Music.
We kick off a busy week here on the morning show in our studios from WRC radio and joining us leading off today is representative Tony Kurtz from the 41st assembly district.
He's here to provide what he had free World Series tickets for us to you.
Good morning to listenership just went up.
Good morning Phil.
Good morning audio.
Yeah they would if you were given brewers World Series tickets.
I don't know if this morning when I was watching the news they
kind of had a little snapshot of what the price range is.
And I was like,
wow.
Isn't that crazy?
That was one of the conversations that I was listening to over the weekend with different people.
And they were saying about how, you know, basically it's highway robbery in some ways.
And what you don't understand too is that, yeah, they might be a thousand dollars, but then there's a service fee that goes on top of that.
Well, some of the, I mean, I thought what I saw the range was
I mean, like 2,500 up to 7,500.
I mean, it was, it was, I just hold the numbers like, oh my goodness.
And you know, there's people that are going to pay it.
I mean, there's huge brewers fans and you know, that's, and I hope we're going to talk about that's actually good for the state.
I know, you know, like, I, I beat this drum quite a bit about, you know, all our, the shared revenue bill that we did a couple of sessions ago, our communities,
now sharing that if our sales tax goes up, the communities get that as an increase every year.
And so like last year, I think they're going to get a 2.7% increase and all the stuff with the brewers and the Packers and tourism and all that stuff matters, bringing people in from out of state.
And because you are, you're going to get a lot of people from out of state that
comes to that.
Yeah.
And in fact, the Dodgers, you know, highest paid team in baseball, if they came to the state of Wisconsin, we do get.
Some of their income tax
and that's where I think a lot of people don't realize when So all our all our professional teams.
I know some people Anyway, but when our professional teams like when the Dodgers came, you know, they played two extra games here in Milwaukee and We as a state and it's with the collective bargaining So all sports teams are like that when a sports team like the Dodgers comes to Wisconsin and they play we actually get a day
their salaries and so you know the broad the Dodgers the highest paid team and major league baseball three I just looked it up 339 million dollars is their annual salaries for their players and coaches when they come to the state of Wisconsin they pay you know tax
Income tax for the state of Wisconsin on on that 339 million dollars You know one day well two days because they were and same thing when you know, Milwaukee goes to Los Angeles same thing, you know, they have to pay, you know state income tax for to To California and it's all the sports team.
So it's it's the Packers so when you know last night when the Dallas Cowboys came, you know, we collect a salary from that and it's interesting
Some people complained about some of the deals we did, especially when we did the deals for the Brewer's Stadium a couple years ago.
In that deal, we included players' salaries to complete the deal.
In other words, so it wasn't Wisconsin taxpayers' pay, and it was basically these players are coming from other states.
And then when we did the Brewer's Deal two years ago, it was roughly $17 million a year.
is what we are getting from player salaries and historically speaking as all your listeners can attest to I mean you see some of these salaries over the years for these players that has kept going up and up and up and so that
that dollar amount that we'll get from, you know, the outside, the non-resonance players is actually going to go up too.
And the other interesting part, I know a lot of people don't like this either, but in college football or college basketball, you have this NIL, which is name, image, and likeness.
It was a court decision how many years ago that basically players now can get paid.
I mean, I guess I'm kind of old school, you know, they are getting paid, they're getting their education and room and board all paid for, but anyway.
Um, when a player like for instance, Ohio State has a unbelievable wide receiver, Jeremiah Smith, he's gets $4 million a year.
So when he's going and that nil actually when a college player is coming, you know, I had to look at the schedule.
I don't think Ohio State plays Wisconsin this year, but a similar player comes to Wisconsin.
It's like next week, you know, Saturday, USC is coming to play the Badgers.
I'm.
pretty sure they got some players on USC that are making some pretty good money.
Once again, that they get that day, they have to pay a state income tax.
So it's interesting.
But anyway, when we do deals, we actually put those into the deal because it is revenue to the state of Wisconsin.
One thing I remember too from our days when we hosted Star Spangled Celebration here in all the country, uh, acts, uh, those music musicians, they, they pay money
to say
to Wisconsin.
Yep.
And it, and it's some, a lot of people don't really think about it.
Um, and, you know, over the last several budgets we have put, I know it's kind of.
we put more money in tourism.
And if you noticed, and I know you guys reported it over the last year, the last three years, every year over year, our tourism actually has beaten the year before.
So tourism is very, and let's be honest, the Driflus here in Richland County, you've got some folks in here that have done a very good job promoting the tourism, especially Airbnb and those type of things, and that's good.
It's bringing outside people into the area.
They can visit the area and many, you know, they keep coming back because it is a beautiful area.
And so, um, tourism is a big deal, but, um, but so sports.
I mean, and like I said, I know some people say, why are you propping up the sports teams?
Well, there's a reason why, you know, we do, we do want them in, in the state.
It does make a difference, especially when you talk about economics and, and I hate to say it, you know, every time, I don't mean hate to say it, but every time the brewers do well, I mean, that's actually good for the state.
You know, we got two extra games with the Padres.
We got two extra games with the Dodgers.
We're getting a wonderful World Series, which we've hadn't had since 1982.
So it really does help the state as a whole when our sports teams do well.
You mentioned the Driflus and many of us want to preserve that pristinous of it.
We had a story on this morning, Tony.
The PSC has opened a formal proceeding against the developer of a proposed 765 kilovolt line.
What is the latest on that?
Where do we stand?
Well, you know, a couple of weeks ago I did do an op-ed and I did it statewide, basically just talking about
this case that's coming above in front of the PSC and a lot of people don't understand that MGS, the company that wants to build this back line,
They don't have a utility status per se.
In other words, it's a quasi-license to practice and operate in the state of Wisconsin, you know, or as a lion energy or, you know, richly in utilities, you know, they have to have a utility license.
They have to, you know, be operated in the state of Wisconsin, and that is, you know, obviously governed by the Public Service Commission.
MGS, the problem I have with their application in front of the PSC to be a utility, is they're asking for a whole bunch of exemptions.
So, you know, they're they're an out-of-state company They want to come in Wisconsin and they want to operate as a utility But yet they don't want to follow the rules that are existing utilities here in the state of Wisconsin have to follow and so I'm glad that One the PSC is going to take the case up but also They're calling it a class one contested case and that's one of the things that we have asked is that that it's a contested case because
And now, and to be fair, our utilities in the state of Wisconsin, they too now are going to probably push back on MGS and say, you know, you want to come in here and not follow the same rules.
You know, we, we disagree with that as well.
And so that's a good thing that the PSC has said this is a contested case because right now I think as further news release, they haven't set a date or anything like that.
But that, that's just another opportunity for one, our utilities to say, Hey,
what's going on here, but also as constituents, as people in the drift list or people in, you know, Walworth County, Sock County, all the whole, where this route's gonna do, they too now, once they open up the public comment period, that we too can push back and say, you know, if you're gonna operate in Wisconsin, you need to follow Wisconsin rules.
You shouldn't have any exemptions period.
Do you think it's gonna delay things a little bit
then?
I think it, yes, absolutely.
I think it will delay things because
Once like said, I'm not gonna lie.
I don't know the the entire process how that works out when when And you get people smarter than me that's gonna be on here to talk about you know, what does that contested case mean all I know is it just gives another opportunity to to voice your
your opposition to this, that there are better ways, but also, I think more importantly, not only is it our voices collectively, but it's also our utilities in the state of Wisconsin, too, are going to be able to push back and say, wait a minute, because that's going to cause ramifications for them, too.
And I've said this in the letter, and I think I said it last time I was on with you.
If the PSC allows MGS to have all these exemptions,
Okay, four or five years from now they want to put another line Let's say from Monaco down to Madison down to the Illinois border What's stopping them from giving another company all these exemptions?
Do you mean you see my point Phil one once you allow this one company to have all these exemptions then Katie bar the door
all these other companies from around the country are going to say, well, hey, we can go into Wisconsin and get all these exemptions, and we don't have to follow their rules.
So it's a very slippery slope.
And that's, I guess, my biggest concern is if you're going to allow this company to have all these exemptions, then other companies are going to expect the same thing.
So I think consistently, I think to be fair across the board, if you want to come to Wisconsin, you want to have a utility status, then you need to probably buy our rules, period.
There's also kind of conflicting reports because I've heard people around this program say it's for data centers.
It's for you know,
and then others
that say no, it's just passing through.
I guess I don't know what to believe.
Well, you and I are in agreement on this film because it is very confusing because a part of me and then some of your listeners are probably going to be upset with me.
I say this because I know there's some out there saying we don't need the line.
We always need to upgrade our grid.
It's no different than what they're doing out in front of your beautiful building here in Highway 14.
They're rebuilding the road.
Our infrastructure for electricity is very similar.
You always have to keep upgrading.
So do I think there's a need for more transmission lines in the state of Wisconsin?
Unfortunately, yes.
I think there is a need.
what I'm against is that the 765 is going to be the largest line ever in the state of Wisconsin.
And I don't think we've done a very good due diligence of looking at existing lines.
Like we have a lot of 165s that can actually be upgraded to 365s or 345s.
That's where I think let's go back to that and let's upgrade because what I've been told is the easement
requirements for a 165 is almost identical to what that is for a 345.
So you're going to have a lot less impact on property owners by just upgrading our existing lines.
Now, yes, is there still going to be people upset?
Yes, but still you're not going to be running because I, and you know this, I know you've reported this on air.
That route is 91% new areas.
I mean, that makes no sense to me whatsoever.
And so that's where I think, one, do we really need this power line?
Or two, can we just upgrade our existing lines?
I guess I'm in the camp.
Let's just upgrade our existing lines, because I think that makes a lot of sense, in my opinion.
Yeah, it would affect a lot.
I know you're a farmer.
It would affect a lot
of beautiful farmers.
I mean, just some of the farmers I've talked to, and it's the entire corridor.
I mean, if you look at a map, you know,
It goes entirely through our, you know, our assemblies, our district goes through our Senate district.
I mean, it's just the whole route.
And then it goes all, again, all the way through all the county and just some beautiful farmlands, farms that have been in people's land, you know, like for century farms, you know, and, and to your point, just the economical or the, excuse me, the environmental sensitivity of the driftless.
And I've talked about this before.
It is literally
There's nothing else like it in the United States and I would probably argue in the world and so I just think there's a lot better ways we can do these upgrades than putting a brand new 765 line through our area.
Well, as many know, you're up for election again.
In terms of as you've served, Tony, I'm thinking this next term could be the most important, the most impactful, not that you haven't done things before, but all the things that are facing us here in the next years.
I mean, I think it's important.
Oh, no, when you look at, you know, and that's, I actually have a meeting here this morning at 10 here in Richland Center, and it's
kind of focusing on that.
What is, you know, what the next two years, what does that look like?
And it's going to be unique.
And I think a lot of your listeners may not know this will be the first time in 16 years that you're going to have a brand new governor, you're going to have a brand new Speaker of the Assembly, and you're going to have a brand new Majority Leader of the Senate.
So it'll be completely new leadership in Madison and in
both chambers and the governorship.
And so I guess one thing I'm hoped for is kind of a reset of relationships, a reset of, you know, building those relationships.
And both people that are running for governor, I've worked with both.
You know, obviously I have my choice who I would like to win, but I think I personally think I'm
looking forward to building those relationships to kind of starting over from fresh because
You know, people get into office, you know, and good, bad, and different.
They just kind of get set in their ways.
They may not get, you know, opportunity to share views or sit down at a table and discuss things.
And I guess all I've known is, you know, I came in in 18 when Governor Evers came in.
I'm used to split government.
It has its advantages.
But it has a lot of growing pains, too.
I mean, there's a lot of things that, unfortunately,
If we sit at a table, I personally think we can get a lot of things done.
Set aside our differences, but focus on the things we agree on.
I'm looking forward to that.
Let's put our differences aside and see the stuff we can work on.
But to your point,
Obviously, this power line is a huge issue.
We have over a $3 billion surplus in the state of Wisconsin.
Of course, everybody's going to want to spend that.
I think some people would like to see some of that back.
There's a property tax relief, there's a no tax on tips, no tax on overtime.
I just think we need, there's a lot of things that we need to do that I'm hoping regardless of who's in the governorship or who's in control of the state assembly or state senate that we can
hopefully figure out some ways to work together to fix these problems.
Yeah, I think when I'm out in the community, people talk about you and they're saying that you're one of the guys that's willing to work with both sides.
I mean, you've earned that reputation.
How do you see to continue that?
Or what are some things that you do personally?
Well,
one of the things I like to do is just sit down and talk to people.
I mean, regardless of your political party, I mean, we can, like somebody called me the other day and they said, would you sit down with us?
I said, well, yeah, I'll sit down with you.
Why wouldn't I?
I mean, if you're my constituent, you have a concern, it shouldn't be because you're a Republican or Democrat.
I sit down with you or an adult sit down with you.
That to me is just incredibly silly and foolish because
Everybody has a good idea and and like I mentioned to a group the other day who was not on my Spectrum of political things, but I just told him I said there are things you and I Obviously disagree with but there's a lot of things we agree with So let's focus on those things that we agree on and work together and recognizing that there's things we disagree on and
And but there's so much more we agree on and that's where I said and I will constantly hammer this When you drive by you come down Main Street, you've got obviously, you know the Democrat Party and the Republican Party shortly thereafter, you know, they both have no 765 line signs in there and their front I Have never and I've said this before never seen
Both political parties have the same sign in their yard.
So my point is let's build on that.
Let's not divide
Uh, let, let's stay on that topic.
Let's stay together on that topic.
Cause trust me, there's a lot of other topics that we disagree on, but that's one thing I think at least in my short political career, that's the first time I've ever seen that both parties are actually unified against something.
Uh, but we just need to keep that spirit that, Hey, there's things that we can agree on and there's things that we're not going to agree on.
I think that's where I, I try to look at.
the bigger picture on down deep.
There's things that we all want the same thing.
We want Wisconsin to succeed.
We want it to be the best possible place to, to live, raise a family, retire.
We all want that.
It's just obviously we have different ways that we, we see that, that vision.
Yeah.
Well said.
I think a lot of us are going through some political ad fatigue right now.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
One thing.
What so I obviously I'm on I'm on the leadership team and so one of the things that I I do is I'll take a day or two and I'll go actually go help one of my colleagues, you know, I'll knock on doors and talk to
them to try to, you know, let's be honest, persuade them to vote for one of my colleagues.
And I've heard that on every, I can't tell you how many times I've heard that people that we are just sick of all the ads on both sides.
You know, I had one person tell me said, I, you know, if I, if I believed all these ads, I wouldn't vote for anybody.
And so it's just, and I started chocolate because you're right, it does get to a point that it's, I don't want to say it's, it is overkill.
It's the money.
And I would like
You know, it's interesting, Canada, I'm not saying this because there's a pros and cons of this.
Canada actually has a limit on one, which you can spend, but then two, when the season starts on which you can actually start campaigning.
I mean, that that's another thing that's like, maybe that might be a little refreshing as well.
But I mean, obviously, when at the Supreme Court decision, how many years ago, decades ago, basically said, you know, there's unlimited money and all that other stuff that that really opened the door to
You know, these costs on these campaigns, it's crazy how much it's spent.
I mean, like the congressional race, obviously that we're in right now, that will probably be the most expensive race in the nation for the third district.
You know, Senator Mark Lyne and his opponent down there, that will probably exceed $10 million.
I heard that could be a record record.
Oh, no.
There's no doubt.
There will be.
Yeah.
There is no doubt.
And so when you look at all that, it's like, wow.
And once again, it's both sides.
It's not one side or the other side.
Both sides have a...
I'm part of that, and so I do wish we could put some type of limits.
Right.
Well, I mean, obviously, radio and TV benefit from it, but also the flyers that we get in the mail that most people just put right in the
recycling.
The flyers are, and I'll just give your listeners an example of what a flyer costs to send out.
So I've sent a flyer out, and I'll probably do a couple more.
to an assembly seat, what that costs, I was brutally honest, it's 8,100 bucks.
That's what it cost my campaign to put one of those flyers out.
Now, that's one assembly seat.
There's 99 in the state of Wisconsin.
So you take 81.
So if you're a candidate for governor or if you're a candidate for congressional seat, I mean, when you send out one of those flyers, it is not cheap.
And to your point, 90% of them
Probably more so especially this time of year is just getting thrown in the trash.
I mean some people look at them, especially if they're undecided But yeah, it's It's What we call it we actually mean we have this we call it silly season just like you know If you're getting a little tired of it your listeners getting tired of it.
Trust me.
We're getting pretty tired of it
Right, well, I'll be over on the third
on the third.
I mean before you know, and once again, you got early voting There's a lot of opportunities to get out there and vote so
No doubt.
Yeah.
In fact, early voting is getting underway.
Yep.
Yep.
More from Tony Kurtz coming up here when the morning show continues on WRC.
We are privileged to have representative Tony Kurtz in the studio with us.
Always a good time when he stops by and formative conversation.
One of our listeners asked about roadside ditches and why are they not being mowed on state highways?
Any idea?
No, and I've got to look.
Why?
I mean, I just, I was telling you during when we were on the break, I, my.
My township the other day just mowed our roadsides and they've actually mowed them three times this year, which kind of shocked me.
Normally they don't, uh, won't that many times.
So, but I will check.
I don't, I don't have the answer to that.
I don't, I mean, I mean, I know they've, I don't know.
I don't want to speculate why they haven't.
Okay.
We'll follow up on that a little later.
Um, school funding continues to be in the news, uh, any ideas on how things could
change?
Well, it's interesting you bring that up.
And once again, I don't mean to go back to the past, but you know, in May, we did, you know, we added that what I thought was a very reasonable agreement with the governor to obviously that would include not, you know, tax on tips and overtime and some property tax relief.
But most importantly, when you talk about school funding, that had a big thing in there for special education.
OK, and that would have brought the level up.
And I know I've talked about this before.
My personal opinion is special education is one thing I think We we should we can and we should put more money into and I've said that in the past and I'll continue to say that I don't want the massive jump like they wanted to do last budget basically you're going to go from 30% up to 60% because that that was be a huge price tag one thing about special education and I guess why I'm somewhat passionate about that is
It's kind of a double-edged sword for our school districts because a couple months ago, it's been about six months ago now, I actually went to La Crosse and it was a special education educator but their conference and it was actually a lawyer actually came to talk to the special education instructors and the teachers and you say, well, why would a lawyer be talking to these folks?
Well, what happens is if a parent thinks their son or daughter should be in
special education.
Okay, well obviously the school district, it doesn't matter Richland or Ithaca, they do an assessment to see if that student should be in there.
And of course, you know, some parents are probably a little bit more passionate about their kids than others and saying, yes, I want my kid in there.
And so what has happened over time, not all school districts do this, but some school districts will basically, I don't want to say they, I don't want to say they bend, but they, you know, they're worried about that parents
comments and and then if they for some reason don't put that child in special education then the parent could say well I'm gonna get a lawyer or I can sue and that's kind of where this lawyer was at saying hey that is an issue that that's a problem some of our school districts to be fair are afraid of that you know if they don't put somebody in a special education especially if a parent is going to threaten them so
Special education is something I think as a state we do need to look at other states kind of do it differently But the one thing I do want to cautious on once we put money in a special education due to the federal requirement the maintenance of effort we can never pull that money back and That's why it kind of did disappoint me back in May when that failed because we were going to add another almost 330 million dollars to that pot of money for special education Which then in turns frees up other money?
for your school district to utilize for students' achievement.
So that would have been a big increase.
But to your point about school funding, I did meet with a couple of our superintendents.
It was actually their idea, and I won't name who they are, but they are in your listening area.
And it was kind of looking at a different way we do the funding formula.
Right now, as a state, we pay on a per pupil basis.
And the vast majority of other states do the same thing.
It's basically, we always call it, excuse the crude, butts in seats.
Basically, every student is a dollar amount that the state can get, once again, what the school district can levy for from property taxpayers.
The problem is, and we've talked about this before, is about declining enrollment.
The number of birth rates, we are down roughly 63%
thousand students statewide in K-12 education.
In other words, that's not people moving out.
It's just the birth rates have really come down and so that is affecting our school funding.
And so one of the suggestions was instead of funding on a let's say a per pupil basis,
Because let's say, well, give me an example.
Let's say we have a school district that has 1200 kids in the school, you know, K through 12.
If they lose 50 kids in that school year, that's a lot of money they're going to lose.
But you're not going to, you know, you take that over 12 grades, it might be, you know, four kids in this grade or three kids in that grade.
You're not going to cut a teacher.
You're not going to cut somebody because of that.
But if you did a model where it's like based on a section,
And what I mean by that is there's studies that have been done about, you know, what is the right mixture of student to teacher for, you know, Kate, you know, from kindergarten to sixth grade.
You know, let's say that's 18 kids per section.
Same thing, you go to middle school, you know, from, you know, seventh, eighth and ninth, you know, that is, let's say it's...
20 kids per section and same thing with high school.
You'd have a section in other words So now as a state we would pay on a section instead of a per pupil and that way is if you you know if you only had 11 kids you're still You know you're still gonna keep that teacher But once again if you lost if you gained a section or lost a section you would get more money That would be a little bit more palatable because then you could
If you lose a section from a school district, then obviously that would make sense.
You could cut a teacher or reassign that teacher.
Right now, just the way the funding formula is, and I know there's other people I've talked about looking at the funding formula, I do think we do need to look at a way particularly, because 70% of our school districts, we've got 421 school districts in the state of Wisconsin, 70% of them are all experiencing declining enrollment.
And of the 18 school districts in our assembly seat, only one is actually growing.
And that's the Dells.
Wisconsin Dells is actually growing.
Reedsburg's maintaining.
I mean, it's maybe a one percentage increase every year.
It's not a lot, but they are growing.
But like I said, the vast majority are declining.
So I personally would like to look at
You know, what is that right funding formula based on you know, the world we live in now with declining enrollment because it's all I mean I've said this before 2026 in May of 26 will be our lowest graduating class in the state of Wisconsin ever ever and if you go out It only gets worse as you know, the years keep going, you know, it's interesting.
I was talking to a couple of weeks ago I was at an event and I was talking to somebody's names Terry
And he said, you know, years ago when I went to school, and Terry's probably in his 80s, two buses, they use two buses a day on his bus route.
Today, they are literally in that same bus, once again, two buses full of kids, that same route today, there's only six kids on that route.
And I think if you, most of your listeners, they understand when I talk about the declining enrollment, it is a real deal.
It's a problem.
And it's not just a Wisconsin problem.
It's actually a Midwest problem.
It's actually a United States problem.
We actually have a decline, especially when you look at Europe.
Some of the declining populations in Europe is actually somewhat scary.
But it's a deal.
And I would like to look at how we do funding based on that because it's not getting any better, unfortunately.
And basically, I mean, the costs are going to continue to go
up.
I mean, for salaries and transportation and all those kind
of things.
No, and all those costs, I mean, maintenance, building maintenance, things like that, all that is part of that equation.
And so what does frustrate me about this issue, and something you and I were talking about earlier, Phil, is you can't have a good, unfortunately, politics get in the way.
In other words, if I say the nasty word,
consolidation, you know, I will get crucified.
But there is a point and we need to talk about this because it's not getting any better.
And like I said, I am not for that.
I mean, I don't want to close up because it is, it's part of our community, but it's something we do have to talk about.
Can we do more with shared services?
Is there more things that we can do?
Maybe the ceases, because the ceases in every district, are there more that we can do to share services?
And believe it or not.
I will give a credit to a lot of our superintendents in this area, particularly, they are talking about those things.
Okay, are there things that we can share?
Are there things that we can do together to help with costs?
That's a good thing to that conversation.
And I, what I don't want, what's unfortunately is people say, well, as soon as I say something about like now about, you know, paying per section instead of per pupil, now I'm, you know, people are going, oh my God, he's going to cut, you know, he's going to do this, this and that.
No, let's have a conversation about it because
Everybody knows it.
That's the thing everybody knows.
You know, regardless of your political party, you kind of know we need to talk about this.
We need to come up with some solutions.
Because it's not, to your point, Phil, it is not sustainable.
It is not.
And it's nobody's fault.
It's not Republicans, not Democrats.
It's nobody's fault.
It's just...
The client enrollments, we're just not having the kids like we used to.
I mean, how many kids did you have in your graduating class?
Well, probably 28.
28.
But the interesting thing of those, I probably only about three were not on a farm.
Oh, yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
Yeah.
I mean, the rich hair, especially in Richland County, the number of farms they've had, I mean, I might be wrong in the dose, don't quote me on this.
I mean, it was well over 800 dairy farms at one time.
And now what?
There's probably 70?
Something like that.
It's a very low number.
So to your point, you know, just like when I was telling you about Terry, you know, he had two full buses.
Once again, they were stopping at all these picking up, you know, four or five, six kids.
And now that same route is, you know, six kids.
So it is a problem.
And we can't just put our head in the sand and say, well, you know, it's going to go away.
It's not.
And I know this is going to ruffle feathers here.
It's just like when, unfortunately, the campus closed here.
You know, it's something that statewide, if you look once again, the UW system in general has lost over 18,000 students in that 10-year period.
So it's a problem statewide and other states are dealing with the same thing.
It really is.
It's just, I wish we could take part.
about it and and and you know that the heated discussion about well you're gonna you're you're trying to do this or you're trying to do that it's just it's a problem and we do need to come up with some solutions
I've read where some of the four-year universities the smaller four-year universities are also in trouble in the state
oh no when you look at there was a new and this is a little dated there was a New York what's that what's that Wall Street Journal that's what it was Wall Street Journal and it's a couple years it was probably last year over 500
And this is nationwide 500 small private universities have closed in the last decade I mean it is and there are there are a lot of schools that are are suffering and it's it's across the board and it's you look at it from a workforce issue you know obviously I was in the service I kind of worry about recruiting for the military I mean when you have X number of less students we're all competing for the same people and there's
less.
I mean, it doesn't matter if it's health care, if it's construction, if it's welding, if it's, you know, radio station
excuse me, or, you know, the military.
We're all, we're all in the same boat.
We have less people, and that's going to affect.
It's going to affect our daily life.
It already has in some aspects, especially when you look in the medical community, shortages of doctors, nurses, CNAs.
They're shortages.
It doesn't matter.
Like the highway department, somebody running a big excavator.
There are shortages out there.
And unfortunately, that's...
going to continue.
What about the dilemma our counties are facing?
I think crisis could be the word in some cases.
In some cases, and it's interesting, right now in the legislature, you can start drafting bills.
So I actually have a bill that is in drafting right now.
So a couple budgets ago, obviously we did shared revenue, all right?
And that was an increase, and it was supposed to, initially when we did that bill, it was supposed to go for public safety.
So it was supposed to go for EMS, you know, fire, police, sheriff's department, those type of things.
Well, you know, the town's association, which is a great organization, you know, they wanted to be able to put more money in the roads.
So we kind of said, okay, you know, we'll open, we'll open what this can be used for.
And then the league of municipalities, you know, for, so, you know, Ritz and center, they said, you know, we, it's not just police and fire.
We, you know, we'd like to do more for infrastructure.
So we opened that up.
to more than just public safety.
The bill that I'm working on and it's something that I am pretty passionate about is that we would have another, you know, we have shared revenue and then we have a supplemental, but this one would be solely just for public safety.
In other words, it can only be used for EMS.
It could only be used for fire.
It could only be used for police or a sheriff's department for solely public safety.
In other words, and I think if you did something like that, that would, to your point, it would help other, you know, it's gonna free up other opportunities for the county or the city to say, okay, we're gonna use this money.
We're getting this money now from the state and we can use it over there.
But the fact of the matter is, you know, you think basic functions of
of government is public safety.
And so that's one of the things that's in drafting.
That's one of the things I'm going to introduce as we start the session up in January is trying to get more funding, obviously, to our communities.
By the next time you're in, the
election will be over.
And I'll be happy and so will
you.
Hopefully the Brewers have won the World Series
by then.
That would be great.
People will be really happy.
But it's an important election for all of us, isn't it?
No, it is.
And I know a lot of people are fatigued with all the ads and everything out there.
It's just this is your opportunity to voice your vote.
I mean, it's pretty powerful.
And so all I'm asking, regardless of who you vote for, just take that opportunity to exercise your right.
I spent 20 years in the military.
I went to a lot of different countries in this big, beautiful world.
And some places don't have this opportunity to actually go to the polls and vote for the person that you believe is the best for your area.
Always good stuff, Tony.
I know you got to get to a meeting, so we'll let you go.
Well, thank you, Phil.
And thanks to all your wonderful listeners.
Enjoy this week.
beautiful week.
Right.
So get outside and enjoy our colors.
And I know the farmers.
I know me.
I'm pretty happy because it's going to be some free, free drying for my corn in the field.
Did you have beans this
year?
I didn't have any beans.
This is the first year I've done beans for a while.
But I know it's interesting on beans.
People, I mean, some of you listeners have been on how beans can, you know,
Moisture is a big thing on the beans, obviously, and we get beautiful sunny days that actually sucks those moistures and you get some humidity or rain.
It actually brings those moisture.
And some of the farmers that I talk to, they actually want some moisture back in their beans because they got too dry.
But no, a lot of beans are coming off, but corn won't be too much for them.
Great.
Well, good luck.
Have a safe season there
on the farm, too.
Everybody on your listeners.
Thank you, Phil.
You bet.
Representative Tony Kurtz, representing the 41st Assembly District on today's morning show.