Thank you, Phil.
It's great to be here, and we really appreciate the fact that we get a little time here on WRCO with you.
Yes, it's one of the
privileges.
I'll just say that you have this mayor to, you know, to represent the city in some of those functions and was my pleasure.
Even though, like I said, I had the walker, um, walker and then the cane for one of the, for the events because I had recent surgery, but yes, it's, it's a privilege to do that.
Yes.
very well.
I was really surprised.
Everybody said, you know, it's kind of easier than these and it was.
So yeah, pleasantly surprised, really no pain without a walker today.
So we're
I don't know about that just yet.
bit?
Oh, certainly.
Yes, the city certainly made it known that we are going to support the county and their resolution as well.
Yes, we definitely wanted to make it known that the city does have concerns, including the direct impact on homes, farms, businesses, you know, the loss of the scenic, agricultural and tourism value, environmental impact to birds, waterways, wildlife habitat, habitat.
There's also some noise, corona discharge affected.
And they also have to pay attention to our airport.
I don't know if that's been brought up in any of the other discussions.
There are limits on how tall structures can be and around the airport.
And then we also made an authorization to intervene.
So that just states that
the city attorney, along with myself and the city administrator, authorized to petition the commission for formal intervener status on behalf of the city once they file the CPCN with the Public Service Commission.
right.
Um, and once again, you know, we don't know exactly which route that they're picking, but it is close.
I don't believe it's in the city because everything I've heard, um, you know, it's not in the city limits, but we'll, uh, we'll let them figure that out.
And they're not supposed to.
file until early 2027.
So we're keeping an eye on the dates and making sure, you know, that we're on it when we need to be.
Yes, correct.
That was a unanimous vote to dissolve the shared ride taxi.
You know, there's anywhere between $12,000 and $78,000 that has come
from the taxpayers, from the levy.
And that is not something we can no longer keep going forward with that.
And that is before we had a second service as well.
So the way that works is the DOT provides a grant, but the grant only covers half of what the scheduled hours and the hourly rate.
So what we hope to have happen then is for the
the paid fares to bridge that gap.
Well, like I say, in recent years, because we do have another service that is pulling some of those rides away.
And so it's not meeting the gap.
So even two years ago when we signed this agreement, there was concerns then because the budget just doesn't allow.
So what we're going to do is
We've given notice.
We had the public hearing and then, um, I believe the deadline isn't first part of October and then we will notify running incorporated and then the service will be dissolved December 31st.
Um, not that I'm aware of.
In fact, the shared ride service is just, I believe the boundary is one mile.
around the city limits.
Now there is a county service that, that runs, you know, some of those routes out to Baroque and, and, and whatnot.
But, um, as far as the share ride, it was just in the city.
bit?
That
my first, um,
Sure once again the the hotel project what what we have to understand is our community can only support a 45 to 55 room hotel and if if we want a hotel tiered at the upscale level that is something that this the current
contract that we have on the pre-development agreement is one of the very few.
If you want that same tier with others, it's going to be anywhere from 80 to 150 to 200 rooms.
And even with the new hotel in Reedsburg, that's 84 rooms.
We can't support that.
So it's going to take a bit.
I mean, if you stop and think what it takes to
To build a private equity of three million dollars that does that is not you talk to that is not an easy task to do in that short amount of time so yes having another year to build that is it is The way you know the way that we should do it because you can see you can see you know short-sightedness and say well We've been doing this for a while now.
Let's do something different
But we don't have to start over from square one with a feasibility study.
And you still have to build your incentive.
I'm sorry.
Well, you would have to go maybe different incentive program.
But you're investors.
You'd still have to build for investors.
So we're already a couple of years into this.
If we really wanted something different, a different brand of hotel.
Then we're starting over and I don't know if that works well for anyone.
I mean, I also bring up, we had the EPA do a study for that area on what would be the best for that area.
And what they said is a hotel would be your cornerstone.
There's room for two other, possibly three businesses in that area.
But they even mentioned the brand that we're working with.
It's going to be a little bit longer, but hold tight because I think in the end it will be very well worth it.
work?
That's a good question.
I think the way we did it here is we picked, we chose the brand, the council chose the brand that they wanted to deal with.
So, you know, like I said, we've been at this for a few years, but in the process we had a RFP and there were two hotels that were in the running and the council chose the cobblestone.
So once the hotel was chosen then you do have to kind of build how you how are you going to build this what you know Where are the cost involved in that type of thing?
So and at that point is when you know you go out for investors I think it would be really difficult to engage investors in us something like an unknown that that doesn't usually sit very well with them and one thing I want to bring up in the feasibility study that was done You know we have projected
approximately 12 million dollars in economic impact with this hotel.
So we don't want to lose sight of that either.
You know, it's not just a hotel building.
It's everything that would, you know, that would increase with a hotel there.
Well, the pre-development agreement is with Cobblestone.
So the Cobblestone
agreement is been extended for one year.
Okay.
do.
Clerk, City of Richland Center.
Good to see you, Amanda.
You as well.
It's good to be back.
Good to have you here to talk about.
We thought it might be important just to kind of give us a little bit of a background on what you do because not everybody's probably up to snuff with
what a city clerk does.
Yeah, so the city clerk's job is just to make sure that first off, what most people are going to see is elections, overseeing that, making sure everything's going well.
And we have a free fair and transparent election.
We have one of those coming up and then.
managing records at the meetings, making sure that we have minutes updating websites so that the community has access to the information that they need from the city, and then assisting in the office.
We've got tax season coming up here shortly, so people will be coming into our office to visit to pay the first part of their taxes or maybe the whole thing if they want to pay it in January.
any licensing that goes on, that goes through our office.
So we're making sure that whether somebody's selling alcohol or serving alcohol or trying to think of what other license we would have.
There's other ones, the taxi license, mobile food.
If you are going to be a mobile food business in the city, you do need to have a
a license through the city in order to operate legally.
There's just things like that that we oversee, some details, just kind of making sure that all those little pieces are put together.
fact.
Yeah, exactly.
right?
Yes, yeah, food and
They do, it's a requirement, it's an ordinance.
Peddlers, if you're going to be selling things from door to door, you actually have to have a license as well.
And that's so that we can make sure that you're licensed, you're above board.
You're not just a random person going to door to door or selling food.
We want to make sure your license through the state have your proper documentation to be selling in the city, protect our citizens.
We don't want anybody dying of a bad
Yeah, we keep pretty busy.
We always have different projects and then we're always trying to get like grants or look at how we can make things better, updating ordinances, working with the council to, you know,
Is there something that we need to update or, you know, we work closely as well with zoning and public works, making sure they have what they need and kind of collaborating with them.
There's a lot of collaboration that goes on between the different departments within the city and it kind of all hinges in our office.
We have the city administrator in there and she's fantastic and so she orchestrates a lot of that between different departments and we get to assist with that.
Yeah, so my husband had a promotion, moved us out to Utah, thought that was going to be the new thing.
Well, lo and behold, he did such a great job.
They gave him another promotion, which brought him back home to Richland Center.
So our family was pretty happy and and luckily for me my job was still available and so I went back to the personnel committee and begged for my job back.
Yeah,
So it's been great to be back because I really did miss getting to serve the community and work.
I've worked with the Chamber in the past and so being able to jump into this role and having those connections that makes it really easy for me to
know where to go and what we need to do and just kind of dig in.
And I love this community.
So getting to serve the people of Rich and Center is always a joy.
Yeah, so that was my first one.
That was actually like two years ago now coming up.
It's crazy how fast time flies.
But yeah, that was a huge one and actually
If you have voted within the city, you've noticed over the past couple years, we've switched it.
So now you're not voting by ward because most elections are everybody has the same ballot anyway.
And so it's just more efficient.
It's easier to keep sure everybody, you know, keep the documentation.
And when you come in, you can just get your ballot and vote and we handle the rest of it, but you don't have to worry about waiting in a specific line for a ward.
So we started that technically on that big presidential election, much to the county clerk's chagrin.
He's like, don't change anything.
And we're like, we're going to change the biggest thing.
So but it works so well and we've kept that up and it's made such a huge difference.
And we have such amazing
people who work with us that day, the poll workers.
And I'm going to put a plug in because I always need poll workers.
So if you're interested in being a poll worker, serving during election day, or we also have special voting deputies that go to the care facilities leading up to the election.
So those ones are not on election day.
And they go and assist with the people who cannot go to the voting to the polls.
They go to the care facilities, but we have openings for that as well.
We train you and make sure everything is good.
You do get some pay.
It's not a huge amount of money, but it's kind of a nice little thing, especially if you're retired or stay at home, parent.
It's a really great opportunity to get out, serve your community, make a little extra money.
I do have if you go on the city website under the clerk treasurer's office and we have an election page and there's election information including links to my vote Wisconsin and you can check if you're registered update registration anything there on my vote that's the best place to kind of see if you're registered if you want to submit for a mail-in ballot anything like that but if you keep scrolling to the bottom of that page there'll be a button to
request to submit interest form.
And it's really easy.
It's just a few questions, just making sure you're qualified, comes right to me and will set you right up.
We're getting pretty close to it.
The county will send us the ballots by the 16th, and I will have to have them legally in the mail by the 17th.
couple weeks away is when ballots will start arriving and you can drop them off to us, you can throw them in the mail and they'll get to us, or you can even if it's after hours drop that in the utilities drop box and we'll still get it.
Yeah, I think since COVID people have realized that's kind of a handy little
process.
For us, we keep track of that.
When you vote early, it's not actually voting early.
It's an absentee ballot, but you vote on the same ballot.
It goes into an envelope.
We keep those locked up, and we keep track of them.
We have logs, multiple logs, and we check.
and we check them in.
So even on my vote, Wisconsin, if you were to have a mail-in ballot, you can request it there.
And then once you send it back and I log it into WISVOTE, you'll actually be able to see that I've received it.
So even if you mail it and you feel apprehensive maybe about did it get to where it needs to go.
And there's also a tracking piece of information on the ballot itself when we mail it out.
So you can actually track it.
to you and then you can track it back to me and you can see when the clerk registered or like says, yep, we've received it.
Then on election day, let me know if I'm going too far on this.
Okay.
Okay.
I think most people want to know, right?
Like what happens to my mail-in ballot?
So we then have special poll workers that will process those on election day.
So we can't process any ballots until 8 a.m.
or no, I'm sorry, 7 a.m.
on election day.
And so they will actually get your ballot, read it out, they have to read your name and your address because if anybody around has any, they say you have like a saying,
that person doesn't actually live in the city, they can contest it.
So we really have to say your name and address out loud the same as you do when you come in and bring in your ID.
It's the same process.
Then they log it into the system saying you voted.
They open it up right there, take it over to the tabulator and feed it in.
And that's when you've actually voted is on election day.
So they all get processed exactly the same as everybody else.
It's just you basically give us your ballot ahead of time.
So if you receive your ballot and you have not turned it back into me, but you have voted on the ballot, you can have up to three ballots.
So we did have a few people that came back and they said, my ballot is destroyed or it's ruined.
They bring it back into us just so we can dispose of it.
We don't want.
loose ballots floating around.
But if you have brought in your ballot and I've registered, logged that into WSFO saying it's here I have it, you unfortunately cannot change that.
times.
Yeah and we always worry about if people see us with a stack of ballots feeding them into the machine it's because we don't have just a we do have a box of ballots but in Wisconsin every vote has like a voter who is registered to that vote.
We don't know like you don't sign there's nothing on the actual ballot that links it to that voter but everybody who
submit a ballot has to be linked to a voter.
You have to be a registered voter.
So I feel like looking at, especially having lived in Utah or other states and looking at other states, I feel very strongly that Wisconsin has a very good
process and it's very secure.
And I feel like they are very conscientious to make sure that it is fair and free and transparent.
And it's a really good process to make sure it is the people who should be voting are voting.
And they're pretty proactive when they find out somebody has voted that shouldn't.
Yeah, so
try everything we can to be as careful as possible, making sure we follow all the steps, dot all our I's, cross all our T's, make sure that we're doing everything we can to make sure that there isn't
You do have things that come up every once in a while.
And we work with the county and with the Wisconsin Election Commission to make sure everything is as smoothly as possible.
So we have two tabulators.
We don't have, at one point they did have the ones where you could actually vote on the machine.
And we don't have those anymore.
So you do have to actually fill out your ballot, but it's nice because we have that physical ballot.
And at the end of the night, we take them all out of the machine, we count them, we make sure everything is where it's supposed to be, double check them.
And then those actually are housed in a sealed container in the county.
So that way, if there's any questions, we have to do a recount.
We can go back and actually physically look at each single ballot.
Exactly.
It would be, you know, there was some other stuff with Milwaukee, the last election, but it was very much like, I can see where it would look kind of funny, but it's like, there's so many checks and balances to win place that I think the state has some really great rules and processes in place to make sure that it is not
your elections not going sideways somehow.
I can't think of anything.
If you have questions, people can always reach out to us if they want to know how the process works.
I think really if you ever want to see how an election works, the best thing to do is to volunteer to work one.
I know of lots of people who were like, I was skeptical or I didn't understand why these certain things happen this certain way.
And once you see the full process and the background of it, it really makes a lot of sense.
Yes.
So we still are working on how that is going to unfold because the county has said
at the end of 2028, they are no longer going to operate the EMS.
So there's I think 10 towns, one village and the city of virtual center that we continue to meet and discuss everything that we can so that we will know how this will move forward.
So still in the process, but it's the meanings have been very good.
And so we're making making progress on that.
And then I guess it was just a couple other things like, you know, to just what Amanda had to say about, you know, you want information or you need to know how something works, you know, you can always call the city.
And the city also has a website.
So that is richlandcenterwi.gov.
And on that website, you can
If you go down to the lower left corner and click on Meetings and Agendas and pull up the meeting that you have an interest in, typically, I know for the council meetings and a few others like Public Works and a few of those, you can join the meeting through a Teams link and it's right there for you.
So if you can't make it into the building, you can certainly listen through that.
So I always want to make sure that people know that our meetings are
you know, pretty accessible and we want the, you know, we want the public to be informed.
later?
But I
could answer on that.
I'd love to.
So we have been working on our website and we're actually going to be updating that in the next couple months.
But we have been adding, Ben Kelsch has been recording the, at least the council and I think utility and possibly planning.
And so then we,
after he puts that on his YouTube channel, we do link that on our website.
So if you go to the meeting information, you will have access to the agenda, the full packet, and then usually after the fact, the recording, if it exists.
info.
Yes, and we continue to meet with our largest employers.
So last about a week ago, we met with Bruce Raceler from the Richland Hospital and Clinics.
So
That was an interesting meeting.
Talk about somebody that's really in the people business, that it will be your hospital and clinic.
And so some of their concerns, like with many people, is the population decreasing in population.
And just what can we do at this point to do something to affect that?
So some great conversations there.
I also want everyone to know that the city and the county
There are four of us that continue to meet.
So it would be myself, Ryan Cairns, the council president, and then Carrie Saverson as well as Larry Engel.
So the four of us meet on a monthly basis.
And what that is aimed to do is just look at from an overview and not necessarily a comprehensive plan, but a plan that puts it out into the future enough so that people that
Uh, would be coming in after us, you know, each one of our, our, uh, terms is like two years.
So there's a constant changeover or can be a constant changeover.
So this, uh, this group is kind of trying to lay, um, a map going forward, if you will.
Correct.
Exactly.
No, I think that's about it.
I just want to make mention that fall weather is, of course, I think on its way.
I don't know.
It feels pretty like summer last couple of days.
But some of our most beautiful times in our city and our county is in the fall.
So make sure you get out there and enjoy some fall activities.
I know.
Like I said, it feels like summer.
Yeah, summer is still here.
Okay.
Thank you much,
Music.
Good morning, Phil.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So, um, you know, my office is right here in Richland Center and I, uh, I work for you most and I operate underneath the national farm worker jobs program.
It's a pretty cool.
It's all grant funded through the workforce innovation and opportunity act And is what we do is we identify farm workers and we try to Further the education a lot of times like through schooling we can pay for tuition that type of thing we also help with like career coaching and job placement It's
It's it's it's really really cool and it's again if it's focused on the farm workers, right?
So a participant would have to have at least half of their time or money come from farm work But we have some some flexibility within the language of how we define farm worker
has they have to deal with the raw product So even someone just like bailing hay like a senior in high school that bails hay during the summer if that's most of their time
in the workforce, then they could qualify for the program because they're dealing with that raw product.
So through that then, we would try to, if they want to pursue education in anything from agriculture, forestry, manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, healthcare, construction, we, as long as they're within our counties, which we operate in 51 counties, then we will pay for two years of school tuition within those fields for that farm worker.
absolutely you know and and that that's the focus and it really identifies that you know just how important those farm workers are um i think like right now uh to that because we don't necessarily want to take people away from that farm work i think we have
This is a rough number, about 15, maybe 20 participants right now at Southwest Tech, and a lot of those are going to school for things like power and things like that to further their education and farming.
Absolutely.
I mean, as long as it falls underneath those categories, we can help with that too.
What's really cool on top of like up to two years of tuition assistance,
We can also provide financial assistance for things like food, transportation, fuel costs, housing, school resources.
If you have a class that is requiring books and tools, we can also provide the financial assistance for that.
In addition, people that go to the farm workers that go to school within those fields, we can also even pay them a stipend just for attending class.
So I was recently, this was in a different county, but because we work closely with the Department of Workforce Development, and I went up to a migrant housing that was on site at, I believe it was Lakeside Foods, through a gentleman with the Department of Workforce Development, and we met with all the migrant workers up there, because we can also provide them services, like such as food and gas assistance, that type of stuff.
Yep.
I spent some time in St.
Croix, because like I said, we have participants in Southwest Tech, which is really close to this area here.
I know we have...
Next week I'm meeting with some potential participant here at the office for Southwest Tech But like up in st.
Croix County, we don't have that much of a presence So I spent some time in st.
Croix at the tech schools at the high schools meeting with some individuals I got to go attend a chamber of commerce meeting and they showcased one of the local businesses up there It was angels pet store and she had a macaw at the meeting.
So that was really cool
see them on cartoons all the time, right?
And that
thing, but no, it was really cool.
Rob?
Yup.
So for employers, there's a couple of different things we can do.
One is, again, as long as it identifies farm workers and falls underneath those education categories that we discussed, we can actually assist with on-the-job training.
where we won't pay for all the undeserved training, but we'll pay for a part of it.
Again, through this grant, everything's federally funded.
In addition to that, because so many of our participants are in school as part of the program, once they graduate their two-year tech school or they get their certificate, whatever it is that they're going for,
Now we have a participant that's looking for a job who has the qualifications to do the work.
So that's where we like to partner with employees as well, you know, employers just to help them fill their candidate pool because we have access to recently, you know, qualified people that want to further their career.
you know, absolutely That's more of the holistic part of the program is in addition to all these direct financial services and supports that we provide We do like to network not only with you know the high schools and the tech schools like I said But within the community as well whether it's other nonprofits or other farms and just kind of get us all connected with
because I think that the more we talk and the more we share our observations, our needs, whatever struggles we might be experiencing, that's when we can really start overcoming those obstacles and those barriers.
Absolutely.
No, I mean, not, I mean, I know I couldn't do it,
could.
Very big pieces of equipment, um, you know, potential dangers, that type of thing.
And, you know, that's where we can get these, we can help people become qualified and competent to run those equipments that they can benefit themselves.
They grow their own career.
And like you mentioned, then they can help those help farm workers that need that.
those people outside.
Absolutely.
Um, so, um, more than 50% of your income or your work time has to come from farm work during a six month period within the last two years.
So we can pull that from, we can kind of slide the time scale over the course of those two years to determine that eligibility.
Um, and again, it is also income or time.
So there's some flexibility within that.
Um, one thing that the program
allows for that I think is really cool is again like if you're a senior in high school graduating this year, you know you want to go to tech school, can qualify for the program, we get to look at only that seniors income and they don't include their parents.
When determining income eligibility, which I know is really cool a lot of programs stuff like that They look at kind of like the whole family's income and then that could potentially disqualify those students from those programs The NFJP national farm worker jobs program only looks at the income of the participant that's interested
yeah, it is you know, and I when I first learned about that myself I thought that was just really exciting it
I feel through that we reduce a potential barrier for those youths that are interested in pursuing, you know, their career once they're out of high school.
In addition to that, you just have to be legally authorized to work in the United States.
And if you are a male applicant that's 18 or older, you do have to be registered with selective services, which is just essentially, you know, you'd be draft eligible.
online?
Yep, real simple and easy.
um, talked with a couple recently, um, eligible participants that weren't signed up.
Um, and then we just tell them like, Hey, part of the program, we do have to be signed up for this and we give them the website address and then they're able to do it real quick and easy if they want.
Yeah, pretty standard documentation, um, photo identification.
whether it's state ID, driver's license, that type of thing.
A social security card, we don't need to keep that on file, but I do just need to physically see it, because obviously then I have to use that social security number for a lot of government tracking and that type of thing.
In addition to that, we need proof of farm work and proof of income from the farm work.
We've got some participants, you know, fresh out of high school where they worked on the farm, but it was just for their parents, right?
So their payment was room and board.
For those things, we actually have documents then that we can send over where we send one over to the participant, the youth, and say, hey, just
you know sign this form that says that what you're telling us is true and then we would send one over in this situation to the parents and just say hey sign this form just attesting that everything that we're hearing here is true and accurate and that'll satisfy our needs if.
They don't have that proof of income, like a pay stub type thing.
Yep.
And that's what we're finding out too, even the ones that don't just, you know, work for their parents in those situations.
A lot of farm work is paid, you know, it's cash.
It's, you know, the, you're.
doing some work for a summer, you know, you're working at one farm for a few weeks, they need help another farm for a few weeks.
It's not necessarily that standard nine to five job.
So yeah, there's a lot of times where we, we have to help them with that documentation a little bit more.
well.
Not only for, um, the, the programs, you know, that, that will.
go from high school to work.
Like, I was in that program.
When I was in high school, for example, we actually have participants now that are in programs from high school that give him a head start in college.
One of our participants in Southwest Tech again is, I think he just turned 18, but he's technically still a senior, but half his time is spent at the tech school already starting his schooling, which I think is really cool too, helps give those students that want that a head start.
Through the career coaching part, absolutely.
You know, we, again, just through that networking piece, as a career coach, you know, I'm able to help them with scholarships or job training, that type of thing.
One tool we use is the Onet.
help identify skill sets for individuals and you know based off that skill set what type of job would be the best fit for you and what's the outlook of those jobs and
absolutely you know and I think
I think we see it even now a little bit.
It can be difficult for employers to find the right employee.
It can be difficult for that potential employee to find the right job, especially with so much information that we receive constantly just through the way our technology is now.
And I think that this program here can help just clear a lot of that air now.
And I think then for the future to your point of how we don't quite know the outlook of it,
I think that the groundwork we do now, especially from this program, can impact that future uncertainty by, you know, making sure that specifically youths, high school kids have those skills, have that training, and then they can
you know fit that need for employment and that the employee needs down the road in the future.
you know something like a CDL definitely qualifies under transportation and warehousing.
We are one of our current employer partners.
I'm probably going to get the name wrong.
I want to say ATS.
It's based out of Sun Prairie.
And that's exactly what they do.
It's a school that provides CTL training certification.
We're partnering with them.
I think I've got one or two participants at that school currently that we are funding.
Yeah, you know, throughout throughout the year, I would just like to raise awareness.
I hear when I go out networking to meet with people and talk to people, one thing I hear is, you know,
I've never heard of UMOS.
What does UMOS do?
What is the NFJP?
So I'm hoping that by this, we can at least get that foundational knowledge that, hey, we are out here.
We have this federally funded grant that we want to use to help the youth.
Hopefully, we have a stronger presence in Richland County as well as throughout the state.
I know that here in Richland County itself, there's two career coaches, one besides myself, and her name is Will de Doerr.
Um, and she's been with you most for gosh, I think it's like seven or eight years.
Um, just done a great job.
Most of the clients that we have in this area is obviously because of her work.
Um, and she's done great things and we're both located, um, right at the, uh, Southwest tech outreach center there, right across from the Dario in town.
Yeah.
So there's, it starts out with like a screening process.
So we asked some very, um,
just very base questions to determine if this person could be eligible for the program so we identify things like income and job history first and then through that that's usually enough for us to determine if they could qualify and then from there we start what we call the intake process which is more getting that documentation some more of those you know like
personal questions, that type of thing, because, again, this all has to be reported and tracked for the government because it is federally funded.
Absolutely.
You know, we would, um, this program can help them as well.
Um, the only reason I guess right now I'm focused more on the youth in the high school is based off of research and demographic that seems to be the higher need.
Um, but in the event that, you know, we get someone that maybe like myself, I'm 40 and going to school, right?
So, you know, if, if there's other folks out there that are looking at that same type of thing that, you know, maybe, um,
someone for example it happens got laid off from their job and they're like you know what maybe I want to be a drug driver then they could be 30 40 50 years old and that's someone there's no age limit to the program
yeah you know I'm hoping that um that this message reaches out to like local high schools that type of thing as well as you know
any type of farming area that just maybe has a question or a need or just wants to connect.
I know you can contact me at 414-852-0004 and we could have a conversation and or um
If you're a school in the area, whether it's high school, tech school, and you want Mayor Wilda to come and just kind of talk to your class about it, I know Wilda's put on a lot of presentations for like agriculture students at high schools and tech schools.
I'm meeting with a tech school to talk to their class that's studying like social work and that type of thing as well.
So yeah, we're very holistic, all-encompassing.
We just love to connect.
Absolutely.
We just, uh, attended a charger fest at Fenimore, um, at the Southwest tech there, which it was kind of like a, um, like, like an, uh, kind of an orientation day, but a lot more festive for like their new students, that type of thing.
So we got to meet with a lot of potential candidates from there as well as, you know, a lot of teachers and that type of thing.
Um,
I know I listed my phone number here.
Will this is also 608-576-8070.
And just a reminder, we're right across from the Dario.
We are there Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.
to 5 p.m.
So yeah, if you are someone out there, give us a call or stop on by and we can have a conversation and see how we can help.
Great to learn about it here today and come back and see
Yeah,
having me.
Music.
Good morning, Phil.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So, um, you know, my office is right here in Richland Center and I, uh, I work for you most and I operate underneath the national farm worker jobs program.
It's a pretty cool.
It's all grant funded through the workforce innovation and opportunity act And is what we do is we identify farm workers and we try to Further the education a lot of times like through schooling we can pay for tuition that type of thing we also help with like career coaching and job placement It's
It's it's it's really really cool and it's again if it's focused on the farm workers, right?
So a participant would have to have at least half of their time or money come from farm work But we have some some flexibility within the language of how we define farm worker
has they have to deal with the raw product So even someone just like bailing hay like a senior in high school that bails hay during the summer if that's most of their time
in the workforce, then they could qualify for the program because they're dealing with that raw product.
So through that then, we would try to, if they want to pursue education in anything from agriculture, forestry, manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, healthcare, construction, we, as long as they're within our counties, which we operate in 51 counties, then we will pay for two years of school tuition within those fields for that farm worker.
absolutely you know and and that that's the focus and it really identifies that you know just how important those farm workers are um i think like right now uh to that because we don't necessarily want to take people away from that farm work i think we have
This is a rough number, about 15, maybe 20 participants right now at Southwest Tech, and a lot of those are going to school for things like power and things like that to further their education and farming.
Absolutely.
I mean, as long as it falls underneath those categories, we can help with that too.
What's really cool on top of like up to two years of tuition assistance,
We can also provide financial assistance for things like food, transportation, fuel costs, housing, school resources.
If you have a class that is requiring books and tools, we can also provide the financial assistance for that.
In addition, people that go to the farm workers that go to school within those fields, we can also even pay them a stipend just for attending class.
So I was recently, this was in a different county, but because we work closely with the Department of Workforce Development, and I went up to a migrant housing that was on site at, I believe it was Lakeside Foods, through a gentleman with the Department of Workforce Development, and we met with all the migrant workers up there, because we can also provide them services, like such as food and gas assistance, that type of stuff.
Yep.
I spent some time in St.
Croix, because like I said, we have participants in Southwest Tech, which is really close to this area here.
I know we have...
Next week I'm meeting with some potential participant here at the office for Southwest Tech But like up in st.
Croix County, we don't have that much of a presence So I spent some time in st.
Croix at the tech schools at the high schools meeting with some individuals I got to go attend a chamber of commerce meeting and they showcased one of the local businesses up there It was angels pet store and she had a macaw at the meeting.
So that was really cool
see them on cartoons all the time, right?
And that
thing, but no, it was really cool.
Rob?
Yup.
So for employers, there's a couple of different things we can do.
One is, again, as long as it identifies farm workers and falls underneath those education categories that we discussed, we can actually assist with on-the-job training.
where we won't pay for all the undeserved training, but we'll pay for a part of it.
Again, through this grant, everything's federally funded.
In addition to that, because so many of our participants are in school as part of the program, once they graduate their two-year tech school or they get their certificate, whatever it is that they're going for,
Now we have a participant that's looking for a job who has the qualifications to do the work.
So that's where we like to partner with employees as well, you know, employers just to help them fill their candidate pool because we have access to recently, you know, qualified people that want to further their career.
you know, absolutely That's more of the holistic part of the program is in addition to all these direct financial services and supports that we provide We do like to network not only with you know the high schools and the tech schools like I said But within the community as well whether it's other nonprofits or other farms and just kind of get us all connected with
because I think that the more we talk and the more we share our observations, our needs, whatever struggles we might be experiencing, that's when we can really start overcoming those obstacles and those barriers.
Absolutely.
No, I mean, not, I mean, I know I couldn't do it,
could.
Very big pieces of equipment, um, you know, potential dangers, that type of thing.
And, you know, that's where we can get these, we can help people become qualified and competent to run those equipments that they can benefit themselves.
They grow their own career.
And like you mentioned, then they can help those help farm workers that need that.
those people outside.
Absolutely.
Um, so, um, more than 50% of your income or your work time has to come from farm work during a six month period within the last two years.
So we can pull that from, we can kind of slide the time scale over the course of those two years to determine that eligibility.
Um, and again, it is also income or time.
So there's some flexibility within that.
Um, one thing that the program
allows for that I think is really cool is again like if you're a senior in high school graduating this year, you know you want to go to tech school, can qualify for the program, we get to look at only that seniors income and they don't include their parents.
When determining income eligibility, which I know is really cool a lot of programs stuff like that They look at kind of like the whole family's income and then that could potentially disqualify those students from those programs The NFJP national farm worker jobs program only looks at the income of the participant that's interested
yeah, it is you know, and I when I first learned about that myself I thought that was just really exciting it
I feel through that we reduce a potential barrier for those youths that are interested in pursuing, you know, their career once they're out of high school.
In addition to that, you just have to be legally authorized to work in the United States.
And if you are a male applicant that's 18 or older, you do have to be registered with selective services, which is just essentially, you know, you'd be draft eligible.
online?
Yep, real simple and easy.
um, talked with a couple recently, um, eligible participants that weren't signed up.
Um, and then we just tell them like, Hey, part of the program, we do have to be signed up for this and we give them the website address and then they're able to do it real quick and easy if they want.
Yeah, pretty standard documentation, um, photo identification.
whether it's state ID, driver's license, that type of thing.
A social security card, we don't need to keep that on file, but I do just need to physically see it, because obviously then I have to use that social security number for a lot of government tracking and that type of thing.
In addition to that, we need proof of farm work and proof of income from the farm work.
We've got some participants, you know, fresh out of high school where they worked on the farm, but it was just for their parents, right?
So their payment was room and board.
For those things, we actually have documents then that we can send over where we send one over to the participant, the youth, and say, hey, just
you know sign this form that says that what you're telling us is true and then we would send one over in this situation to the parents and just say hey sign this form just attesting that everything that we're hearing here is true and accurate and that'll satisfy our needs if.
They don't have that proof of income, like a pay stub type thing.
Yep.
And that's what we're finding out too, even the ones that don't just, you know, work for their parents in those situations.
A lot of farm work is paid, you know, it's cash.
It's, you know, the, you're.
doing some work for a summer, you know, you're working at one farm for a few weeks, they need help another farm for a few weeks.
It's not necessarily that standard nine to five job.
So yeah, there's a lot of times where we, we have to help them with that documentation a little bit more.
well.
Not only for, um, the, the programs, you know, that, that will.
go from high school to work.
Like, I was in that program.
When I was in high school, for example, we actually have participants now that are in programs from high school that give him a head start in college.
One of our participants in Southwest Tech again is, I think he just turned 18, but he's technically still a senior, but half his time is spent at the tech school already starting his schooling, which I think is really cool too, helps give those students that want that a head start.
Through the career coaching part, absolutely.
You know, we, again, just through that networking piece, as a career coach, you know, I'm able to help them with scholarships or job training, that type of thing.
One tool we use is the Onet.
help identify skill sets for individuals and you know based off that skill set what type of job would be the best fit for you and what's the outlook of those jobs and
absolutely you know and I think
I think we see it even now a little bit.
It can be difficult for employers to find the right employee.
It can be difficult for that potential employee to find the right job, especially with so much information that we receive constantly just through the way our technology is now.
And I think that this program here can help just clear a lot of that air now.
And I think then for the future to your point of how we don't quite know the outlook of it,
I think that the groundwork we do now, especially from this program, can impact that future uncertainty by, you know, making sure that specifically youths, high school kids have those skills, have that training, and then they can
you know fit that need for employment and that the employee needs down the road in the future.
you know something like a CDL definitely qualifies under transportation and warehousing.
We are one of our current employer partners.
I'm probably going to get the name wrong.
I want to say ATS.
It's based out of Sun Prairie.
And that's exactly what they do.
It's a school that provides CTL training certification.
We're partnering with them.
I think I've got one or two participants at that school currently that we are funding.
Yeah, you know, throughout throughout the year, I would just like to raise awareness.
I hear when I go out networking to meet with people and talk to people, one thing I hear is, you know,
I've never heard of UMOS.
What does UMOS do?
What is the NFJP?
So I'm hoping that by this, we can at least get that foundational knowledge that, hey, we are out here.
We have this federally funded grant that we want to use to help the youth.
Hopefully, we have a stronger presence in Richland County as well as throughout the state.
I know that here in Richland County itself, there's two career coaches, one besides myself, and her name is Will de Doerr.
Um, and she's been with you most for gosh, I think it's like seven or eight years.
Um, just done a great job.
Most of the clients that we have in this area is obviously because of her work.
Um, and she's done great things and we're both located, um, right at the, uh, Southwest tech outreach center there, right across from the Dario in town.
Yeah.
So there's, it starts out with like a screening process.
So we asked some very, um,
just very base questions to determine if this person could be eligible for the program so we identify things like income and job history first and then through that that's usually enough for us to determine if they could qualify and then from there we start what we call the intake process which is more getting that documentation some more of those you know like
personal questions, that type of thing, because, again, this all has to be reported and tracked for the government because it is federally funded.
Absolutely.
You know, we would, um, this program can help them as well.
Um, the only reason I guess right now I'm focused more on the youth in the high school is based off of research and demographic that seems to be the higher need.
Um, but in the event that, you know, we get someone that maybe like myself, I'm 40 and going to school, right?
So, you know, if, if there's other folks out there that are looking at that same type of thing that, you know, maybe, um,
someone for example it happens got laid off from their job and they're like you know what maybe I want to be a drug driver then they could be 30 40 50 years old and that's someone there's no age limit to the program
yeah you know I'm hoping that um that this message reaches out to like local high schools that type of thing as well as you know
any type of farming area that just maybe has a question or a need or just wants to connect.
I know you can contact me at 414-852-0004 and we could have a conversation and or um
If you're a school in the area, whether it's high school, tech school, and you want Mayor Wilda to come and just kind of talk to your class about it, I know Wilda's put on a lot of presentations for like agriculture students at high schools and tech schools.
I'm meeting with a tech school to talk to their class that's studying like social work and that type of thing as well.
So yeah, we're very holistic, all-encompassing.
We just love to connect.
Absolutely.
We just, uh, attended a charger fest at Fenimore, um, at the Southwest tech there, which it was kind of like a, um, like, like an, uh, kind of an orientation day, but a lot more festive for like their new students, that type of thing.
So we got to meet with a lot of potential candidates from there as well as, you know, a lot of teachers and that type of thing.
Um,
I know I listed my phone number here.
Will this is also 608-576-8070.
And just a reminder, we're right across from the Dario.
We are there Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.
to 5 p.m.
So yeah, if you are someone out there, give us a call or stop on by and we can have a conversation and see how we can help.
Great to learn about it here today and come back and see
Yeah,
having me.