 Welcome again to our first Friday forum for the month of March. I heard the beliefs March already. I'm Dave Gass and I'm chair of the Business Advocacy Committee and of the Chamber of Commerce which is responsible for organizing our first Friday forums. So like usual we have some announcements before I bring up our speakers today. First I would like to announce the upcoming first Friday forums next month which is April 13th where we one week later because of Good Friday being on April 6th. So, is Good Friday is April 6th? It must be. Yeah, no, no. Yeah, it is. Yeah, okay. That makes sense. That's why we move it. So April 13th will be our first Friday forum in April and that's going to spotlight economic development and we will have Patrick Drainin of the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corp and we'll have I think Chad Peleshek of the City of Sheboygan, Don Pullman from the City of Plymouth and probably one or two others who will just talk about sort of economic development in Sheboygan County. So again another interesting program they'll kind of bring us up to speed on where things are, where things are going. In May we don't have our speaker format lined up but what we're organizing, we're working on organizing is really a forum that's going to focus on sort of energy and we're that what we're trying to put together and we don't have it all together yet but we will is to have a forum that'll sort of talk about all of the energy sources out there and have someone who can maybe kind of separate the myth from reality. It's a little bit of a different forum than we've done in the past and I think it'd be interesting. Everybody has a lot of questions about you know energy and all the conjecture about energy independence and what we should be doing and so we're gonna see if we can bring some individuals in who can talk about sort of the facts and you know where we could really go putting aside all the rhetoric that's spewed out by political people. Yeah. On a national level. Not state national though. And Mike that was a good segue into our June 1st Friday forum which is our legislators, our state legislators will be back at that time three months from now to give us an update on things statewide. So again those are always interesting and then July we take a break, we take July off and then we'll come back and we've got a set of programs we were planning but it's a little bit premature to talk about them right now but they'll be good. I would like to also again reiterate we thank Praveya Health and Wellness for being our sponsor they were last year and they agreed to do it again this year so we thank them very much for being a sponsor of our first Friday forum. The other thing I'd like to mention is I think every one of our first Friday forums we've had taped and replayed on our local public television and that is WSES and that's channel 990 and I want to thank WSES and Steve who has been very diligent about coming and and taping our shows our first Friday forums and it'll be replayed probably next week Steve and maybe sometime after that so you have to consult the format Betsy okay great great so we again we thank WSES it's a good a good service that they provide for us and being able to get this information. Upcoming March 14th we have a business after hours at the Kohler Spaz which has become very popular so if you are at all interested call in quickly go to the website yeah maybe just a comment on for any of you attended for any of you didn't attend the Chamber annual dinner maybe congratulations to the Chamber staff for organizing what I thought and I think most people agree was a very well organized annual dinner of about 500 people were there and I think I was commenting to Betsy before our meals you know when you think about bringing 500 people in serving them cocktails get him in down sitting down to eat having a program and giving out awards and you're done at 910 that's pretty amazing so congratulations to the Chamber staff and all those help organizing and at that at the annual dinner you may have noticed it was pointed out the slogan better together and I think you're gonna see that more and more and that is I think a lot of that's resonated with a lot of people and I think it does signify again what the Chamber is all about is that you know as a team we accomplish a whole lot more together than we could as individuals so I believe that's all the comments I have so with oh yeah we'll forget that so our our topic today is our legislators and let me introduce them up and they're gonna speak we've asked them maybe to highlight in some short comments sort of the committee work that they're doing or the significant aspects of their current committee work as well as legislative things are working on and then we're gonna really open it up and want to reserve enough time to open up for questions and answers so don't be shy in asking your questions this is they they really do want to hear your questions and be able to respond to that I mean they look for feedback from all of us as you know the constituents so think of your questions as they're giving their general comments so we have I think four of our legislative leaders here today and we have senator Joe Leipam representative Mike Ensley representative Dan Lemahue and representative Steve Castell so I think what we're gonna do is we're gonna do it on the stage you you do have your musical act prepared right we didn't tell you about that oh okay we're gonna do it yeah yeah I I think we do have a karaoke machine downstairs we could bring up so they're gonna speak from the stage and then I think maybe we'll let senator Leipam go first give the Senate perspective and then the representatives can decide how they want to go in their order and then after that then we'll have comments the mic is on so everything should be set to go so gentlemen if you'd like to come on stage well thank you Dave and good afternoon everyone it's great to be with you to provide you with another update on things that have been happening in your Wisconsin state legislature I think I can speak comfortably on behalf of all my colleagues that we really do enjoy these opportunities to keep you informed as to the actions and the events and activities that we are participating in down at the state capitol and it has been a very busy and I believe productive legislative session we began our session back in January of 2011 and we function in two-year periods down at the capitol our 11 12 legislative session is coming to a bit of a close over the next couple of weeks and we look forward to talking with you about the issues that we're working on what I provided for you today is a update on what I think are some of the highlights of the recent legislative session the trifold piece that should be in the center of your table identifies what I would again call key legislative actions that have been taken by the legislature between January 2011 and December of 2011 so most of the items in this document have been adopted in both houses of the legislature and our law in the state of Wisconsin and I detail that in each item that I address I'll give the status but most of this reflects kind of business that's been completed and has become law it focuses a lot on working to balance our budget to force our state to live within its means to reform the way in which we administer and manage our governments not only at the state level but at the local level and at efforts to grow our economy and our job base our private sector job base in Wisconsin the one-page sheet is just a quick update on bills that have moved through the state Senate since January of 2012 so this is kind of our winter floor period and the 20 or so bills that I list there are kind of key or highlight issues that I would suggest have made their way through the Senate many of them are over in the assembly being considered and will move on hopefully within the next couple of weeks so I hope you read through that and learn a little bit about some of the specific things we've done or that we're working on I serve on a number of different committees I think collectively you can be proud of the fact that the five legislators that represent parts of Sheboyton County are on most if not all of the key committees in the legislature and your county our county has a real strong voice and influence in what's happening in most legislative matters the chamber provided you with a listing of all our committee subjects the key committee that I chair and have been focusing on is our committee on economic development jobs veterans and military affairs and that's really what my focus will be for the next couple of weeks as again our legislative session begins to come to a close and we've got a couple of areas on the economic side of things that we continue to work on we are hoping and working to try to find yet an opportunity in which we can make additional angel seed or risk capital available in the state of Wisconsin this is something that we've done in the past I think back in 2006 we adopted an angels investment tax credit program we'd like to build on that and enhance on that Wisconsin unfortunately legs behind every other state in the nation in regard to the amount of government taxpayers support that we put into angel seed or upstart kind of company opportunities we're working to find some opportunity there but we're also trying to be fiscally responsible I mean we want to keep our budget and tax credits or incentives to businesses get counted as costs in the way we do our budgeting down at the state capitol and so we're trying to find what we can responsibly do to help some new startup businesses while being respectful to our budget balancing goals but I'm hopeful we're gonna find some answer yet on that important angel seed investment area we're also work the Senate side and I think the Assembly will concur with us to expand an economic development opportunity that runs currently through the Wisconsin housing and economic development authority we da we da in many people's minds focus on housing situations but they're also very strong economic development partner in the state of Wisconsin as well over the past 20 years we da working with private banks have invested over a hundred and seventy million dollars in small business opportunities and assistance programs and they haven't ever had a loss with that hundred and seventy million dollar investment and so I believe that there's an opportunity there for us to give we to some additional flexibility to work with more smaller businesses and more geographical diverse businesses across the state and I have a bill in the Senate and it's sponsored in the assembly as well that would make some additional economic development opportunities available through we da and then finally we continue in our committee to work on the veterans veterans issues and really our key focus there right now is that over the next couple of months we're gonna have thousands of Wisconsin citizens returning because of the stopping of activity in Iraq and changes in Afghanistan a lot of our military folks are coming home and we want to make sure that these folks come home to Wisconsin find jobs and then stay here in Wisconsin and so we've got a couple of bills that would do some simple things like a military servicemen or woman may use their skill and their talent to be a health safety officer within the military to do health issues we believe that what they've learned and what they've experienced on the health side in the military should equal or equate to the training or the requirement that they would need for a certification become an EMT in Wisconsin and instead of having to go through a whole separate certification process when they return to get their state certification for an EMT why don't we allow them to use their military experience to meet that training requirement so it's a simple change that we're going to make but it really again will help these individuals get into work based opportunities they when they return home those are some of the job related focuses obviously I can't neglect the biggest job issue that is kind of lingering over the Capitol at this time and that's the mining permitting a bill that the assembly has passed in the Senate I hope will pass and will be able to get a bill signed into law what we're looking at doing again collectively as a state is streamlining and improving the process in which an applicant and their applicant would go through to be able to get a permit to mine in Wisconsin we're not approving a mine permit that's going to be up to the DNR the Army engineers and the EPA what we've learned is that currently in Wisconsin we basically have a moratorium on mining the way our laws are written it basically makes it impossible and infeasible for any company to want to consider mining in Wisconsin there's a huge opportunity in northern Wisconsin perhaps in other parts of the state and what we're working on is trying to find ways to again make the process of going about getting a permit a little bit more streamlined and efficient the assembly passed a bill they can talk more about that if they'd like in the Senate we're struggling one of our Republican members is not yet on board with a even amended version of the assembly bill and there's not a Senate Democrat yet that's willing to step forward to support any type of a proposal that would help to bring this type of a mind mining operation in Wisconsin we'll be meeting in finance on Monday and our hope is that the finance committee is going to be able to find an answer and and hopefully get a mining bill moved forward the everything that I should mention because again we're going to be raked over the coals for this issue as we have on most over the past year and there's all these different levels of approvals that are there to protect our environment I have a huge amount of respect for our department of natural resources they are not even with an ease permitting process they're not going to just rubber stamp a permit they have the responsibility and the respect through their through their requirement of their job to ensure that if a permit is brought forward that environmental protections are in place and that we are having safeguards in place for our environment and then again it goes beyond the DNR goes to the Corps of Engineers and the EPA and above all that to talk about this in our Constitution we have what's called the public trust doctrine in Wisconsin and we the citizens of Wisconsin have said you know what we value and respect our environment and we're gonna build into our Constitution that nothing can can violate the trust and the respect that we have for our environment and so you know even if we tweak the timelines a little bit and you know change some of the processing any permit still has to meet that constitutional muster of being again in line our environmental values here in the state of Wisconsin I'm hopeful again we can maintain those environmental standards while recognizing that we've got to in Wisconsin start to move forward on some job opportunities and economic opportunities that are key and pertinent to our state as manufacturing continues to get harder and harder to do here in Wisconsin other jobs are are more of a struggle we've got to build off of those things that can build jobs in Wisconsin and this mining opportunity is one of those things if we turn this down we're turning down really I think a important economic and industry aspect of Wisconsin that we really should be again in smart and environment of ways working and taking advantage of instead of neglecting so that's my update and I know the representatives will have even more good information to share and then we do really look forward to your questions in your input thank you very much okay Joe gave a very energetic and positive report and I like that but I when I tell you that it's very good to be back in Sheboyin County looking at all the believe me when I tell you it's been it's been an interesting session and in some ways challenging in many ways very very rewarding we've accomplished more and I can say this with complete confidence we've accomplished more in this session than I think in the in the the 10 prior it's been that dramatic and not everyone's happy with what we've accomplished but it's my belief that what we've done up to this point is very positive and is going to help Wisconsin position itself to be a national leader in economic development in in in economic environment in general and fiscal stability which is is really what our job is is to manage the state's resources on your behalf and to find a way to provide the services within available resources and with that's not been done so well over the last long time and we're we've we've turned things a point where we have a manageable situation that we can feel good about I've had the opportunity to do some interesting work in the legislature of the years this year I am I serve on a number of committees I serve on the Children and Families Committee which in the past I've chaired for a number of years I serve on the Insurance Committee and then the Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee and I chair the Education Committee it's been an interesting and fun time sometimes challenging time to to be chairing that Education Committee because there's a lot going on but we talk about exciting stuff it's it's there I mean we've been we've been working on on issues that have really just been kind of talked about in idle conversation over the years beyond all of the drama that you've heard about there's some less dramatic or headline-grabbing things that have gone on that can have dramatic effect and on on the the future of our education system and the future of the opportunities that we can provide kids in Wisconsin over the course of the last 12 months there were some major efforts that were ongoing the first one that started was actually generaled by Tony Evers who's the superintendent of public instruction in Wisconsin originally from Sheboygan County and he laid he had it up a group working on on a task force looking for ways to evaluate educators teachers principles to create a system that everybody could agree on to that we're going to evaluate educators in a consistent way across Wisconsin for the first time ever that evaluation is going to be going to rely partially on student performance that's going to be a centerpiece not the whole the whole pie but it's going to be a major part of the evaluation system student performance not raw test scores but student performance measured over a period of time something the technology today allows us to create growth models that that can measure how well students do from one year to the next that's that's some some neat stuff the other part that was going on the governor came to and talked to the committee chairs the Education Committee chairs about eight months ago and asked how we could start a conversation about about reading in Wisconsin the concern being of course that when and the governor used the phrase that up until third grade you're learning to read and after that you're reading to learn I don't I don't know if that's exactly wraps everything up in a nice package but the fact is if if young people get into the get past the first few years of their education and not learn to read life is going to be very difficult for them and their odds of being successful down the road get less and less with every day so the governor wanted the focus as much as energy as possible and we're taking a look at what can we do what can we do differently to help make sure kids have the best opportunity to learn to read that was that was a long-term task force that met quite a few times and included the representatives from all the different education areas around Wisconsin all the different disciplines including representatives from business and and education community along with with some of us legislators and we came up with a package in the end that we think will not immediately but will have a major effect and what it amounted to is what everybody could agree on is that the most important thing to a classroom is the teacher so we're going to make some change that will ensure that when you young teachers or young folks are going to schools of teacher preparation that they're actually getting the tools they need to be able to walk into a classroom and and be successful and we found that that isn't necessarily the case right now so there will be some changes that'll little change that'll have an impact on that and then we're also going to evaluate kindergarten kids every year we're just going to screen kindergarten kids across the state in a consistent way to find out who needs extra help those two things sound simple but but getting it done and and looking at what the impact can be and what it has been in other states is just tremendous so we're pretty excited about that the other part is there was a long-term task force again that was it was chaired by the governor Tony Evers myself and senator Olson the chair of the senate committee looking at that school accountability how can we measure and consistently across the state all the different education programs in a fair way using the best technology available that you can imagine having 25 people in a room coming agreeing on how that should be on is not the easiest thing to do to come to the agreement but I think we did come to some pretty good agreements and most of that is now represented in the waiver application that the department of public construction has forwarded to the state or the national department of education asking for to allow us to implement our own accountability system instead of the federal no child left behind and the Obama administration is entertaining those waivers and we're hopeful that that'll be successful the biggest thing that that everybody should keep in mind is that what we talk about public education it really isn't we don't do schools just to do schools we don't we don't spend lots of money just because we have to the whole idea is that we want to create the best opportunities possible for the children of Wisconsin so that they can be successful later in life so Wisconsin can be successful the buzzwords that you'll hear over and over and over again is the new buzz phrase is we want them to be college and career ready what that boils down to is we just want them to have the to be prepared and to have the tools to be able to take the next step before they can do that they've got a graduate of my school they've got to be able to read and write they've got to be able to do that proficiently we in Wisconsin for years have kind of sat on our laurels we have this notion that we're just good that we do education really well and I would say that there's a lot of truth to that and we're very fortunate in this part of the world in this part of the state I think you you know if you can go anywhere to Wayne County and find good results for your kids in the public schools we have here but as a state we have been falling further and further behind the rest of the country that's not even talking about how far we've been falling apart some other parts of the world falling behind some other parts of the world that's it's not a good thing and I think we've not not had that difficult conversation for a long time that we're having it now and actually taking steps to make a difference is a good thing and what we'll find along the way there'll be some resistance to change change is is hard to do sometimes especially if you've been doing it the same way for a long time but it's it's it's vital that we not try to protect the status quo and just as we've always done them before because in that case we would fail I could rattle on about this for a long time so I'm and I know a couple of the guys so but I'll be I'll look forward to questions thank you good afternoon 14 months into this now so I am now a veteran yeah right you want to talk about committees I'll just preface my comments first by just saying based on the previous occupation that I ran for office I was well aware of what was happening in Wisconsin as I'm sure all the VR as well and that is the fact that we were no longer being competitive from a economic standpoint from a business standpoint in my view excess taxation litigation additional regulations that have been piled on to the businesses have made it more difficult for you to do your business and to make money and to employ people when I received my committee assignments I was chosen as the vice chair of the jobs economy and committee I knew that was going to be a pretty major deal because of what was in front of us in the reforms that we're looking to to put in place didn't have a very good feel on transportation which I also sit on the transportation committee and ways and means little did I know and again I don't have a whole lot to compare it to but it was a daunting task because especially here in the last few months as we're kind of winding down our session maybe from my veteran colleagues who have been through that before they're probably used to that I happen to I assume that even this session it's probably even a little bit more ramped up just because some other things are going to be happening in the next few months that I think have pushed things forward even faster so it is it is it is an arduous task to actually get some of these LRBs and get some of these proposed bills and co-sponsorships and and do your homework and study both sides of all the issues so that you can hopefully make an intelligent choice and whether to support a bill or to vote for a bill the one thing I want to mention is just some some real brief statistics regarding current 2011 2012 session by the end of the session I'm speaking for the only by the end of the session the assembly will have been on the floor for more days than each of the last two previous legislative sessions there were 20 session days in 2007 nine session days in 2008 for a total of 29 in the 2009 2010 year there were 25 session days in 2009 six session days in 2010 so total of 31 as it stands right now with much more yet to go the 2011 2012 session has had 29 session days in 2011 four session days in 2012 with a few more to go yet so we'll be probably in the the mid 30s as far as session days I think there's been some media publicity that you know that things just aren't you know we're not in session as much as we should be but we've done more bipartisanship despite some of the claims again that there's been so much division within within the two the two parties this year let's see 96% of all of all roll call votes this included Democrat Democrat or and independent votes 110 roll calls have been taken in the assembly so far this session 68 out of the 110 roll calls are 62% have had 66 or more votes 106 of the 110 roll call votes again 96% have had at least one if not two Dems or independent votes along with the majority so again even though sometimes you a picture is painted a certain way there has been a lot of support and when you take the floor sessions and compare it to the committee sessions it's even significantly better than that for me as I mentioned before the jobs committee was the big one just because of what we needed to do and that was to create jobs some of the some of the the biggest bills as Senator Leipholm had mentioned is mining it for me it's very frustrating again being the vice chair of the jobs committee I said in all of the hearings that we had the three major public hearings that we had up in Hurley and and also in both in Madison as well as in Milwaukee I think if you add in the hours that our committee has met both in our formal committee group as well as in our subgroups I'm sure we're hundreds and hundreds of hours total I won't make any comment about about the the current status with with it kind of being held up by one person but for me it is a very very frustrating because I did spend a lot of time up in the Hurley iron iron County area and if you haven't been up there it is sad it is a ghost town and as you drive through that town there's nothing there all the storefronts are boarded up I think the number that I heard when I was up there was that in the last five to ten years they've averaged about 49 or 50 on high school graduates from Hurley high school last year they had nine and that's just simply because people are leaving to try to find work I have been involved in the intimate details of the mining bill and there is not one issue that anybody can say to me that will justify no one voting for these jobs for those people up there and for the thousands of other jobs it will be all throughout Wisconsin I believe this is the biggest economic job initiative bill that we've had in this state for many many decades and it's very frustrating the people need the help and those jobs are there any issue that somebody has based on the hundreds of hours I've been involved in this we've heard them all any environmental issue there are things in place today that will take care of those types of issues whether we're talking polluting the ground water or what have you there are there are things that are in place to address those there's a reason why Wisconsin hasn't been in the mining business for a long long time while our partners Michigan and Minnesota have been when you factor in the new technology there's even more things I'll have in our in our toolbox if you will to address some of those issues just to give you one example there is and I don't know all the terms of the various pieces of equipment but for lack of a better term they have these little mini wells if you will that are going to go down into the ground and I'm talking on day one before any permit is ever is ever awarded and if there's some things in that in that ground water table that come up the there's alarms and there's bells that go off and these types of systems are designed to notify the DNR and the EPA and all the people that are going to be monitoring all this stuff immediately and then there are corrective actions in place to address those things way way before ever producing iron ore that's going to be hauled out in trucks now again I don't want to be partisan but I have to tell you the bottom line here there's not one our friends across the aisle there's not one of them that is for this bill not one and I think it's absolutely a shame we according to Senator Leipholm you know we are still you know fighting the battle but if we don't get this bill it is going to be really unfortunate what we're doing right now in Wisconsin in Madison and I think representative Estelle mentioned this and I'm sure most of you know this what we're doing is not rocket science we started off with reforms to not spend more money than we have and we all know what's happening in Washington we know what's happening just about every other state in the country so we started to put fourth reforms to address these things unfortunately the the the umbrella the federal umbrella and what's going on in Washington DC kind of cast a little pale over that so it kind of limits us to properly position Wisconsin so that when some of those other changes take place we're going to be ready to rock and we're starting that process right now I will end by just saying that as Senator Leipholm had mentioned we really appreciate the opportunities to talk to you in these types of events and by all means if you have issues please let us know I could go on I try to to whittle down my list of all the bills that have gone through and have been acting enacted in law every single one of these is addressing either some of those reforms tort you know tort reform to address a lot of litigation issues that have been doing nothing but making it difficult for businesses to operate obviously a lot of different budget repair bills and things like that we're just beginning but everybody in this country is watching us right now regardless of whether it's things like mining or whether it's things that affect are affecting our budgeting budgeting everybody's watching us and and I firmly believe that if we can get to the next point on on our map of reforming state government you will see the rest of these states a lot of the states in this country are going to be following suit with all the stuff that's happened over the last 14 months yeah people are kind of sitting with wobbled knees a little bit and a little concerned of what's going to happen but if we can continue our reform agenda we will be starting a lot of really really good things to get this country back to where it needs to be thank you 60 seconds and you can clock me I serve on joint committee on finance and joint committee for review of administrative rules I serve at center live I'm senator growthman and those committees think we've done yeoman's work trying to reel in some of the administrative rules that have been oppressive to businesses around the state and and obviously our budget speaks for itself one of the questions and I'll end with this one of the questions I've heard more lately than anything else is when you guys going to change the way we do recalls in Wisconsin we and and people are frustrated and I could use a lot of the words that I won't use today about that whole process but we have a we have a kind it's in the Constitution how we do do this so we need a constitutional amendment we have one in front of us in the Assembly on Tuesday that will change that you can only recall an elected official for after they if they commit a crime or if they there's probable cause that they violated a rule ethics rules in in state of Wisconsin so that so that there's a reason right now you don't have to have a reason it's hard when you're the party that's being recalled to change the recall rules this one this one change anything that's happening right now even though we'll be accused of trying to do that but it's time that we allow elections to stand and only use recalls for what they're meant to be and so we have that constitutional amendment would have to pass both houses in the next two weeks and then next session in January I started in January of 2013 and then a statewide referendum hopefully we can get something like that quite so that we don't have to go through this mess again thank you okay let's have some questions and answers Mike you want to ask your first question I think it was Wednesday of this week I was in a meeting and found out that the that dual-stage vacuum system that's on all the gas dispensers the gas pumps that that suck away the vapors because that is putting ozone into the air you know the EPA and their illustrious wisdom has now figured out that it actually makes the environment worse the two competing vacuum systems actually make more more ozone go into the into the air so they're now allowing us and allowing the gas stations and things to to not have to put those in anymore within an hour after that meeting I had another meeting with with the representative let me he went to Stella as well with the DNR Wisconsin DNR and this one was with regard again to the ozone non-attainment standards the the little monitor that's out on the the lake shore if you will that monitors pollution I should have brought the map because you'd all get a laugh at it but when you look at where the monitoring system is for Sheboygan out of Terry Andrew right near the water all the pollution just comes up Lake Michigan this year just last week we were notified that Sheboygan County now will be the worst the only one that is no longer within the the the requirements if you will the only one meaning even downtown Milwaukee where the monitors are has better air quality than we do if you look at the map on where the monitor is located it's the stuff is just blowing up the blowing up the coast and when you factor in the humidity and things based on the water I mean that's what's driving those numbers up the folks from the Wisconsin DNR did not really try to deflect our views on that my concern is could have an impact on economic development because it does cost some of the big businesses especially when they're putting some things into the air and there's a cost to that and and if we're the only one left we even talk to them about going a handful of miles inland you could maybe go to Osberg or or somewhere hang on put in the it is a good place put in the same exact monitoring system and if you look at all of the ratings and all the different locations throughout the state we would probably go from 87 or whatever that number is down into the 60s which means we're perfectly safe unfortunately the the EPA you have to have five years of having of being in the attainment group five straight years of that before they will allow you to move a monitor so how do we get out of that we really don't so if if Manitowoc or Ozaki County or whatever and if they're gonna start putting together brochures and templates on how great their area is for business and try to attract some new businesses I think that little black mark we're gonna have on our on our sheet it's not a good thing so we're gonna we're gonna contact our congressional delegation with some letters and things and so we get some support from from senator Johnson and and the rest but just crazy yes if it takes five years to move a monitor what would it take to make another monitor go up there I mean could we have more than one monitor we finally had I think the first honest conversation about that in years this this measurement system and the location of the monitor has been it's a long-term issue and I believe from what what we've been told is that the the site the sighting of the the original sighting of the monitors was somewhat optional for the DNR at the time they were done the phrase I used in the meeting the other day is that the folks at that time with the DNR were true believers and they could have just as well worked at the EPA as they as they did at the DNR so they weren't trying particularly to be helpful they were literally trying to create bad science and they were successful in that regard what I and I asked we've started the conversation about maybe moving another one in it wouldn't take much but let's get it into the a few miles away from the lake to show what the measurement should be and we'll see how that where we go with that we're gonna do what we can but it's it's not a good situation right now they we're just kind of stuck let's move on to the next question I because we're gonna run out of time unfortunately who had an ed this isn't about jobs this isn't a bog environment this is about giving a win to Scott Walker during her recall election thank you for being who can I ask you to pop who's the senator who's a voting on the Republican side is gonna vote against this okay you all the name Dale Schultz maybe some letters might be appropriate hi to the Democratic members of the Senate to specifically represent the communities in which the mine would be located on none of them are on board in support of the bill and in Milwaukee where thousands of hundreds of jobs to mine equipment manufacturing companies none of them are working with us either I mean they the 16 of them have once again basically checked out on the issue and there are no vote and so we're trying to find the answer that we needed a package I can get the 17 votes in the Senate I remain confident I'm ready to vote as I have already in the Finance Committee for the Assembly bill but I think on Monday we'll make some tweaks in finance that meet most of the objective concerns that senator Schultz has raised and I'm hopeful that he will realize that he shouldn't be standing in the way of this important economic opportunity and that you know jobs and people are part of the environment as well next question Randy session the revenue is a revenue stream improving I mean where are we going in the next budget session in terms of our sales forecasts and maybe when you answer that Joe and others maybe could you comment you know there's been a lot of press about especially on the other side about Walker's job numbers were actually we have worse unemployment than the rest of the country and things are going worse and worse and worse could you include an answer to that comment sure first on the on the budget situation I mean we are eight months into our two-year state budget it's the 1113 a state budget it's a budget for that for the first time in 12 years is actually balanced and had everything move forward as we had hoped when we passed the budget we would have been looking at a surplus actually for the first time in 15 years about a million dollars all of our budgets are based off of that come forward to us from what's called the Legislative Fiscal Bureau they're professional people that look at national forecasts and state forecasts on revenue and expenditures a couple of months ago or weeks ago they you know gave us a little bit of warning saying you know the economy isn't going as well as we had estimated back when you guys passed the budget in June or July we think it's going to pick up but we just want to give you a warning that it's looking right now where you could be about a percentage off on revenue and that equates to about 160 to 200 million dollars or something like that I think it's great that they gave us that warning because it disciplined the Republicans in the legislature even further to not be passing any bills that would spend any money I think since the budgets passed we've probably only agreed to spend like less than a million bucks which is unbelievably disciplined for a legislature I mean it really is I mean the grand scheme of the fact that we're dealing with a 66 billion dollar you know budget every two years those that discipline is also then impacting like I said trying to find money for this angel seed investment you know we could do things in the past you could say well let's just borrow another 60 million bucks or something like that and put that into angel seed or let's just take 60 million and put it on the deficit at the two years we're not going to do that the only thing that we're going to do is if there's some cash that we think is legitimately available we'll put that into investments that we think are wise so we're on track I think all of us would wish the economy was going better than it was and you all can be a part of that obviously assumption and employing people as a key part of that but overall we're doing well I mean we've created or you have created close to 40,000 new jobs in the state since January in comparison the two years prior to that we lost 150,000 private sector jobs so it's not at the number that we'd like but we're actually gaining jobs in Wisconsin now instead of losing again 35,000 plus in comparison to 150 negative I think the other good thing to talk about is that again for like we had always been in Wisconsin we now have more manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin than government jobs if you remember last in the prior last two years of the last administration for the first time in our state's history we had government jobs exceed manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin and we've turned that back to the right perspective so those are I think some good positive things obviously we want to keep growing the economy I think the the important thing as as Senator Leibem said the fact that we have this early warning on a potential shortfall and this is a shortfall in revenues not a shortfall or not because we're spending more money or because because our budget is out of control it's a short on revenues and projected revenues we have a year and a half basically to to deal with that now if we would have if we don't do anything a year from now we got some serious problems because then we have to find that hundred hundred plus million dollars in six months well the shorter time you have to find that the more problems have so so if we're disciplined if we deal with our agencies as we should as a finance committee and as an administration we can deal with that it's it's one percent it's something we can deal with as long as it doesn't get out hand hopefully the economy will will continue to improve and and those numbers will change but it's it's because of the revenue is not because of a spending problem that we have one thing that I think doesn't doesn't quite go through all of the communications that go on in the media is the the intention that medical assistant the medical assistance programming is putting on the state budget it's really kind of taken over the spot and it was always K-12 education before but the pressure for the last 24 months has been coming from medical assistance cost increases there's there's a lot of time spent talking about cuts to medical assistance that that the governor and legislature have done truth is the last budget put in what about 1.8 1.2 billion more just into spite into medical assistance programming and yet it's not keeping up with the increases so we're going to do everything we can to make those programs as efficient as possible so the people who really really need the services the most can get them and have the safety net available to them but we're we're gonna have to be more careful with how the dollars are spent there it'll just eat our entire budget this isn't getting enough attention and it really is the issue that's demanding and and you know really a big player in our budget in the last two-year Doyle budget they used 1.8 billion of federal job stimulus dollars 1.8 billion of federal job stimulus dollars to expand Medicare programs Medicaid programs excuse me in Wisconsin not a penny of that money was available on day one of this new state budget that we're in and what representative Costell shared is that you know even though you know we're being cascaded as these cold-hearted evil people we committed 1.2 billion dollars of your state tax money to backfill that 1.8 billion dollar hole that was one-time federal money and every new penny that's coming into the state budget during this two-year period is going to that 1.2 billion dollar investment that we're making in programs that help our fellow citizens on the news last night there was a report about legislation on a minimum markup for pharmaceuticals that Wisconsin pays more for pharmaceuticals than a lot of other states because we have this minimum markup law where do all of you stand on that and did i correctly depict that i don't think anybody has correctly described the situation it's it's a little more it's a little less dramatic than people make it out to be with less impact than people would like you to believe it's a law that's been on the book since the 1930s anybody that's been in retail kind of knows about it not everybody pays that much attention to it the first what they were saying up until recent times is that it was adding 15 cents on the gas or something like that totally not true if you talk to the folks that are in the the gas business they'll tell you that 15 cents doesn't exist so whether or not it has the impact of what people believe or not the law what we should do is not make that change based on bad information there should be we should not have all the information in front of us i can tell you without going into a long explanation of why it may or may not be a good idea a number of years ago in minnesota eliminated that law and a couple years later reimplemented based on the bad impact that happened to businesses in this in between time so any other questions we probably have time or a little bit but we have time for maybe one more question if you have anybody has one right here there's a follow-up to the increase in gas to do with the job situation that more people are eligible for medical assistance because we all have the jobs and we had four or five years ago well first and foremost it's due to the fact that again with this one-time federal money they actually expanded the eligibility opportunities for more people so our income eligibility was raised in wisconsin to be one of the highest in the nation and so you know they took one-time money made all sorts of promises to a whole new group of people saying now you too can be entitled to your government through this medicaid entitlement program and they did that knowing that none of that money was going to be available two years later and i just want to kind of clarify or correct what you said we didn't increase spending in medicaid by 1.2 we backfilled the the one-time federal money we've actually had to make some tough votes and we've actually had to vote to reduce medicaid spending by 600 million dollars just in the budget yeah and i mean none of that's easy but i think again we take prime the fact that we were able to find 1.2 billion of new money to backfill that 1.8 billion dollar hole said this before and you know i we probably are self-serving but it's true um we have the best set of legislative leaders of any county in the gonson and we're really thankful for that so thank all of you one comment i did want to make i forgot to i think give a thank you out um you may have noticed the staging that staging was provided by windsor industries is charles here yeah um and so charles industry windsor industries makes this is actually docking for docks and lakes and so he's got a multi-purpose uh product here so it's very nice and we thank him and i think he's indicate he's going to let us use it for future events have a good weekend thank you