderson,
opened and owned a childcare facility for many years.
And last year decided to close it in the, in the wake of funding shortages for child childcare here in Wisconsin because of the biennium budget that was passed last year on a, I would say a bipartisan level, but there was a lot of consternation between on both sides of the aisle.
But Kareem will be here to talk to us about the campaign, childcare.
And I do want to dip into the conversation about the freezing of funding to certain states and how that can affect Wisconsin.
Right now, Wisconsin has not had their childcare funding frozen from the federal government.
That doesn't mean it can't happen.
It just means...
We sit and apparently wait, and I want to get more information from her on that.
We're also going to talk about the long national nightmare that is the inability for schoolchildren to get a whole milk in the cafeteria.
That is over.
We can finally do it.
We can do that.
We can talk about whole milk in the classroom.
Thank goodness, important things are happening.
Calvin, whole milk's available in school again.
We're also going to just talk about what that means for kids as far as their health, because there are some guidelines and some suggestions they're making if your kids are drinking more whole milk because of what it is made of.
We'll talk more about that in the second hour.
And then we have ourselves a primary coming up next month, very soon.
And just want to get you acclimated, want to get that in your head, what day, what to expect.
what you can do to find out more about your ballot.
But we'll talk about that coming up in a little bit.
But right now I want to focus on a story that was released on NBC 26, Northeast Wisconsin.
Claire Peterson is the one who has the byline on this in Oshkosh.
The headline is Oshkosh School District moves forward with multi-million dollar budget cuts.
Now, first before I get into it, I want to know from you, do you live in the Oshkosh area?
Will this be affecting you?
What are your thoughts on this even if you don't live in Oshkosh?
Are you seeing things like this happening in your school districts?
Are you seeing budget cuts being proposed?
Are you seeing budget shortfalls happening and how are your districts dealing with them as well?
I would love to hear from you on that 855-
752-484-2855.
75 Civic is the number, whether you want to call or text, you can also leave, you can also call on the live stream, I'm sorry, you can leave a comment on the live stream, but you can also call text or leave a voice note on the Civic Media app as well.
But we are talking about the story out of Oshkosh last night.
The Oshkosh school district is moving forward with multi-million dollar budget cuts because of a shortfall.
This is after
a proposed deeper cut that took place in December where school teachers, children, and parents came out to speak against what they thought was a little too much of a cut that in December they were looking to cut 70.2 positions.
at the school district, including driver's education, director of communication engagement, and equity, literacy, support, and media specialists.
The cuts would also have meant elective teachers would lose one hour of prep time, would lose a prep hour teaching six out of the seven periods a day.
And they said that this was about a $6 million deficit for the 2026, 2027.
school district.
So that was back in December.
That's what they were looking to cut because of lower enrollment.
They lost 177 students that year compared to the 12 the year before.
And according and according to the district is because of significantly smaller student refugee population, open enrollment and declining birth rate.
So the original cut was to be 70.2 positions.
as well as some other things to manage a six million dollar budget deficit.
After everyone is ever the people in speaking they heard from the teacher students and the parents it now came down to a five point five million dollar cut from the budget and they will no longer be cutting 70 positions they will be cutting 40 positions.
and they will no longer ask the elective teachers to teach an extra period.
The superintendent of the district, Brian Davis, says that this will mean increases in class sizes, which is something that we've been hearing from teachers and parents and students for years about the fact that as we are getting less and less funding and there is less and less ability to operate these schools the way they would like, things have to be...
you know, squeeze together and more kids have to put into classrooms.
So yeah, there will be more kids in the classrooms.
I believe according to their breakdown, which by the way, these stories as well as the revised budget, budget reduction recommendations from the school board will be on the show notes today.
If you want to take a look at that, but I want to hear from anybody out there.
Are you seeing similar things?
Do you, does your school district face a deficit?
If so, what are they proposing?
as fixes to that deficit.
Are they proposing bigger class sizes, less staff, both?
Are they doing other things?
Are they finding ways to find money?
I would love to know about what you are going through, because I can't imagine Oshkosh is the only school district going, in fact, I know it is not.
We've spoken about other school districts in the past about this.
And the big problem, the two big problems
for me here that I'm seeing with regard to this article that Superintendent Davis is talking about.
He said, quote, our inflate of inflationary increases in costs don't match the state revenue increases that we have gotten.
The deficit is in operation.
So the district says that they are unable to use facility facilities, funding approved by recent spring referendums.
Currently, the district has a
7.95 operational referendum approved by voters in 2020.
Davis says they will request another referendum before 2030.
So that right there.
So those two things, actually now it's three.
So first of all, it's a matter that the state's funding is not keeping up with our schools.
Our state, Wisconsin does not fund our schools properly.
If you look at the budgets, this biennium budget,
the previous biennium budget and the biennium budget for that, the amount of funding they're giving in school is zero to not a lot.
They do not give, they've increased special education funding, but they have not given general funding increases and it cannot keep up with inflation, therefore they have to make these cuts.
They will request another referendum before 2030, which means, again, the taxpayers have to go to the polls and
vote to raise their own property taxes to pay for their schools.
That is not a partnership.
That is not investment.
Every time the school district needs money, they come to us, the taxpayers.
And to a certain extent, it is fine because if it has to happen, then we have to foot the bill.
We have to take the brunt.
I will keep saying it until this problem is solved.
I went to the polls last year.
and voted to increase my property taxes, even though I do not have children, I do not have a direct stake in the Kenosha School District, but I know that investing more money into the school district with proper planning, good teaching, and what we want to see out of those schools.
is what we need to do.
So I voted yes.
The whole measure was voted down in Kenosha.
It was one of the few in Wisconsin that got voted down.
But this is what we're talking about.
Oshkosh doesn't have enough money because the state is not investing enough because they're holding funds back as usual.
And now the taxpayers have to go back to the polls to raise their own property taxes, which by the way, property taxes are going up anyways, just because that's what happened with property taxes.
But when you vote to raise your own, that's another expense on your tax bill that must be paid.
So how often are we gonna do this?
When are our leaders going to step up?
That's what I wanna know.
When are our leaders actually going to lead?
Because not funding schools in this state is not an investment in our children in our future, something they care about.
Also, from a business economic side, not something that looks really attractive to people who want to move here, which is something I know that they've talked about in Madison.
They want people to move here, to stay here, to put down roots, to grow a family.
But if you don't have good public education funding and
And I would ask you to not get into the MPS argument at all because we're talking about Wisconsin on the whole.
When you don't have good public school investment from your leaders in the capital, then people are going to say, well, I'll go somewhere else where the schools are, you know, can be better because this is affecting everyone, not just the blue cities.
It's affecting the red cities.
It's affecting us all.
And I want to know when is enough.
And before we kick out of here,
Just as a reminder, in 2024 and 2025, in Oshkosh, $8.2 million was diverted from public funds, the public taxpayer dollars, into the voucher program.
$8.2 million.
That is more than, that is, that would cover the budget shortfall and then some buy a lot.
$8.2 million put into the voucher program, which was taken away from the public schools in Oshkosh.
Between that and the lack of funding, the lack of investment, there has to be a breaking point.
I want to know what the breaking point might be for you.
If this is happening to you, give us a call 855-752-4842-855-75 Civic.
This is mid-morning on Civic Media.
My name is Greg Bach.
Lots of great shows still ahead.
Don't go anywhere.
Stay tuned.
Stay close.
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Welcome back to mid mornings on Civic Media.
My name is Greg Bach.
I am your host, your buddy, your pal, and I am here with Sweet Calbee on the boards.
We are coming to you live from Snowy Radio Park here in Racine.
If you want to be a part of the conversation, call 855-752-4842-855-757.
You can leave a comment on the live stream.
We are currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform that we still call Twitter.
Before we went to the break, we were talking about the Oshkosh school district and the choice they had made to cut 40 positions and
Also discussing the fact that in the fact of little to no investment from the state in our schools, in the fact that we are diverting millions of dollars to voucher programs, the fact that I as a taxpayer, you as a taxpayer have to go to our polls to raise our own taxes to fund our schools, which may or may not go through and then may or may not actually be the solution that we are seeking.
I'm sorry, it might not be enough money to get the solution we are seeking.
For me, I can't speak for everyone in the room.
I'm the only one in the room, so I'll speak for me alone.
I think this story here is a symptom of a much bigger problem, which is the leaders in Madison need to understand that not funding our schools K through 12 is a problem for so many reasons.
Socially, economically, that is the problem.
40 people are going to lose their jobs in the Oshkosh School District.
$5.5 million is the deficit.
$8.2 million was diverted to the voucher program in the Oshkosh School District alone.
That would take care of it.
But that's a bigger conversation to have with higher minds than mine.
That's what I think is a taxpayer.
Cindy and Appleton's on the phone line right now.
What can you say to this?
I'm sure you have an opinion on this matter too.
Well, I do and let me tell you I the Republicans really don't give a crap about education, but I am a school bus driver.
I was on a sub route a couple of days ago with a gal She's the one of the bus aides and she is obviously a Trumper and the opinion of the Trumpers is that?
The public school is failing so they want to let it crash and burn so that we can rebuild it which I don't know how that's going to happen and
They are okay with the vouchers because they think the voucher schools are better than public schools.
This is the attitude that the Republicans have somehow pounded into the heads of these people.
And I just don't understand it, but she says she's not voting for the referendum in Appleton.
She doesn't care.
She wants the, like I said, the education system to crash and burn so we can rebuild it.
And I'm just thinking.
How do you go down to nothing and then with an education system?
It just that just can't happen that way.
Well, and I and I think, you know, those those are all talking points.
We've heard Cindy and I get that I'm I'm used to that this point.
And when people say that the public schools are failing, they're usually talking about MPS.
And yes, MPS has problems.
There's no no one saying they don't.
But when you look at the report card from the Department of Public Instruction, a great deal of our schools around the state.
pass or exceed or greatly exceed what they are looking for as far as the standards go and If we're talking about fixing it's talking about investment investment in our kids investment in our teachers
So this idea of letting everything crash and burn because they don't like MPS, I'm going to assume that Cindy, because usually that MPS is always like, they think MPS is all over the state.
But yeah, if we don't have leaders in Madison, who are actually looking at our school system as an investment for our kids and for our, and for our communities, again, this isn't just about the kids.
I mean, yes, we wanted kids to learn.
We want them to have a great education, but a great educational system, a great school system has.
public and economic benefits for everyone.
I voted to raise my property taxes with no child in school, with no children, because I know that a great educational system gives us better opportunity, which makes us better as a community, which makes people want to come to our cities, which makes people want to come to our states, put down roots, grow.
That's what I'm talking about as well.
It's about the kids, but it's also about
all of us.
And when you're diverting millions of dollars to these private school systems, which by the way, that person you were talking to Cindy, they can say to the cows come home, that the private schools are better, but we don't know.
There are no standards that they're held to, they're given the money.
And then they were like, just do your best, would you thanks?
And that's it.
There's very little, there's no oversight that's mandated.
by the state to give them this money.
So they get to do what they would like and we'll continue this conversation probably forever, but I have a feeling, just call it a hunch that our guest coming up after the 930 news, Kareen Hendrickson, who is running for state Senate here in Wisconsin, probably has an opinion or nine on this topic, but we're going to talk more about that with her because it sounds like I'm
beating a drum over and over again, and guess what?
I am.
Because to me, a state that says to their school system, we're not going to give you a dime in general funding.
That speaks volumes to what they think of our schools, our teachers, our students, our parents, and then have the temerity, tenacity, and the gull to say, well, look what you're doing to our kids.
You are terrible teachers, terrible school system.
Well, why don't you step up and actually lead then?
Sorry, I'm a little fiery on Friday, but when I saw this story, I got very, very, just, oh, but the story, the breakdown, as well as the press release, as well as the list that shows where your tax dollars have gone in with regard to private school voucher funding will all be in the show notes today because I want you to feel the fire with me because I'm on Friday, but don't go anywhere.
We got the 930 news coming up.
After that, we've got Kareen Hendrickson, who is running for state Senate here in Wisconsin.
We're going to talk, we're going to talk about it all, childcare, education.
We're talking about the campaign.
We're going to talk about it all.
She's going to be here.
I'm very excited to have her back.
I've missed her face.
Hopefully she's having a good year on the campaign trail.
If you want to be part of the conversation, you can always do that by calling 855-752-484-2855.
75 Civic is the number.
Leave a comment on the live stream.
This is mid mornings on Civic Media.
My name is Greg Bach.
I fired up.
I hope Calvin is too.
Don't go anywhere.
Stay tuned, stay informed, and stay close.
Welcome back to mid mornings on civic media.
My name is Greg Bach.
I am your buddy, your pal.
I'm fired up on a Friday.
We're happy to have you here today.
If you work, if you want to be part of the conversation, 855-752-4842-855-75 civic can leave a comment on the live stream as well.
We are currently on Facebook, YouTube and the platform that we still call Twitter coming up after the 10 o'clock news.
We're going to be talking about
the primary coming up next month.
Just make yourself prepared.
We are an election year.
I know we had almost the, we almost had all of 2025 off, but for like one quarter.
And that felt like an eternity, but we're back in a baby election season again, midterms.
And someone who is also running for election this year is my next guest friend of the show.
Kareen Hendrickson running for the 17th State Senate District of Wisconsin.
Good morning.
Welcome back, Kareen.
How are you today?
Good morning.
I'm great to be here.
I'm good except looking at my driveway that I have to shovel here before I head out for the day.
But other than that, it'll be all right.
You know, it's good for me to get out there and move my body a little
bit.
Okay.
All right.
I'm way to the point where it's justifiable for me to pay a neighbor could be like, I just paid.
But Kareen,
Tell me about the campaign trail.
Tell me about everything.
Now you announced the last year you've been hitting the campaign trail hard.
Tell me about what you're hearing from the people at events on the doors.
What are the concerns?
And more importantly, I feel what are the things that are really, you know, kind of binding us together really regardless of who you voted for, how it's affecting us.
What are you hearing from people?
Yeah, so since I launched in September, I have been meeting and greeting with people all over the Southwest part of the state, Senate District 17.
It's much nicer now that with fair maps, it's county lines for the most part.
So people know who their representatives are or it's a little bit easier.
I've been going touring school districts.
I've been touring small businesses, large businesses, talking with chambers of commerce.
And then I try to spend an entire day in a community.
So I will set up.
but then I'll walk
and I'll
talk to people.
I'll go into businesses, introduce myself, ask if they want to talk right away or make an appointment if they're busy.
And I have been very heartened by how responsive and willing to talk people are once they get past the initial shock of a politician actually caring and coming in.
Most of these people I don't think have ever had a candidate or a politician even.
would come in and talk to them.
And so that's been the most interesting to me.
And everyone, property taxes is a big one, but they seem to be understanding it's because the state is not investing in our schools and in our communities.
So under Tommy Thompson, school districts got two thirds funding from the state, one third from local.
Also, your county and your municipalities got closer to 75, 80% from the state.
It's now 20%.
So both of those have flipped.
And that then means that you have to raise your own property taxes if you can and are willing because it goes to referendum.
And I think our state reps really have missed the mark and thought they would get away with blaming the local politicians for that.
But...
it's really easy to understand when a state budget adds zero dollars per pupil, zero, that that's on the state.
That's not on the local.
And you have to make that up because everyone understands I didn't get a raise, but things cost more.
That has to come from us now.
And so I think it was a big miscalculation on their part to do that.
And then the next thing I'm doing is explaining that Senator Markline is the co-chair, which means he's in charge of the budget,
which
is what?
what everything is paid for
by moving in
the state.
And so that's been in late into a lot of people.
So I'm really doing a lot of engagement conversations and educating, informing.
So people understand things because it is so complicated.
And the biggest one, like I said, is school districts, people want their schools funded, they're really mad about the vouchers, especially since the kids on vouchers actually got more money, which means more money is coming out of our pockets.
And, you know, this last year, there was a bill that got voted down to make it so if a private school is taking
public funding, they have to follow the same rules.
They have to follow teaching licenses.
They have to
follow the same testing.
They have to have the same transparency so that people can actually compare because as you said earlier, people try to claim private schools are better.
Well, if they're not following the same, you know, rules and the same transparency and you can't compare them, well, how do you know?
Exactly.
It's, you know, just an opinion because it costs more because in
our country, the cost more it must be better.
That you know, that's why private schools are better.
No,
that's absolutely not true.
And so really, really help just talking to people connecting with people and engaging them in understanding and then they're going ahead and telling other their friends and family and helping have those conversations.
I think I really quick here we comment on the text line here.
Someone listening on WA UK said every school districts officials and citizens need to stress with their legislators that public education be
adequately funded per article 10 of the Wisconsin Constitution.
Likewise, that needs to be done before they go into recess or they can plan on being voted out out of office this fall.
And two points to that.
One, yes.
And two, this is a short work year for them.
So they're trying to push through all of these bills right now.
Then we, we talked about a couple of them last week.
I'm like, is this really something that do we, do we really care about whether or not, like I care about organs being harvested illegally, but what I don't think we need a bill for is saying that medical, that, that health insurance can't cover them.
I'm pretty sure they can't cover them begin with, but let's put a bill through for that, but let's not talk about this topic here, which is education.
And I think what you said, Kareen is very important is that.
The bite size sound bites have been so easily taken in by those who just want to be dismissive of public school to say they're all terrible.
They're all failing.
Someone on the text line here listening, WAUK, public schools in general are failing when you have to change the standards in order to show that they are excelling.
That means that they are failing to take that money and put it into something that will do better for our children.
Okay, fine.
What will do better for our children?
because just giving it to private schools with no oversight doesn't mean it's better.
It can't just say, well, that's good.
Shrugged shoulder.
As you said, Karine, it's more expensive.
Must be better.
So that is, that I have to imagine is the, one of the biggest challenges for you is to go in and I don't want to say educate people, but inform them in a way where they can take it in and they don't feel like they're in a class learning like all these lessons.
Cause that's when people can turn off.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's more conversational.
I had a lot of practice meeting people where they're at over the last five years with educating people and forming them and helping them understand childcare funding and why it's so expensive and why it's broken.
And it goes back to you have to fundamentally invest appropriately in things in order for them to work.
And our state is not doing that.
We have unfunded mandate after unfunded mandate coming through, more requirements for schools with less money.
Well, that seems purposeful to me.
give people the resources that they need to succeed, they're going to fail and then to, you know, your compender's point.
they then have something to point and say, see, it doesn't work.
Well, that's
not true.
You actually are taking it and you're making it so it doesn't work.
You are breaking it on purpose because it's so much easier to break something than put it back together.
And that's what I'm running for is to help put it back together.
I have an education degree, pre-K6 elementary through sixth grade.
I ran my own family child care for 18 years.
I just finished my master's in early childhood policy and my entire focus was special education.
So
speaking of special education.
That's another one.
Schools were saying that if they got the 90%, the funding from the state that reimburses for kids with special needs that the voucher private schools get, it actually would make it so most of them wouldn't even need operational referendums because right now they are meeting those needs of those kids as they should and want to, but that money has to come from somewhere else.
And so it's getting pulled or operational referendums are.
coming to help fill the pot back up.
And it's really frustrating because I and everyone I talk to, for the most part, I haven't found too many, firmly believe every child deserves a chance.
Every child deserves opportunity
and
every child should be in a place learning with their peers, you know, so that they can all be together in community.
And it's just impossible with what's happening.
And I'm seeing great things happen in these schools.
But I wonder to myself, if they were fully and appropriately funded, what
Could we be doing that's even greater and even better?
And, you know, they're doing what they can.
I'm not gonna say they're not, but it's, you can see the stress and then that causes burnout.
And we
have
4,000 people on emergency licenses.
People aren't getting into this field.
They're leaving.
And then healthcare costs, because of what's happening at that level is increasing.
And that comes out of your school district budget.
And so some districts, they had to change their.
employer health insurance because it was doubling, tripling, quadrupling in cost.
And then that impacts people and if they want to stay, because if you're not getting paid well, but you have good benefits, you'll stick around.
But if you're not getting paid well and you don't have good benefits, you're going to leave, especially if people don't respect you.
It's almost like the system has been rigged by a certain group of individuals.
If you're just joining us right now, we're talking to Korean Hendrickson, who is running for Wisconsin state Senate of the in the district of 17.
That wasn't well said, but you get what I'm saying.
District 17 talking about the campaign trail, talking about education, which is something that you and I, and when Jane was on the show would always talk about specifically when it came to early.
development, child care, you, as you said, you owned and operated a facility for 18 years.
And really like, I want to get into that.
But what I want to, I want to go back to something you said, which is when you walk through the door of places, or you knock on doors and you talk to people that they are surprised to see someone who
whether it's a politician or someone running for the office, even there, cause they're not used to that.
And why is that?
Why are they so surprised to see someone, I guess, finally visiting and saying, Hey, tell me how you're feeling.
I think a lot of it is because of the way the funding works now.
Campaign finance is so about how much money you can get and how much literature you can send out.
And people are really encouraged as candidates to spend all their time fundraising and on the phone instead of actually out there.
And I'm, yes, I have to fundraise.
It's
probably what
I have to do
because
I need to be able to draw, you know, gas money, pay my team, et cetera, signs, whatever.
But I really find that it's more important for me to engage with the voters because that's what matters.
And we have so many people that have been disengaged.
And that's what I've been hearing is they've been telling me that, you know, oh, my family voted for so-and-so because that person finally came, was the first person who's ever stopped at our house
in 20
years.
And they care.
And that's what, you know, if you're showing up, that means you care.
And that's what we're, I really feel that we're missing right now is we don't think our politicians care about us.
And then we have, you know, like Senator Mark Line yesterday posted about how he's worried about butter being served at schools and is all proud about, you know, testifying about at a committee hearing about how
should be required.
It is already news flash.
That was that's a law already enforced it.
They said something about there's a loophole.
I don't know, but that to me is not the priority when we have, you know, maybe if you're pro really funded schools, we could afford butter.
I'm sorry.
There's a butter loophole.
What?
Yes.
Yes.
And
the
other thing too is he said he did this because a constituent reached out to him.
Okay.
Thousands of messages have been sent to him saying, fund our school, fund our kids, fund childcare, do anything.
And does he like write a bill?
No.
Does he support a bill?
No.
Does he vote for the bill?
No.
Wait, I have
a letter here.
There is a butter loophole.
I'm on it.
Yeah.
Go on.
I was gonna say, but that speaks to what I've been talking about for like the past week and a half, two weeks is that with this short work year in Madison, they are of course trying to run through all of these various bills and constitutional amendments, don't forget either, because they are going to be off for about nine plus months because the year after the budget is passed, they get a short work year.
So they are going to fixate their time on things like
butter loopholes.
And now I can't remember the proposed constitutional amendment that we were talking about.
Oh, getting rid of DEI higher practices because they don't understand what that means in the first place.
But that's the most important thing, Corrine.
Those are the
things that people are,
that's what's keeping our kids from learning.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to do a survey today when I'm talking.
See where that lands on their things.
But yeah, and the thing is too, they're getting paid back for
the
whole year.
Yes, and health insurance and if I'm
not
mistaken, per diems, but we'll talk more about that and also.
childcare status here in Wisconsin, especially in the wake of Minneapolis.
We are talking to Kreen Hendrickson, who is running for state Senate here in Wisconsin for the fabulous district number 17.
When we come back, more with her.
And then we're going to be talking about voting next next hour.
Don't go anywhere.
Good mornings on Civic Media.
My name is Greg Box.
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Still lots of great show ahead in the second hour.
We're going to be talking about, oh, hooray, the budget surplus is more than they expected.
What could we do with such money?
We're also going to be talking about the primary election coming up next month, as well as
the long national nightmare, that is the lack of access of whole milk to children in schools is over, friends.
Now, if we can only move past the butthole loophole here in Wisconsin, but to talk more about butthole loopholes and things that actually matter, we're talking to Kareem Hendrickson, who is running for state senate here in Wisconsin for the lovely district of 17.
Kareem, before we went to the break, we were talking about the campaign trail.
We were talking about the concerns of the people, the fact that the people are excited to see someone actually show their face around the district because I guess you have to run and actually want to get the job that you have.
But what I want to talk about now is the fact that one of the things I feel like that led you into this race was the fact that after 18 years, you closed down your childcare facility last year in the face of a lack of public funding from the budget, which I must say,
When we first heard about the signing of the biennium budget last year, we was like, oh, bipartisanship.
All of everyone got in the room.
And then slowly we heard about all of the things that it was lacking, one of them being a sustainable investment plan for early child.
I want to say this, Craig, early childhood education, because that's what you did.
It wasn't just babysitting.
You were teaching them.
Yeah, absolutely, and it was it's still child care because child care programs do take care of kids up to
the
age of 12 Yeah before and after school summer so it's not just early childhood, but it's education in general Yeah, and yes, so I did end up closing my program because of the lack of state investment I had considered closing in 2019 2018 because I wasn't making enough to sustain my family and then we received
funding from the federal government.
And, you know, it looked like we would be able to continue.
I actually doubled my income to $40,000 a year for, you
know,
60 plus hours of work.
And then this year, with the budget in only one year, nothing coming after it, no chance.
Really, in my opinion of it, you know, something happening after this June.
So in June is when the money is gone completely.
And I have been getting calls and messages from my colleagues, they're doing their taxes.
right now and they're realizing how little they're making right now and that's with some of the funding continuing and they don't know what's going to happen and then parents are starting to get rightfully concerned that these rates are going to have to go up because you cannot tell somebody oh you're only worth 10 again instead of 13 for taking care and educating the children in your you know classroom and there are some that are taking advantage of that seven toddlers and to me that is scary that you know
We're getting back into corners, basically, where you feel you have to do whatever you can to stay open.
And if that means burning out and putting too many kids in a classroom because it's now legal, because that was put in the budget, you're going to do it.
And that, to me, is also scary because it just...
just says that we don't care about our kids and it says we don't care about the teachers who are taking care of them and that they're unimportant and it's absolutely not true.
And so yeah, with all of this that's happening at the state and now the federal government with the freezing from health and human services of the funding to five states that has been temporarily paused due to a state attorney's lawsuits that came through last week.
That funding freeze is also connected to now every state is going to have to somehow show and prove that they're not committing fraud.
And it's really vague.
Nobody really knows what that means.
And so let's say they come up with, you know, they send it to Wisconsin and say, you have to prove this.
Wisconsin sends what they think will prove it.
And the Health and Human Services denies that.
That means then that the money won't come through.
And so how do you operate a business not knowing if you're going to be able to maintain
staffing, if for a family child care, pay your bills so you don't lose your house because family child care is in your house.
If you can't maintain your business, you will go bankrupt and lose your house.
And that's a huge deal.
And family child care average profits around $25,000, which means that's what you earn after spending all your money on the children that you receive from parents.
you know it just it just is absurd to me and the fact that they're pretending it's about fraud when we know that there's so much fraud everywhere in bigger ways and then those people end up in our government and so it's not about fraud it's an excuse to
say that people are bad and to take away from them instead of saying, Hey, yes, broad exists.
Let's figure out how to do it.
Let's make sure they're held accountable so that it doesn't happen again.
And we can have recourse and get our money back.
And that's what is like, that's what happened in Minnesota.
They caught, they were caught in Wisconsin.
We've had people, they were caught.
And that's the whole point of having the rules and accountability.
Well, and that's something there's a lot, there's a lot about it too.
It's like, first of all, that story was
It was new to us as a country.
It wasn't new to Minnesota.
It wasn't even new to the national media.
It was just new because a guy with a video camera decided to put it out there.
And then the state's being punished.
And I think for me, everything I'm hearing is that we have leaders both in the state as well as the federal government who do not see our children as something to both protect.
as well invest in.
And those investments and those protections have long term, wait for it, economical advantages too.
Not just social and being good to the people of your country or state or district or community, but also a country that takes care of their kids and educates their kids.
And that has a knock on effect for all of us.
Wouldn't you say, Kareen?
Oh, absolutely.
It also reduces crime for those who are concerned about crime.
Minnesota, a couple of decades ago, decided to take grant money instead of putting it into their prison system, penal system.
The Attorney General at the time said, no, put it in education system.
And they spend less as a state on their prison system than we do on our jailers.
there's a connection there, right?
And so yeah, so really just making sure that people understand that we don't fall into these traps of why would I let some random guy with a camera come into my place anyhow?
Like
come on, common sense people.
I'll talk to you soon and then later.
Everyone, folks, when we come back, we're talking budget surpluses.
The primary as well as the great whole milk nightmare is over.
Don't go anywhere.
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