Growing And Preserving Rural EMS with James Small (Hour 1)

From the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd

Alba.

and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Alba, leather producer and engineer, Mr. Aaron Zommers on the board.

It is six minutes past the hour of two o'clock on this Tuesday, June 17th, 2025.

It is a great day to be Wisconsinite.

Welcome in, everybody here at the World Headquarters of Civic Media, downtown Madison, where skies are partly cloudy right now.

It is sultry.

Gonna be in the 80s in Madison for highest today.

It is humid.

I can attest Walked over and got a coffee this morning before the show or before we start to get going here And it's already pretty pretty darn hot so I was not normally the studio is is freezing at least in the afternoon I'm wearing a sweater now today the one day that we could use a little air conditioning It's

pretty toasty.

It's pretty

toast.

I feel like a pop tart

Yeah, me too, just slowly cooking.

But have no fear, about three o'clock, the freezer will kick in.

Oh,

for sure.

I'm pretty confident.

This is partly cloudy.

I can barely walk outside and keep my eyes open.

It's so bright.

It is pretty bright out.

But it's going to be, hey, I'm ready for summer weather.

I'm not going to complain.

I've been wanting some summer weather, so I am ready for it.

Hopefully you're ready for a great show today.

Going to be a great one indeed.

Coming up at the bottom of this hour, we're gonna be joined in studio by James Small.

He is the Rural EMS Outreach Program Manager at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

James Small gonna be here to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart.

I know that many Wisconsinites are concerned about this is our EMS system, Emergency Management System.

Also, our EMTs as well.

Emergency services, because here's what's happened over the years, is we've seen more folks grow up and move away from rural areas, and then the population that's there is aging, and many of the people that are in charge of EMS EMT services in rural Wisconsin have either died off or simply gotten too old to do the job.

And a lot of younger folks

don't feel called to do that.

We're gonna talk about what this means for Wisconsin, what this means for the legislature and the governor, how they, and what this means for all of us across the state of Wisconsin.

And by the way, don't just think that this is only a rural, like you gotta go way up in the country.

They're in places like in Waukesha.

You drive 10 miles and you're essentially in the country.

Go to Green Bay.

Areas where you could drive 10 miles and you're basically in the country So this is an issue that is important to all of us or should be across the state of Wisconsin an hour number two Little what's worse for you today?

It's Tuesday.

That means taco Tuesday What's worse today taco bell or taco John's every

at the winner tonight.

Have you eaten it at taco John's?

I've eaten out of Taco John's, it's been a minute though.

Remind

me, I have a story about Taco John's.

All right, all right,

we'll get to that.

We'll do a Taco John's story in hour number two.

And also in the bottom of hour number two, very honored to be joined here at the desk in studio by Wisconsin State Representative Jody Emerson, a Democrat from the Eau Claire area.

She's been on the show once before when we took the show on the road, The Trigvie and Reed Galen.

up at Osio at the Norsky Nook and joined some pie with Representative Emerson.

She is the ranking member on the Assembly Committee for Universities and Colleges.

She is going to be here because that's where we're going to start the show, where we're going to end the show.

And that is on some major news happening just over a block away from where we're at in downtown Madison at the Wisconsin State Capitol.

Now, last night, if you follow me on the socials, Facebook, Twitter and the like,

The, uh, the follow sign is at all ball show at all ball show on Twitter X Twix and the town all ball show on Facebook.

And I posted late last night some breaking news from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the flagship university here in Madison of the University of Wisconsin system.

I know, I know it's now called the universities of Wisconsin.

Well, I still say the proper name.

is UW systems.

That's like, I like to refer to it as we had, uh, from our sources, gotten some breaking news.

We passed it along last night and it was this, that both mainly Democrats that I've talked to and staff in the Capitol and also a couple of Republicans that will still talk to me, tangentially confirmed by saying, well, you're not too far off.

And it was this devastating news.

Coming out of the Capitol that the Joint Committee on Finance Joint Finance Committee most powerful committee in the legislature controlled by Republicans made up of Assembly folks and senators only two Democrats on both sides So it controlled by Republicans our old friend and I say that sarcastically State Senator Howard Markline is the co-chair on the Senate side of course

University of Wisconsin Richland in Richland Center was closed a couple years ago and Howard Markline and his counterpart in the Assembly who is also on the joint finance committee how Mr. Kurtz Tony Kurtz said oh we can't we don't have the power there's nothing we can do we can't get another three million dollars in the state budget to save UW Richland I Don't want to go down that road because that isn't specifically what this is about today But the joint finance committee was leaked last night

We had a hand in that I'm proud to say By getting the word out that when the joint finance committee met today I saw the agenda on the agenda for today, which they got underway about an hour ago That was the budget of the University of Wisconsin system Governor Evers had requested over 300 million dollars in increases to the UW system Because during the Walker years the last time I worked at the Capitol the

UW system budget got gutted by Republicans in control.

So Tony Evers was trying to restore some of that money.

Remember, UW system led by President Jay Rothman, board of regents of the system are now controlled by appointees from Democratic Governor Tony Evers.

And they've made slashes.

They've closed half of the two year campuses, six of the 12th.

They made other cuts throughout the UW system.

Got rid of largely of DEI all at the behest to request primarily of assembly speaker Robin Voss and They thought they thought well if we play ball with these guys if we make some of these big cuts if we get rid of DEI, they'll be nice They'll be nice Remember the parable of the frog and the scorpion There's a scorpion that wants to cross the the river.

There's a frog by the bank

in the water.

And the scorpion says, if you just give me a ride on your back across the other side, I'll be so indebted to you.

And the frog says, yeah, but you're a scorpion.

You could sting me and kill us both.

And we drowned.

The scorpion says, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not like that.

I'm not like other scorpions.

You can trust me.

And finally convinces the frog to give him a ride.

And halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog.

The poison rushes into the frog and they both begin to drown.

And the frog looks at the scorpion and says, you gave me your word.

Why would you do this?

And the scorpion simply replies, because that's who I am.

That's my nature.

You'd be a system president, Jay Rothman thought that by being a more amiable frog.

That he could change the mind of Republicans in the state legislature that he could make things different But last night the scorpion that is politically UW or the Republican legislature Stung him and it was announced to leaked out that the joint finance committee today intended not only to not to use double negative They're not going to approve governor evers 300 million plus in increases

They're not even going to approve current funding levels that they intend today or intended perhaps now to cut 87 million dollars from the UW system budget and in talking to Democratic sources at the Capitol if that were to happen and if Republicans

in the legislature were to pass a bill that included $87 million in cut state of your system.

There is a feeling at least among some Democrats on the Senate side that they were then ready and prepared to call on Democratic Governor Tony Evers to not just line item uses veto pen, one of the most liberal veto pens in the country.

I don't mean that large liberal, but small L liberal has a lot of purview.

So the thought was that they would cut

They wouldn't even be able to use the line item to get rid of these terrible cuts and they might they may keyword may call on Democratic governor from their own party to veto the entire budget because remember unlike the US budget if Wisconsin legislature and governor don't come to terms don't pass a budget Government does not shut down state government does not shut down.

What happens is it continues on at the current level

for the next two years.

So if the governor were to veto the entire budget that included potentially 87 million in cuts to your system, that would essentially be an 87 million dollar gain for a system.

You understand where I went there?

That by cutting, by vetoing the budget that included, if it included 87 million in cuts, the governor was essentially saying, okay, UW, I know this is not what you want.

but at least you get to continue at current levels for two more years.

And so we put this out at our socials last night.

I know that other people after we did amplify that, I know that our guests coming up in the second hour, Jody Emerson was amplifying that last night in the Eau Claire area was going through education circles.

And today about an hour before the show, it was announced that the joint finance committee, guess what?

Decided to pull that from the agenda at least so far.

It's a very fluid situation Because apparently from what I'm told a lot of Republican legislators on the joint finance committee got a lot of calls for a lot of angry constituents saying you cannot kill the Wisconsin idea and So so far it has been pulled now also from what I'm told

That if they're to meet deadlines the joint finance committee has to do something with the UW budget by a week from today So coming up in hour two at 3 30 Really appreciate her fitting us into her very busy schedule Representative Jody Emerson is going to be sitting right next to me and give us a live update Perhaps we might actually see part of this motion by the Republicans and get a real number for you Maybe we won't know anything more but

This is the last 12 hours, 12 to 15 hours is great, a great example that when the truth is disseminated and people react, that results can happen.

So congratulations to each one of you out there who called your legislature this morning and put enough pressure on for them to at least temporarily reconsider this $87 million cut because I, Tom.

I talked to my former boss last night, former state senator Dale Schultz, who once chaired the university committee on the Senate side, was one Senate majority leader, longtime joint finance committee member.

He agreed.

There's no way that UW could absorb $87 million of cuts without most likely closing the remainder six two-year campuses across the state and very likely closing at least one four-year university in the state.

and or completely gutting colleges from within universities across the state.

It would be devastating to the Wisconsin idea.

What is the Wisconsin idea one person asked me last night?

And what are land grant universities?

And what's the connection to the Republican Party?

We'll explain all of that on the other side.

Don't go anywhere.

It's a busy Tuesday.

You're listening to the Todd Allball Show on the Civic Media.

Ready Network.

you

and having fun doing it.

Welcome back to the Todd Albal Show on the Civic Media Radio Network coming up after the bottom of the Our News update.

Of course, we have Pam Yankees standing by the fabulous Farm Babe, as she likes to call herself, the Midwest Farm Report.

Check out whether it's sports with Mike Clemens as well.

Then we're gonna have In Studio here, James Small, Rural EMS Outreach Program Manager at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, can now wait for that.

And then coming up in hour two at 3.30.

Wisconsin State Representative Jody Emerson, the ranking Democrat on the Assembly Committee on Universities and Higher Education.

Going to be here talking about this breaking news overnight.

We talked about it last night on our socials at All Ball Show and the Todd All Ball Show on Facebook that our sources told us that the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee

who is meeting right now.

They started at one o'clock on the agenda confirmed earlier or last night was the budget for the University of Wisconsin system, now known as the University of Wisconsin.

And our sources told us that the Republicans plan to introduce a motion today to gut the system to cut $87 million from the current.

budget, not from the 300 million plus that Governor Evers proposed, but to cut the current budget, 87 million, which would have devastating consequences on this university.

Now today, that motion so far has been pulled.

They could bring it back up on the agenda, this meeting could go on into the night.

We're told that University of Wisconsin's budget has to be taken up by a week from today.

So this is very fluid and coming up at hour two at 335, Representative Jody Emerson will be here to give us the latest.

But it's critical if you care about the universities to stay on top of this and do what you did this morning, call these legislators and tell them we're not going to give up the Wisconsin idea.

What is the Wisconsin idea?

One person asked me last night.

It was created or at least thought of.

Some people credit former Chancellor Van Nuys from, with the idea, saying that he wanted the university to extend to everyone.

It's largely summed up in the phrase that the university, that the borders, the borders of our university are the borders of our state.

In other words, that the university should not be limited to a building or even a campus, but should affect and help everybody's lives.

That's why you have a Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin extension program.

focused on rural communities and agriculture.

That's why you have economic development program that's run through the university.

It's why we have a medical school, a real medical program now to help people study at UW Madison, become doctors, and then settle and practice in rural communities that need these doctors.

And by the way, this is not a Republican or Democratic idea.

This is a Wisconsin idea.

It stems from the fact that University of Wisconsin is a land grant university.

It's a land grant university is an institution or higher education in the country that was designated by a state to receive the benefits from something called the Morrell Acts of 1862 and 1890.

Basically what happened was Southerners were absent during the Civil War as it turns out.

So I remember Republican these days Republicans were the good guys and they were guys at the time Republicans during the Civil War in Congress set up a funding system That would allow states to modernize their weak higher education system the morale acts of 1862 provided land in the western parts of North America at that time including Wisconsin

that states sold to fund newer existing colleges and universities.

The law specified that the mission of these institutions is to focus on the teaching of practical agriculture, science, military science, and engineering.

Although, quote, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, unquote, the mission was in contrast to the historic practice.

of existing colleges, which offered a narrow, classical curriculum based heavily on Latin, Greek, and mathematics.

That's where the old ivory tower image comes from.

So this went back and forth.

It was vetoed by President Buchanan, and it took Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, to sign this into law and create land-grant universities so that it was extending a higher education to the non-hoity-toity, my words.

Not the ivory tower, but let's let's let's create folks in agriculture I in Wisconsin the master cheese maker program of which we have people from all over the world Study here about cheese and agriculture How many short courses how many farmers have gone to short courses at Madison to learn agriculture and go back into their communities and This was led by Republicans and signed by Abraham Lincoln former Republican governor

of Wisconsin, I know that irritates some of my Democratic and progressive friends, Robert M. Fighting Bob LaFollette.

Bob LaFollette was Republican for his entire career until he left the party to create the progressive party and run for president.

He was a Republican in this state that fought for expansion of the Wisconsin idea and former Governor Republican Tommy George Thompson was a great, he's a graduate of UW Madison undergrad and law school and ended up being

the University of Wisconsin president, the system president for a couple of years after he was governor after he was in Washington.

And yet this current iteration of Maga Republicans of my former party in Madison up the road on the Capitol now wanting to gut this.

Why?

Like the scorpion because it's their nature now.

I sat in closed door committees, guys.

Where elected Republican officials?

Despised higher education this day despise the University.

Oh, just a bunch of liberals And yes, sure there are liberals there turns off like Catholics they're everywhere We're gonna stay on this it is a fluid situation

But the Wisconsin idea is still alive and well.

For now, we're going to talk to Jody Emerson, hour number two.

But come on back, when we return, we're going to have a conversation on rural EMS across the state.

Sitting right here will be James Smalls, the title ball show across Wisconsin on the Civic Media.

Ready?

Network.

I need somebody help, not just anybody help.

You know I need someone help.

Welcome back to the Tahleball show of the Civic Media Ready Network 35 minutes now past the hour two o'clock on this Tuesday, June 17th.

We'll continue to monitor this very fluid situation up the street here at the Joint Finance Committee.

Again, we're going to have State Representative Jody Emerson here live in the studio to talk about these potential cuts coming from the Joint Finance Committee.

But right now we turn our focus to another part of the University and joining us in the studio.

Equally as happy and proud and honored to have James Small, the Rural EMS Outreach Program Manager at the UW School of Medicine and Rural Health.

James, thanks for being with us.

How are you?

Well, thanks for having me on

today.

Well, it's our pleasure.

People that listen to the show regularly know I grew up in Richland Center, a town of 5,000 people in Southwest Wisconsin.

These rural issues are particularly important to me.

I had a couple of stints on the city council, Richland Center, and I actually chaired the police and fire commission, which we worked closely with the EMS directors of Richland County, that sort of thing.

This is something that I think is under talked about.

So I really appreciate your opportunity or the opportunity to have you here to to give some some light to this.

Before we get into that, tell us as we like to say a little bit about yourself, where did you grow up and how did you get into this?

So I grew up on Washington Island up in Northern Door County.

Oh my God, did you really?

I'm a graduate of Washington Island High School, which is the smallest public school in Wisconsin.

That

is amazing.

I've never met anybody who grew up in Washington Island.

So did your parents have roles or jobs on the island?

Yep, my dad's an excavating contractor and he also was on the fire department and was an EMT, or still is an EMT actually up there.

And my mom was a teacher at the elementary school.

Wow.

So let's just pause right there for a second.

What was it like growing up there?

I've been to Dora County.

I have never, it's part of my goal this summer is to get to Washington Island.

What was it like growing up there?

You know, I think all kids think there's nothing to do, right?

That's what I hear from my own kids living outside of Milwaukee.

Oh, there's nothing to do.

But I don't think that was really the case there.

There was always something to do.

You have a very strong sense of community there on the island.

Everybody's kind of looking out for each other, willing to step up and help each other.

So it's just, I think a very unique environment to grow up there culturally.

versus growing up in a big city, for instance.

The people just have that connection and they just intuitively know that they're connected.

And I think that's something that I've carried with me through my career now over 30 years into emergency responding.

That's amazing.

What was the population or is the population of Washington Island more or less?

In the winter, it's about 700 or so year round.

And then in the summer, that goes up to several thousand with all the summer homes and all the tourism and stuff.

I didn't mean to go out down a tangent, but I've never met anybody who grew up there, and I've heard nothing but spectacular things about it from people who have traveled there.

So, all right, so you grew up in Washington Island, you graduated from the smallest high school in Wisconsin, and then what?

Well, I started in EMS actually on the island in 1993 while I was still in high school, and then went off to college.

I went to Carroll in Waukesha.

got a bachelor's degree there.

My bachelor's degree is actually in criminal justice.

I started as a pre-med major, found that that probably wasn't the right path for me.

And at the same time, I was doing additional EMS training and got a paramedic license while I was also working my bachelor's degree.

And I made a pivot and worked in law enforcement also for 25 years, left that a couple of years ago.

and have just kind of made a career out of being an emergency responder.

Spent the last 11 years in my career as both the police chief and fire chief, and I did that in two different municipalities here in Wisconsin, came to the university.

Well, it was July of 22 when we started the EMS outreach program.

So this is a relatively new program within the university

then?

Yes, yeah.

July of 2022 is when we launched.

Wow, that's incredible.

And how is it going so far?

Well,

there's no lack of

work.

And I'm not trying to drag a political rabbit hole, but you know, funding, we're going to get more into the funding a little bit, but I mean, the funding for the university in its entirety right now is a hotbed issue.

I would hope, to goodness, that from wherever side of the aisle people are on, that everyone would recognize the importance of the program like this.

Our program is 100% federally funded.

which has brought some uncertainty in the spring.

And I think that's now been resolved, I think, from what it sounds like the funding is secured now going forward for the Office of Real Health program that exists in every state in the country.

As far as in the state, a lot of this, and when we talk about EMS, we need to look back to that this is a functional local government, first and foremost, this is a service that's provided by the government for the betterment of the community.

And at its base level, it's a town city or village providing that service in one way or another.

Although you do see some counties that are doing countywide systems in Wisconsin.

But from a political standpoint, I think this is a really unique space relative to some other issues, because it's not really partisan.

I haven't had anybody...

come up in and talk about it in a partisan way.

There's different ideas on how to fix it, but there's a general consensus that there's a lot of challenges in this space.

There's a lot of funding issues in this space, and there's a workforce issue in this space.

That's agreed upon.

Just how do you get to those solutions varies a little bit, but I think that's more based on personal philosophy than partisanship.

Gives me some hope and that's good to hear that people aren't trying to partisanize this because in my opinion it should not be.

Help us understand a little bit because we hear that you need to be school of medicine and rural health.

So what is the mission of this relatively new program?

Are you training people, giving them basically degrees in EMS, rural EMS, or is this to be advocacy for local government?

What's the mission?

Most of my work is done with local government.

So our goal of the program is to work on reliability and sustainability of the EMS response system itself.

So a lot of that depends on funding from local government.

It depends on organizational structure of the systems.

We're not doing anything with patient care or system quality at all.

There's other excellent training providers to provide that training.

That's not something we need to duplicate.

But where the gap really existed was to work with these...

local governments, particularly the small local governments that don't have the resources to help walk them through that process, whether it's how do you increase funding?

How do you maybe take your two volunteer ambulances and push them together and create one full-time ambulance and split the cost between the two communities?

A lot of those kind of discussions.

We're talking with James Small, the Rural EMS Outreach Program Manager at the UW School of Medicine and Rural Health.

James.

When you look at the current state of things across the state, what do you find the biggest challenge?

I'll use that word instead of problem.

What's the biggest challenge for these municipalities?

And the second part of that, what's the cause in your opinion?

I'm not sure on the cause.

I think that we've seen a decline nationwide in the availability of EMS services, particularly with volunteer services that there's just a

decline in availability of volunteers, I think is the best way to say that.

I don't think that there's a lack of people wanting to go into it.

Our licensing data doesn't say that.

Our licensing data is pretty consistent going back over a decade that at any given point we have about 18,000 people that have licenses in the state.

What we do see when you get into the licensing data is at about seven.

seven and a half percent of them are leaving the field every year and turning in their license.

And then that's not even counting the people that are going from like one employer to another and so on and some of that attrition.

So maintaining a workforce, when you think about that, every 12 years we have to train the equivalent of the entire workforce, that's problematic.

And then as we've seen the cost increase,

that becomes very challenging I think for the particularly for the small municipalities to make that lift and and look use the tools that are available to create the finances that are necessary to pay for things because they may be going from a full-time staff member and hiring you know or a volunteer staff member to a full-time staff member which is considerably more expensive and then we also have like hyperinflation in this space whether it's on capital equipment

personnel costs are outpacing CPI by two to three fold, going back almost 10 years.

So, you know, all at once, where a few years ago you might have been hiring a full-timer for $50,000 a year, that position might be 80 or 90 now.

Wow.

And

is that straight pay benefits on top

of that?

And benefits on top of that.

And as you know, health insurance is anybody's guess how that goes year to year.

So it's gotten really, really expensive, really, really fast.

you know, when it was a volunteer system, you know, back in the 80s, when a lot of these systems really came of age, they started in the 70s and kind of gelled in the 80s, there wasn't 9-1-1 yet.

So the access of the system had a barrier in it, which 9-1-1 is erased.

We have 9-1-1 across the state of Wisconsin, across most of the country at this point.

So it's very easy to access the 9-1-1 system.

but then having that capacity to handle these increases too.

Because if you look at some of these systems, you know, if they formed back in the early 70s, they might have done like a dozen calls that first year.

That same system might be doing like a couple thousand now.

Really?

And you're trying to do it with the same base that you built it off of, of these volunteers that came in that wanted to come help the community and they needed a first aid card and a CPR card because there wasn't even EMS licensing yet.

For now it's a couple hundred hours of training to get in the door.

Do you see, I've heard this from other people around the state,

Do you see an increase of these calls?

Yes, partly because of the access to the 911 system, which I think we can all say is a good thing, but also an aging population where it's no longer someone God forbid is having a heart attack only.

It's somebody fell in the house and their spouse can't help get them up or they're there alone.

And so they call the fire department, they call the EMS.

And a lot of this is just life service calls, is it not?

Yes, and there's been an annually increasing call volume statewide that's been going on for decades now There was just a study done by Department of Health Services looking at what the reasons for an EMS call were and one in six EMS calls in Wisconsin is for a fall like you're describing The other thing that they found during that study is that Wisconsin has is number one in fall related mortality in the United States Really, so we have lots of falls and we have lots of people that die from falls

I did not, that's fascinating, disturbing, but fascinating.

Hopefully not that I don't do too many brandy old fashions and they go, I'm not sure, but I hope that's not the case.

But very, very interesting.

Let's talk a little bit about this workforce more because you're much more obviously, much more versatile than I am.

I know a few years back, a good friend of mine, Troy Everson, which was integral in the Viroqua and Vernon County EMS and EMT system.

He now does that down in Burlington, Wisconsin.

And I know he helped get through a piece of legislation years ago where high school students that were taking courses to be

the volunteers were allowed to actually help actually do some of the stuff as long as they were with a licensed person on the team.

And that really opened up and not just created more workforce, but also was almost like an apprentice type of training.

Have you seen that have an effect?

Yes, you're seeing a number of different regions around the state.

The technical colleges are running what they call a dual enrollment program where high school seniors will come in and learn a trade.

And one of those programs might be fired EMS.

been of high demand for that.

I've seen the technical college systems be very successful with that.

There's also some high schools that have partnered with other training centers to offer EMT training right in the schools.

And La Follette School of Public Policy just did an EMS-related report that came out in the last couple weeks.

And one of their key recommendations was expansion of the high school EMS programs to provide somebody access to a workforce.

Because those kids that are going through those programs right now are going to find a job pretty quickly after coming out of it.

And a

good pain with...

Good benefits generally?

Yes.

Yep.

This is going to be a job that probably has a living wage with good benefits, working for a government, right out of high school, potentially in some cases, and then continue on with further training, like paramedic training and so on.

But it's, I think that's one tool that we need to look at, but just access to training in general.

You know, when we did our ambulance reliability study a couple of years ago, one of the things that we found is about 13% of

services had an hour or more drive to a training center.

Well, that's a huge barrier.

If you're depending on volunteers to come in and they're going to work their regular job all day, drive an hour to training, spend four hours in training, drive an hour home and then go back to their job the next day, their real job.

And then they're going to do that 50 times.

And that's that's a lot to ask of somebody who wants to come in and volunteer.

So finding other access points is going to be

Or alternative ways to delivering that training is something we need to

do.

You have a question.

Text us on the Civic Media app.

We'll maybe take away your questions after this.

More conversation with James Small from Rural EMS Outreach Program at UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

You're listening to the Todd Albal Show on the Civic Media radio network.

Set out for a brand new start He's an island boy Now he's an island boy Living his life where stress is the enemy

Welcome back to the Tahoe Ball Show on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Eight minutes before the hour of three o'clock at the top of the hour.

News update for you.

Come back with what's worse, a taco edition, and then at the bottom of next hour, State Representative Jody Emerson on the breaking news, the fluid news, the Joint Finance Committee on Proposed Cuts to the tune of $87 million to UW System, which has been pulled so far from JFC.

We'll update you on the bottom of the hour on that.

But right now, we are joined, as it turns out,

by a real life island boy, James Small, rural EMS outreach program manager at the UW School of Medicine and Rural Health, not from St.

Croix, but rather Wisconsin's own Washington Island.

And over the break, James, we're talking maybe, maybe we could do a show together from Washington Island later in the year.

I think that would be fun.

Maybe we could.

Do it right off the duck on the ferry or something like that.

I'm people.

I am 100 percent down.

So don't toy with me because I'm down for this.

By the way, our own Parker Olson, the producer for Pat Crite Low's show in the morning says, take Crite Low's pontoon boat there.

Well, Parker, great suggestion.

I don't believe the waterways are navigable from Lake Wissota to Washington Island.

But maybe I don't know.

We may have to portage at some point.

But it's a beautiful place, right?

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Well, I look forward to that nervous anticipation.

That'd be super cool.

Let's finish our discussion here because I'm really, really enjoying this talking about rural EMS, rural EMTs.

We talked a little bit before the break here, James, about the challenges looking at workforce.

Maybe some of these new high school, I'm going to call them an apprentice program.

Maybe that's not the right word.

But essentially, that's what it is.

I think this is fantastic because so many young people today are

and look for whatever reason I can't afford to go into college or maybe even technical school, but here's a program you can get into yet in high school.

As you said, potentially get out, have a life-sustaining job, and you're helping the community.

One of the things that I want to get your take on this, growing up in a personal center, my uncle, my uncle Basel was a volunteer firefighter for years and years and years.

His whole family were very involved in the community.

I knew people that were, we used to have EMTs and firefighters in our church and go to some

Monday morning, they have pagers on and that pager would, they'd have to leap out of the choir loft or out of the pew to go down.

And it seems like we have fewer of those folks in our communities.

I guess my argument or my thought is people are, some of us are moving away from our communities where we grew up and the aging population.

But I also think with other activities, gaming, you know, screens that we don't celebrate our local EMS volunteer people enough

Does marketing play into this?

I

think so.

That's actually another key recommendation out of the La Follette study that they did was to look at how we're messaging this and look at some kind of a public information plan on bringing forth what this industry is all about.

But I think when you look at the volunteers, everybody's having difficulty finding volunteers.

cultural sociological event that's happened in our country.

And I don't know that there's a decline in it.

The conventional wisdom says that the increased training standards led to a decline in the number of volunteers.

I don't believe that that's the case.

I think that what we're seeing is just the same thing the church is seeing in the Lions Club and the Rotary Club and everything else where, you know, even if you have a group of volunteers, you probably have a small handful of people that are doing 80% of the work and then the other 15 are doing the other 20% things like that.

And we see that really commonly in the EMS systems, particularly the small rural ones where there's maybe four people doing 80% of the work and then there, you know, 10 people might

fill in the other 20%.

Because when you look at running an ambulance, that's 17,520 hours a year that has to be staffed to staff an ambulance 24-7365, like it's required.

That's a lot.

And

many of these rural communities, now at least some I should say, are going to private services because they simply don't have the folks locally to volunteer or even pay them, right?

Yep.

that's common to see municipalities close their ambulance service and then contract with another entity.

It might be another municipally owned ambulance neighboring them.

It might be a private entity that they come in.

It's becoming increasingly common too to see the municipalities collaborating and sharing that cost because the cost is so high now.

Just running your own ambulance to do a hundred calls a year.

having to staff it potentially with full-time staff because you're looking at one ambulance staffed with full-time staff with capital equipment costs and station and stuff you're probably looking at a million dollars a year you know and most of these small municipal budgets might be just a few hundred thousand dollars in some of these townships so it's just

way beyond their means.

Time has

always gone too fast.

We'd love to have you back either here or Washington Island, whichever we can work out in a future show.

Is there something I have not asked you yet that you want to make sure people across the state know about this program and or anything you want to say about funding?

Your deal?

I think the biggest thing right now is if somebody's interested in this career, come into it.

Come try it.

Go take a class.

There's all the technical college systems have EMS training centers associated with them.

Go down to your local volunteer fire department.

Even if EMS isn't for you, maybe the fire department's for you.

But find a way to get involved in your community.

That's what our small communities have been based on for...

you know, centuries at this point and build that sense of community back.

And these departments are really integral in our small communities to building that sense of community.

So get out and be part of it.

If people want to find you or the program, is there a website or anything like that you want to give out?

Yep.

Wisconsin Office of Rural Health.

W-O-R-H dot org slash E-M-S is our E-M-S information.

My email address directly is small five at whisk.edu so small5 at w-i-s-c.edu.

Cool, we'll put those in the show notes and we've got your contact information so we can certainly get people in touch with you.

We didn't even get to touch on, I'd like to do this at Future Show, the Emergency Management Directors in these communities, because with climate change and stuff, it seems like more flooding, more things like that, more tornadoes, and those are also integral to our communities.

Yeah, and this you know EMS is part of that emergency response framework So if that isn't there and and you have an ambulance that doesn't respond.

That's that's an important part of

James small growing for Washington Island with all your experience in EMS You seem the perfect person for this job.

You're part of what makes Wisconsin great.

Thanks for being here really appreciate you

Thanks for having me today.

Our pleasure.

Come on back We'll talk a little about what's worse and more of the joint finance committee after this you're listening to cross Wisconsin.

I wish you were on island

on the Civic Media Ready Network.

From the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.

Across Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.

and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Albaugh, along with Mr. Aaron Zammer, our producer and engineer.

It is now six minutes past the hour of three o'clock.

Welcome to hour number two of the big program here on Tuesday, June 17th, 2025.

It is a great day to be a Wisconsinite here in downtown Madison, world headquarters of Civic Media, where little cloudy out Zammer's, but still pretty nice, right?

Yeah, I'm glad it's getting a little cloudier before it was extremely bright and like I said I walked outside I wanted to go get a chocolate croissant because it sounded good and I Had my left eye closed and my right eye barely open just enough to see where I was I

say this with love if I didn't know you better.

I swear you're a vampire

Because you don't like the sun, you don't like the heat, you like everything closed up tight.

Yeah?

Yeah, that's fair.

But you're not, I

say- And I'm not supposed to eat garlic, my doctor said.

Or are we slimming it?

Of course you're not.

Of course you're not.

Oh, we kid because we care so much.

All right, it's, how about that, by the way?

Many thanks to James Small, our last guest.

Not only was he spectacular talking about rural EMS and rural health, we got an invitation out of the thing to take us to his native Washington Island in Door County to do this show.

And he showed me a photo.

on his phone of a beautiful pristine beach where we could do the show.

That would be fantastic.

So I'm down where you mark it on your calendars, folks.

We'll come to you live from Washington Island later this year.

I cannot wait.

That's the kind of guest you want.

Somebody that brings knowledge and also says, oh, by the way, I can help you get an island.

Absolutely.

Todd

loves

islands.

I do love islands.

Absolutely.

Coming up later this hour, another great guest.

Wisconsin assembly representative.

I guess that would be a nice little redundant, isn't it?

Assembly person, Jody Emerson, who is a Democrat of the Eau Claire area.

She has been a key figure in staying on top of the situation.

She's the ranking member of the Assembly Committee on Universities and Colleges.

And she was one of the sources that I was watching and listening to last night.

Got pretty late and it leaked out.

Not just her but other people were leaking out that the joint finance committee was meeting today at one o'clock Which they did in session now and on the agenda was the University of Wisconsin system budget And that they were looking at cutting eighty seven million dollars from the state budget Many thanks to all of you who called your legislators this morning particularly those on the joint finance committee

and said, no, we don't want to cut and gut the Wisconsin idea, i.e.

that the borders of our university are the borders of our state.

And so right before we came on the air, it was announced that they were pulling, at least for now, that motion to gut the UW system.

We're gonna have Morph with Representative Emerson at the bottom of the hour, get the latest for you, look at the numbers, look at what this potential cuts could mean, and

sources within the Democratic Senate caucus telling me that if keyword, if those $87 million cuts were to be approved by the legislature in an actual bill and went to the governor, that they would encourage Governor Tony Evers to veto the entire thing.

Because unlike at the federal level, if you don't have a budget in Wisconsin, you just continue on at current funding levels.

And that would be better.

Some Democrats are telling me privately than approving a budget with $87 million in cuts from current levels, from current levels.

So Representative Emerson will be here at the bottom of the hour to discuss all of that and take some of your phone calls and questions as well.

Beautiful day as we send it.

As I was, let's take a look at the old Sam Davidson street cam out there.

Sam is up in Northern Wisconsin now at the big Boy Scout camp this summer.

But he leaves behind the Sam Davison Street Cam.

There it is.

Look at that.

It's a picturesque day in downtown.

To the right, you see on the stream there for all of our friends watching on Facebook, Twitter, Twix, YouTube, and the like.

You see the beautiful Glass Overture Center, great performing arts center on the right there.

And on the left, that little triangular building there is one of my many failures in life.

Where my first coffee shop was supposed to go After after

I left the legislature.

Is it the one right on the corner?

Yeah, the one right there on the corner

the one That's now a plant store that I've never seen anyone walk into or out.

Yes

That's the one and because and right to the left of that is the castle and Doyle building which was one of the first fire stations in Madison historical building and I paid for the engineering and a beautiful set of plans

drawn up by opn architects no finer architects in the world than opn right here in Madison I'm serious about that and they drove these beautiful plans opn to have a beautiful coffee bar in that space and then for reasons of which we will not get into now that was killed

But my $25,000 still lives in that building.

I knew it was this area.

I didn't realize it was that exact

building.

I tell people, anytime I get too high on my horse and get a little haughty,

I

just gotta look out the window to see, yeah, Todd, not everything you do works out.

It's a good reminder to keep a guy grounded.

But it's a beautiful part of Madison.

We're right downtown Madison here.

All right, Thomas.

It's 12 minutes past the hour of three o'clock.

Time once again for what's worse.

Let's go.

Time

once again for what's worse.

No prize money involved.

Nothing to give away, but it is your chance to have your voice heard each and every day across all 11 civic media radio stations.

The biggest privately held.

radio network in Wisconsin second only to the great Wisconsin public radio network, but we're private as it turns out.

No better place to advertise than civic media.

Give our folks a ring at civicmedia.us to figure out how you could be one of our great partners, one of our great sponsors here.

All right, Zombers, it's Tuesday.

A lot of people call it Taco Tuesday.

Taco has taken on a new meeting here politically last year.

Last few weeks.

A lot of people say it stands for Trump always jokes.

No Trump always Now I can't even say it see I had it in the tip of my tongue and I got some hot sauce on it and No, I went back find it Trump always chickens out.

That's it Trump always chickens out Trump they say

top

wrong Trump always chickens out, but we're not talking about it that way right now a lot of people love Jeff Petricus

for a great sports writer, known for his love of Taco Bell, but some people are partial to the Taco Johns.

Some people would say it sends you to the John.

Anyway, what's worse, Taco Bell or Taco John?

855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.

What's worse, Taco Bell or Taco Johns?

eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five two four eight four two or you can text us on the specific media app.

There are some things that come into the text line that amuse me, but I cannot read them on the air.

And I know exactly what you're talking about.

Who even tells people that?

Anyway, tune in tonight for our after hours show only available online.

No, not really.

But wouldn't that be fun?

Anyway, what's worse, Taco Bell or Taco John's, 855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.

I had a Taco John story.

You

do, that's right.

Years ago, I think before Taco John's were really in or cool in Wisconsin, a family friend of my parents, Terry Linnander and his wife, Mary, Terry and Mary.

Linnander, in South Dakota, they started, they were one of the first people to have a Taco John's franchise.

And I don't remember what it was called, but it was like a dessert.

It was like a fried tortilla.

And then it had like applesauce and cinnamon or something on top of it.

Oh my goodness gracious.

It was fantastic.

It does sound delicious.

It was really, really good.

I'm not sure if they still have it or not.

Honest to goodness until this piece, until this bit.

I didn't know Taco John was still around.

Oh

yeah, there's one in the area.

I can't remember exactly where, but I drive past it.

Fairly often.

Oh All right.

Well, very uh Greg and genocide depot says Taco Bell is worse eight five five seven five two four eight four two Also the civic media app you can download it at your Apple or Android device if you don't have it takes less than a minute It's free on your app store.

It's what CBS is Gale King calls a deal the civic media app Cam and Appleton saying Taco Bell is worse.

I'm just gonna leave it at that

Taco Bell is worse.

Uh, so there you go.

Also, Tony on YouTube watching says Taco Bell does not pass.

Taco

John's.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Taco John's does not pass the vibe check.

Salty tater tots and no crunch wrap.

The flavors aren't flavoring.

Really?

I didn't know you could get either one of those things.

Oh yeah, I mean, the image we have here shows two of the main draws for each place.

The Taco Bell image has a picture of the Doritos Locos Tacos, which I know are pretty popular.

It's, for those of you who are not aware, first of all, how?

Second of all, it's just a hard shell taco, but the shell is a folded Dorito.

And then Taco John's shows their Potato Olay's, which are basically flat tater tots that are very salty, and thus I like them.

Very good.

So you can't have garlic, but you can have salty tater tots.

Oh, I am encouraged to do so.

Heather, listening up a beautiful WCFW.

Oh, Claire, watching on Facebook says both are gross, but my classroom is almost adjacent to Taco John's just down the block.

And I do get a craving just like Zommer's.

for potato Olay's from time to time.

Now, here's the question.

When you order a potato Olay, you have to go, I want a potato Olay.

Olay.

And do you like a thing like a like a Matador?

Is that required?

Yeah.

So ours is completely not amused Terry bar own Terry bar watching on YouTube says Aaron is a taco expert

I would not say I'm a taco expert, but I would say I'm a taco enjoyer

Welcome back Terry.

By the way, she helped us out with getting onto our website Interview we had yesterday with a great pollinator person.

So thank you Terry for that and welcome back Terry's been she was on an Arctic world tour She was saving penguins, which I thought was fantastic and bringing great music around the world

So check out Terry this weekend on Max Inc Radio.

I'm sure she'll be talking about all of it.

Sounds fantastic.

Joseph, watching on YouTube says, it's been a, uh, been a Taco Johns fan since they opened in Rapid City.

There you go.

When I was a kid, four tacos for a buck back then.

They also had the fry bread.

Maybe that's what, yes, the fry bread, apple cinnamon dessert that I'm, that Todd mentioned.

So the bell is worse.

Yeah.

I, I, I mean that with that fry bread was ab, it was amazing.

I've tried to replicate over the years at home.

I've come close, but no cigar.

What's worse, Taco Bell or Taco John's?

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

Any other tech summers you want to get to there?

Let's see.

Roger and Steven's point, up in point, says, if you want a delicious laxative, it's Taco Bell.

I don't know.

It doesn't have that effect on me.

No, I think it's certain things, Brad.

You know, I don't know, I don't want to get into it.

Fair

enough.

People are happy their lunch.

Kurt Madison, listening on WMDX says, if you tasted a bite of it in a blind taste test, could you tell the difference?

Absolutely.

That's a

great

point.

100% of the time, I'm convinced I could tell the difference between Taco Bell and Taco God's.

And a basic

taco?

All right.

Judy.

In Lodi, listening to WMDX says Taco John's has better food overall.

Taco Bell is worse.

I do like Nacho Cheese Doritos, Loco Tacos from Taco, something, screen change, sorry.

From Taco Bell.

All right, from Taco Bell.

All right, we'll come back.

Gazzama and I will give you our what's the worst for the day.

And then we have an on this date, 250 years ago today.

Actually, it was tomorrow.

But we're going to put you head like it was today.

Don't go anywhere.

It's The All Ball Show on the Civic Media.

Ready?

Network.

It's not almost show of the Civic Media Arena number 22 has the hour of three o'clock on Tuesday, June 17.

Zombers, why don't you dial up?

Taco Grande by Weird Al.

Taco Grande by Weird Al.

I'm not usually a big fan of Weird Al, but that one was good.

I don't think I've heard that

one before.

I'm not super familiar with it either.

Yeah, all

right.

The question of the hour today is what's worse?

I've been a foolishness for the day.

What's worse?

Taco Bell.

or Taco John's, 855-752-4842, 855-752-4842, or text us on the Civic Media app like Dave did in beautiful New Berlin.

So did Taco John's win a Nobel Prize?

That's the dad joke to the day father's day is over, but that's good.

That's a good dad joke Dave well done I'm very honored very happy now.

Here's the kind of people you want here's the kind of people on the show Here's the kind of people you want representing you in the state Legislature someone who does serious work and helps the people of Wisconsin But also it's just a real human being and it has a sense of humor We last talked to her up at the norsky nook in beautiful Osio, Wisconsin and here she is now

Live in our studio.

We're gonna talk to her about some serious things here after the bottom of the hour, but state representative Jody Emerson

Representative Emerson, thanks for coming on a couple of minutes early.

Thanks for having me.

Good to see you again, Todd.

It's great to see you again.

Last time.

I like these interviews much better when we can do it over pie in Osceum.

Agreed.

Agreed.

If I could do a show a couple of times a week from the Norskeen Nook, I would do it.

But I don't have the budget for that or the waistline.

So I got to keep doing them here.

Real world problem.

I know, right?

Exactly.

So thanks for joining us for our goofiness here.

What's worse, Representative Taco Bell or...

Taco John's?

Well, I think there's a reason in my family we call it Taco Hell, so.

Sorry, that was just an FCC find, they're all taken.

As long as it's not an F-bomber

find.

Okay, good.

I'll remember that for our next segment then, so.

I appreciate that.

But I do have a funny story about Taco John's, my husband, we were at the Taco John's in Osio, actually, and some guy looks up at the menu and he's like, I'll take some of them there, Taco.

Potato Oli's.

So that one is stuck for the last 20 years.

But if you're in Osio, the home of the Norski nook, you can't blame the guy for calling him Potato Oli's.

Oli Alina's.

I think that's fantastic.

It's great.

Yeah.

We're very proud of our Norwegian Scandinavian heritage here in Wisconsin.

What's worse Taco Bell or Taco John's?

I think I have to say Taco John's go against the grain a little bit

here.

Honestly, mostly just because I've had more Taco Bell and I have a few items on their menu that I really like.

I'm a fan

of the Crunchwrap Supreme and the, what's it called?

Casorito is just cheese like a lot.

It's super fake cheese, but it tastes really good.

But it tastes good.

That's fine.

Your Wisconsin card is revoked for liking fake cheese.

I like that specific fake cheese, but it's

fair.

Well done.

Well done.

I would say Taco Bell is worse just because I like the apple dessert cinnamon thing in Taco John's.

That's really good stuff.

There you go.

OK, here's a little on the state 250 years ago for everybody.

Actually, it was yesterday, but we had a busy show yesterday.

On this date, or at least yesterday, June 16th in 1775, George Washington made a brief but important speech in the Continental Congress.

He accepted their unanimous choice for him to become general and commander-in-chief of the American forces.

Washington accepted the job with extreme humility.

In the first sentence of his speech, he expressed his doubts that his abilities and military experience were equal to the job.

Washington came right out and said, I do not think of myself equal to the command of which I am honored with.

But Washington promised to exert every power he possessed in the, quote, glorious cause, unquote, of the war for independence.

Then he concluded by requesting that Congress pay him nothing, but only reimburse him for his expenses.

During the ensuing seven years of the American Revolutionary War, there were those who did indeed doubt Washington was equal to the job.

Fortunately, for history, Washington proved the doubters wrong.

On this date, well, yesterday, on this date, 250 years ago, Representative, we're going to get into some serious things after the, after the break here, but.

Just hearing that story, to me is at the essence, should be at the example is set by the father of our country of what it meant to be a representative and a servant of the people.

Some of this said, I just doing this because I love my country and I wanna do it for the cause.

I'm not in this for the money.

You

know.

By how things have changed.

Right?

And it reminds me of Trivia Olsen that comes on this show a lot says that there are politicians that wanna be.

And there are politicians that want to do.

And I think we need more people in elected office that want to do stuff.

I think so too.

And I'm hoping we get a few more of them over the next few years,

so.

How long have you been, this is your second?

This is my fourth term.

Fourth term already, wow, I did not know that.

Yeah, I'm 22, can

you?

Looks fabulous, by the way.

Yeah, absolutely, I believe that, 100%.

But I mean, you look at so many people now in, we have new people.

I think Christian Phelps by your area, people who are doing this because they want to serve.

And I think that's a really healthy thing for Wisconsin's democracy.

I think we see the closer you are to the people, whether it's school board, city council, county board, even state government, more people are doing that because they want to help their community.

Once we get into Washington,

You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater on that

one.

I appreciate you bringing up local school boards and counting because those folks, it's a very simple remuneration.

It's really not a salary, really.

We had James Small on the rural EMS outreach program at UW School of Medicine and Public Health last hour.

I think it's still important to remember all the folks across the state who still volunteer and still, we hear so many of the things that are wrong with our state and country and there are, but I think it's important to take a minute to say, and you encountered this, I'm sure as you go to parades and other things in your district, there are a lot of great folks in the state.

There really are and that's the best part of this job is meeting and connecting with people and especially with the new maps, meeting and connecting with a lot of new people and hearing new perspectives and I think it's wonderful and that's truly

community service.

100 percent.

We're going to take a short break.

A update from Pam Yankee, Midwest Farm Report News, whether in sports.

Come on back.

Talk more with Representative Jody Eberson about the Joint Finance Committee and the UW system.

Give you the latest.

fun doing it welcome back the title ball show on the civic media ready to work 35 minutes now past the hour of three o'clock on this Tuesday June 17th 2025 glad to have you along Zomers on the board if uh if you have a question

For our next guest, feel free to call or text in on the Civic Media app.

Call the number.

It's 855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

Sitting here in studio, always glad to have her, as you might have heard last segment.

She was kind enough to join us for what's worse.

Gonna get a bit more serious now though.

Last time she joined us was Athenord Skeena Nook up in Osceola, Wisconsin.

She is a state representative in the Eau Claire area.

Beautiful Chippewa.

She is Joni Emerson, and she is the ranking member for Democrats on the Assembly Committee on Universities and Colleges.

Representative, again, welcome.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks for

having me, Todd.

It's great to have you here in person.

I want to start off with, because of this breaking news, we put out something on our socials last night, and many thanks to my sister, who's, I'm not sure if she's directly in your district, but she's in the area there.

You know, Claire, and let's put that up, Heather, on, watching us on Facebook says,

Representative Emerson, thanks for speaking with the Memorial High School Student Dems Group this year.

My daughter really appreciated your kindness and thoughts.

Well, I didn't

know that.

Aw, that's sweet.

How about that?

Well, yeah.

But my sister took my youngest niece, who just graduated this year at Memorial.

took her this last summer when Vice President Harris made that appearance, you know, Claire.

And it was a, she was, at first, my niece was like, well, I don't really know.

And then she was kind of like, so-so.

And my sister, so they got back to the car.

And my niece just got kind of emotional and was like, that is so amazing.

And to see a woman in that position.

And I think it's just really healthy and great to see a female legislator come into these high schools and say, you know what, you could do this too.

Well, I think that's so important.

I think we work to achieve what we can see in other people.

And so even though somebody might not look just like me, having a woman in that position, we've had men in that position.

I think.

you know, and that's part of the reason why I do this and why I care about colleges and universities, because we know that that younger generation is so critically important to the health of Wisconsin and to all of us, and we need to inspire it.

You know, we all had people who inspired us.

100%.

One way or the other, good or bad sometimes.

Right, influence,

just,

yeah.

Absolutely.

That, you know, it's great to be in that position, to be able to do

that.

My sister updated, or let me know, you posted on your Facebook last night about

these remarkable changes I to get a little bit of reporting my own contact is a couple of the people that state capital is still talk to me and other places and said no this is this is legit that the

Joint Finance Committee, the Budget Writing Committee, we had Senator Kelder Royce on the program yesterday.

She's part of that, one of four Democrats on the committee putting this budget together.

They were gonna take up the university, I still call it UW system, I know it's-

I will always call it the system.

Thank you.

Let's just agree on that one going forward today.

100%.

And they were gonna take up the budget and you were the one of the first people to put this out there and then we put it on our socials, that they were looking at cutting 87.

million dollars not from Governor Evers 300 million plus a proposal on his version of the budget not from current spending but 87 million

yeah I mean so right now we've got one of the biggest asks UW system had it Governor Evers put it in his budget asking for 855 additional million dollars

for this year's budget.

And what we were hearing rumblings about yesterday is that they were gonna actually be cutting 87 million, I think, is what we were hearing.

So not even just doing what they did last year, but actually taking money away.

And I mean, that just puts a panic through.

And I think it's also not only really bad forethought because...

the universities are importers of people into our state.

We bring people in from Minnesota and Illinois and Iowa and other states.

They feel like other countries sometimes.

Let's not talk about those Vikings.

But, and then some of them stay here and they establish their careers and they establish their families here.

And when we're looking at being an aging state,

The way that we bring people in is by having family-friendly policies, which includes having really high-quality K-12 schools.

Well, you know, we worked on that one in joint finance last week.

That didn't come out the way that I would like to see it.

And now we're looking at the university system.

If we want to train the teachers of tomorrow, the engineers of tomorrow, the doctors, the nurses, the thinkers of tomorrow to develop the technologies of an industry that doesn't even exist right now, but is maybe going to take over our world in the next 15 years.

You know, we need our universities to be strong and we also need them all over the state too.

We cannot just have one central location in Madison.

People need to be able to be close to home because

our higher education system isn't just for 18 to 22 year olds anymore.

You go back.

I think about what college was like when I was there a thousand years ago.

I was

a thousand plus.

I went to school in the early 90s in college.

We were super excited that we had a quote unquote computer lab in the basement of the dorm.

It had four computers in there.

And you'd bring in your own little floppy disk that was actually a floppy disk back then.

And this is, you know, what they were talking about.

Well, you know, now it's, you have to train on AI.

That didn't exist back then.

When I went to school, AI was, you know, the old war games movie of, would you like to play chess, you know,

Professor?

Exactly,

right.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, go watch the movie because it's hilarious.

We're talking with State Representative Jody Emerson, the ranking member of the Democratic or the Assembly Committee on the College's universities about these proposed cuts.

87 million is what it was rumored to be last night.

I want to get into that in a minute, Representative.

Let's cut to the chase and just update people because this has been a very fluid situation.

So you put it out on your socials.

We amplified that.

We did some additional reporting.

I know other places did as well.

credit this to all the Wisconsinites out there that followed up and called people particularly joint finance committee and their local representative or senator because we got late word right before we came on the air that joint finance committee while they were going to meet and they did

They yanked, they pulled this motion because they gotten so much pressure and blowback and embarrassment that they pulled it back.

And now, Shaly Pittman, our great news director here at Civic Media, reports she was up at the Capitol.

The Joint Finance Committee now has adjourned for the day and no action.

So I think that this is a win for today.

Agree or disagree?

I think it's a temporary reprieval.

We don't know what they're coming back at.

It could be worse.

It could be better.

But I think if we are working to make Wisconsin a better place, we have to have a strong education system here.

We have to make sure that our universities are strong.

And what is happening on a university campus impacts every single person in this state.

There is research that is done into making sure that byproducts of milk

you know, are being used in a way that helps the community, that that we're growing better crops, that we are learning better medical research.

You know, UW Madison has got one of the best medical research facilities in the entire nation.

And, you know, there's some federal implications with that.

And I don't know if we've got enough segments to talk about all the federal issues going on with higher education right now.

But we have to do our part at the state level.

And so

I know that higher ed can be kind of a hot button political topic.

We definitely have seen that in the committee.

But I'm hoping that by people reaching out to the joint finance members, they're understanding that these are the nurses in their community.

These are the police officers in their community.

These are the teachers.

These are the people who are designing the roads that we drive on.

And we have to have.

a strong four-year system, in addition to a strong technical college system.

It's not either or, it's a both and.

And right now, we are funding our public universities, 44th in the nation.

Used to be 43rd, we slipped.

If we don't, the goal with that 855 million is to maybe get us up into the mid 10, mid 20s.

You know, we're not looking for the...

you know, cream of the crop.

We're looking at, like, can we just be middle of the road with funding?

I'm so glad you brought up this should not be a partisan issue.

Look, I'm a former Republican, as viewers and listeners of this show know, left the party in 2011.

I pointed out the first segment, the first hour of this show, give folks a little history lesson on land grant universities.

It was Abraham Lincoln that signed that legislation nationally into law to make university less my words, 20, 20 at ivory tower to say, let's focus on agriculture.

Let's focus on engineering, not just the arts, but also those as well.

So the University of Wisconsin system is built literally on land grant university funds with federal level.

Then it was.

fighting Bob LaFollette, an apologies to Democrats.

I know it makes them a little salty.

But Bob LaFollette was a Republican governor and U.S.

senator of this state who fought for the Wisconsin idea that the borders of our university and the borders of our state.

And yes, even Tommy George Thompson, when he was governor and also as a graduate of the Madison, but also as became president of the system, fought and believes in this.

So of course, there are lots of Democrats as well.

But I think for our Republican friends listening,

This is not some sort of, I hate using this word, but woke, you know, whatever idea.

This is integral to your point representative.

This is the ag extension to all of our ag producers and foragers all across the state.

This is an economic driver, a job creator, as Speaker Voss likes to say your comments.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right.

You know, they are doing research into Lake Altoona in my district as to why there's so much sediment coming through and why there's so much runoff.

Like, there's not a university in Altoona, but Altoona gets the benefits of that because it is the Wisconsin idea.

Our universities, our higher ed goes everywhere.

It impacts everybody in the state.

And I mean, you wouldn't find a better champion of the UW system.

than Tommy Thompson.

I mean, he's amazing when it comes to that.

And it's really disappointing.

And I think what happens is some of my colleagues in the Capitol will see a situation that happens.

And our universities are run by humans.

They're taught by humans.

There are going to be mistakes there.

They'll see one mistake and they will latch onto it and say, for that reason, every department, every campus, everything needs to be defunded.

I say there's always a bad apple in the bunch, even radio hosts.

A couple of minutes left here before we go to before we go to break.