 Welcome to today's first Friday forum with the Sheboyin County Chamber of Commerce. We'd like to thank our first Friday forum sponsored Prevea Health. Without their support, we could not make this type of event happen. So thank you very much, Prevea. Today we are going to hear from Adam Payne. He's the Sheboyin County Administrator. As he explains, the county will deal with the ARPA funds and their distribution throughout the county, and then he will answer your questions. So be thinking as he's talking about what questions and follow-up you have and how you might stump him. I'm sure he'll appreciate that. As the Sheboyin County Administrator for 20 years, Adam Payne provides executive management and oversight to all operations of Sheboyin County Government. He coordinates and directs the administration and management functions of Sheboyin County's 19 departments comprised of 847 employees, 200 programs and services, and an annual budget of $149 million. Adam's responsibilities include developing and recommending organizational changes, assuring policies enacted by the County Board are carried out, and assuring fiscal and program accountability of the services to the taxpayers of Sheboyin County. Outside of work, if he still has some spare time, he's an active member of the Sheboyin Rotary, the Sheboyin County Chamber of Commerce, the Sheboyin County Economic Development Corporation Board of Directors, United Way Board of Directors, and former president of the County Executives and Administrators Association. He also coached youth sports and as an avid outdoorsman and sportsman. So without further ado, please help me welcoming Adam Payne. Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here to talk about the Ryder Cup. What a week we had at Sheboyin County. I don't know about you, but I'm still a little bit on a high with how well that went when we not only had one year, but two, two and a half years to plan it. And some of you, I know we're out there. We're just talking about it over lunch a little bit. Did Sheboyin County shine? So this morning, we're very, we're very fortunate to have a golf expert in the room, former County Board Chairperson Tom Wagner is with us this morning. So after this presentation, if anyone has any questions about golf, please ask Tom Wagner. In fact, I'd like to start with just a few quick introductions. It's always nice to see some of our County Board Supervisors attend important functions like this. And at the back table, I have Chair Vern Koch actually couldn't make it today, but Vice Chairman Robert Ziegelbauer. Robert, if you'd please stand and be recognized. I don't know if everyone knows who the Vice Chair is. Tom Wagner, who was our former County Board Chair for years, Robert Ziegelbauer. I just mentioned Roger Distruty, former Chair. Thank you for being here. And then Elaine Krauss, who is our Deputy Administrator. So pleased that she's here and also in the room, just to make sure I don't say anything about the state, is State Representative Terry Van Ackron. We appreciate that. Oh, Terry Kotzma. Terry is here. Sorry, Terry. Terry Kotzma is here, member of the Joint Finance Committee. Also here is Tyler Vorpogler. Where's Tyler? Is Tyler here? Thank you, Tyler. And then up in the front of the room, another County Board Supervisor, Rebecca Clark is with us here. So thank you. So I packed the room today with County Board Supervisors and state legislators. I see Mayor Ryan Sorensen here this morning. And again, I thank you all for taking the time for this today. So I'm going to touch a little bit on the American Rescue Plan Act, what it means for Sheboygan County, why it's so important for Sheboygan County. But before I start on that, I want to set the stage as to why we're even talking about ARPA. And unfortunately, that is because of COVID. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these statistics. And you all know you can go to our public health website and look at statistics day in and day out our public health staff. Everyone involved with battling COVID has been so essential to defeating COVID-19 and getting us back to some semblance of normalcy. But the number of deaths a year ago versus today, the activity, cases that continue to occur nationally. And of course, if you look at Sheboygan County, it was really in March of 2020 that we had our first case, our first case in Sheboygan County. We went from zero to three. And throughout the summer, we kept it in the teens. And I thought, all right, maybe we're going to, maybe we're going to avoid some of this and what's happening. But it tends to come from the south and move its way north. And ultimately a year later, from March, we are now up to over 600 active cases in Sheboygan County. We had a high of 2,600 active cases last November. So it's gone up and down. But when you look at those active case numbers, is that really the total? Does that really represent how many active cases there are in Sheboygan County? No, it doesn't. Because there's probably two to three times as many people that have gotten COVID and don't report it to public health or aren't followed up with or just stay at home and quarantine. So it continues to be a struggle for us. And again, I can't say enough about our public health team. I can't say enough about the county board and the city and the heads of government and their support. And also the Sheboygan County Chamber has been an absolute rock star with helping share information. Our businesses like the Kohler Company, Sargento, so many people have stepped up and are working to be part of the solution. And we appreciate that. Next slide, please. The bottom right hand bullet point is the one that concerns me the most and should concern all of us. If our hospitals will overrun and you or a family member is in a car accident or suffers from a heart attack or whatever it may be, you expect to go to the hospital and get immediate assistance. You expect there to be a bed and staff to care for you. And we have had upwards of over 90% of our ICU beds filled. And that has been going on for a while. I think there are probably people in this community and across the state and nation that aren't going to the hospital because they're just avoiding it, right? So this continues to be an issue. So regardless of how you feel about COVID, whether you've chosen to get vaccinated or not, please know that it's serious. And if nothing else, if our hospitals become overwhelmed, what is that going to mean for our community? What is that going to mean for you and your loved ones? Something we should all be mindful of. Next slide, please. Good news. And this is my last slide on COVID and the statistics. But the latest information, as of yesterday, over 55% of people in Sheboygan County have received at least one shot vaccinated. You can see the ages. Obviously, the younger folks haven't been able to do that as long as those of us that are older. I am so encouraged that if you're 50 and older, chances are good, you've chosen to get vaccinated. And you can see 55, 72%, 65 and up, 86%. I don't know about you, but my parents taught me that generally, it's some of the more experienced people in our lives that tend to have a lot of knowledge and insight. And we should learn and listen. And you can see that our older generations are leading the charge. So hopefully, we'll continue to see that number go up. And soon, perhaps a year from now, see COVID as being more in the rearview mirror. But it's not going to happen if we don't all pull together. Okay, next slide please. So all of this angst and intrepidation, sadness, death, all of this has had a tremendous impact on the world and on our nation and on our state and on Sheboygan County. And in March, there was the American Rescue Plan Act that came out and in my career, I've never seen anything quite like it to see this amount of revenue coming to local units of government to respond to COVID. Never seen anything like it. Actually, that bio that was read is about three years old. Now, I'm no longer on the United Way Board. I've been here 23 years instead of 20. And four and a half months ago, I became a grandpa. That's probably my most important title now. But in March of 2021, we saw this tremendous influx of resources that went out across the country to local units of government. And as you can see nationally, 1.9 trillion on which Wisconsin is going to receive. And as Sheboygan County is going to receive 22.4 million, we've already received half of that. You heard earlier, our budget is around $150 million. So this is a significant amount of funds. Although in the grand scheme of things, our Health and Human Services Department is about a $35 million department alone. So we're very equipped to deal with this situation and make sure that we make wise, thoughtful investments. But the total allocation countywide amongst all the local units of government is 51 million. What an opportunity for us to pull together and leverage resources and help make some good things happen. So as I mentioned, we've already received half the funds. We'll receive the second half sometime next May or June 2022. And we have until December 2024 to make decisions on how to allocate these resources. They must be expended by 2026. So this is not a knee jerk reaction situation. We can thoughtfully plan and make sure we're getting input and engaging others to make wise and impactful decisions. And that's how Sheboygan County rolls. That's how we get things done. We work together. We collaborate. We make good, thoughtful decisions. And it's one of the reasons why this community is such a wonderful community. Next slide, please. So what can the funds be used for? Obviously supporting the public health response. We continue to fight the good fight, whether it's in our public health department, whether it's clinics, hospitals, what have you. We continue to see people suffering from behavioral health issues. Mental health, in fact, domestic violence, sadly, is on the increase. And that's a real concern for our law enforcement and certainly a real concern for families in our community. Covering payroll benefits associated with fighting the fight. So rather than us utilizing our reserves or having to raise property taxes or somehow get more funds from the community as a whole, we have these resources to subsidize these needs and expenses. Next slide, please. Address negative economic impact. So this is pretty broad. Strictly speaking, just about anything that's been negatively impacted as a result of COVID, whether it's your business, your community, your health, your industry, we have the ability to provide assistance and support, including tourism, travel, hospitality. Pretty broad. A lot of opportunity to do good things here. Next slide, please. Premium pay for essential workers. We could provide all of our public health officers at Health and Human Services additional pay. We could do that. We aren't. Government tends to be pretty conservative and we have barriers in place and we aren't in the business really of giving significant increases or pay increases. People pull together, they step up, they do what they can to help solve the problem. So we're not using these funds at least at this point. There has not been any discussion to use this for significant pay increases. Premium pay though, as I'll touch on in a few minutes, we're certainly using it to shore up some areas like staffing at Rocky Knoll. Next slide, please. Replace public sector revenue. I'm very pleased that this was part of it because, again, rather than diminishing our reserves or asking property taxpayers to pay more. I mean, I've heard Senator Devin Lemieux and Representative Terry Patsman, Representative Tyler Gorka will talk about how proud they are that they built up the rainy day funds. I mean, it was down to nothing there what four or five years ago and they pulled together and helped really build that up. The county's got a pretty nice rainy day fund too. It's because our county board's conservative and thoughtful and you want to have those funds when something hits the fan. Fortunately, because of these resources, we haven't had to deplete or diminish our rainy day funds and we appreciate that. We also have this unique situation that the federal government and the U.S. Treasury's guidance says that what was your average increase in revenue over a period of time and you can look at that in 2019 and say it was two or three percent and after that it's less. You can use the difference and essentially the county board can utilize these funds to shore up any area they wish. It's really a very flexible tool but not only did they say how much has it gone up in 2019, you can just use the factor of 4.1% that if your revenue is going up less than 4.1% you can use this flexibility to offset other expenses in the county. What was the introduction earlier? We have 19 departments, over 200 programs and services, a lot going on. We're going to have some flexibility to shore up some areas. We're going to make good use of that. Next slide please. Water, sewer, broadband infrastructure, or mayor. Sorenson and I know administrator Todd Wolfe and the common council are looking at a pretty extensive water treatment facility improvement in the city. I think 40 million or something like that. I mean huge important investment and if the city wanted to I think they could use some of these funds. They could use maybe all of their funds to help with those type of investments. I don't know if they're going to do so. That's a mayor and city common council decision but it allows local units of government to invest in water infrastructure improvements, sewer infrastructure improvements, and broadband. And this broadband is really exciting right now. How many of you have the best broadband service ever and it never lets you down? It doesn't matter where you are in the county. I mean broadband is becoming like a transportation system for agriculture or manufacturing. You gotta have the transportation system. Like electricity. Better turn on. I think that's where broadband is or certainly is heading and fortunately through the Chavoy County Economic Development Corporation, the county board, and others we're working with a local company, Bertram, who's already applied for some resources. There are other organizations looking to bring those dollars to our community and that is an area we can invest in. These are all eligible for the 22.4 million the county received or the 22 million that the city received or the 51 million county wide. We could put that all into broadband if we want to. But that's not the plan. Next slide please. Ineligible uses. We cannot use it just to say well we're going to cut property taxes. You know we're going to cut them in half next year. Merry Christmas. We can't use them to say oh we're going to give all our employees a nice big pension increase. Can't use it for debt service. Can't use it to build up our rainy day reserves. We're using it to offset using our rainy day reserves but not to build them up. We need to invest these dollars in ways that are going to make our community stronger, prove our quality of life, and have more people want to live, work, and play. Should point to county. Next slide. So how have we started handling this? So we received this news, this US Treasury guidance just touched on that and by the way on every one of your tables there is a summary of six advisory committees that we put together and I'm going to talk about that more in a minute and a little background on the county so feel free to take a copy when you leave today if you want to get into the weeds a little bit more. But as I said earlier collaboration is absolutely key to our success. That's how we rule. That's the culture in Sheboygan County, certainly on the county board and department heads with our budget development or whatever it may be and honestly I think that's the culture in this community with the Chamber of Commerce or United Way. We pull together, we problem solve, we help make good things happen. So we immediately reached out to our heads of local government which are the chief elected officials of all the local units of government. We get together a couple times a year, break bread, talk about common interests and this is what we talked about. We reached out to our Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation. There are people in this room like Deidre and myself and others that participate on the board of directors or the executive committee but the SEEDC represents what 35, 40 different businesses in our community including collars, Johnson bills, Sargento, pillars in our community. We reached out to them. We reached out to the Sheboygan County Chamber who as I said earlier I can't thank Deidre and Mark Shoe and your board enough for your support with sharing information about COVID and just helping this community get through this very difficult time. And then United Way. I'm no longer on that board as I mentioned earlier but I was for 15, 17 years. Kate Bear is a rock star. That board is so thoughtful and they help make good things happen. So we reached out to all of them. Next slide please. And with input particularly from the SEEDC and the city of Sheboygan, the mayor and the administrator, we put together six task forces. Now these have to look pretty familiar to you, right? These topics, affordable housing, behavioral health and crisis response, broadband development, childcare, transportation and workforce development. These are topics we've been talking about for years. How long have we been saying we've got 3,000 or more job openings in Sheboygan County? Two decades. At least a decade. How long have we been saying we need to invest more in behavioral health, crisis response, affordable housing? How do you get people to move here and work here if there isn't any affordable housing? Or if they have children and there's no accessible childcare? So again the city of Sheboygan, the SEEDC in Sheboygan County pulled together and we established these six task forces. We identified chairs for each one. I'm not going to read all of them but you can certainly see the names up there and some of the people are in the room. They then helped pull together a team of individuals and as I said on your table is a one page summary of every single one of these task forces. They got kicked off on August 17th. In fact we just had a check-in meeting with the chairs yesterday. By the end of the year we're looking forward to them coming to the board, County Board, SEEDC, City of Sheboygan, heads of local government and sharing the recommendations. But I'm really pleased that we have reached out and garnered input and are getting input from the community. Not every county board is doing it this way. Some county boards are just handling it all in house between the board and the department heads are handling it. So I'm pleased that we're working collaboratively. Next slide please. As I mentioned the goal is for the chairs of these task forces to provide a report by the end of the year. It doesn't have to be in January. It could be next week if they're ready. But by the end of the year we're looking for a report with recommendations and if it's not all completely finalized that committee can continue working. The key is they're together, they're convened, they're talking, they're problem solving and of course the sooner we get these recommendations the sooner we can start doing something with them and engaging others and establishing priorities and problem solving. Each committee, as you can see from those on your table, charge objectives, very diverse membership. I mean we have people from the polar company and Sargentu and the Chamber and Detrus Chair of one of these committees and just a wonderful group of people that pulled together. And when we first did this it felt a little bit like herding cats trying to get all these folks quickly pulled together. But then I started thinking about it and the chairs that we have identified. This is what these folks do. I mean Derrick is the head of the transportation committee. Derrick Mink is the head of public transportation at the city of Sheboygan. I mean this is right in his wheelhouse and of course he's always talking to others and seeking good ideas and how we can make improvements. We've got some really good people involved. We also established an ARPA grant oversight committee. What the heck's that? Well I've been talking about the county's 22.4 million or the city's 22 million or the 51 million county-wide when you look at all the local events of government. But you can hardly look at your email and not see the next grant opportunity coming from the state or federal government, right? I mean not a week goes by certainly that you don't see another grant opportunity. So I think it was Louis Gentine to give credit where credits do. We said who's monitoring all this so we're not missing opportunities. And so we listened and we pulled together a group of some internal county staff that do some grant writing and health and human services or transportation or planning. They're not big picture experts on ARPA but they have a feel for it. We pulled them together. Ray York from the SEEDC serves on it. And now we have a comprehensive list of every single grant that is coming our way regardless of who receives the notice. We're throwing it into this comprehensive spreadsheet that now has 3.4 billion dollars of grant opportunities that we can tap into potentially bring to Sheboyton County to make improvements. So what do you think? You think we're looking for these task force to focus on the 22.4 million the county has in part? But first and foremost we want to make sure that we're being mindful of these other state and federal grants that are out there and tapping into those and bringing as much as that home as we can to make investments. That's the first priority. And of course the sad thing about it is these doggone grant announcements are made and they give you like three weeks to respond. It's just remarkable. I don't get that. I just don't get that why they have to put such a quick turnaround on it. But fortunately because we have a lot of good people engaged and a lot of leaders in this community we will take advantage of some opportunities. I said it before we want to make wise and impactful investments. I'm at the tail end of my career as county administrator. I'm going to work here probably for another year or so. And just like you, you know our parents taught you, leave it better than you found it. I see this as an opportunity like I've never seen in my career for us to make some wise, thoughtful investments in our community. We haven't had this kind of opportunity in my 23 years. So we're going to engage others as we are and we are going to make a difference. And I know Chairman Koch, if he was here today because we've talked about it a fair amount, we're both really passionate about the child care area. I mean all of them are important but we have to have more accessible child care opportunities. It's not just from nine to five, right? We have to. In fact on that note just as an example, we have a Rocking Hill Healthcare Center where we are one of 34, 35 counties in the state that owns and operates a nursing home. It's a five-star quality nursing home. We're struggling with staffing just like everybody. We're the only one in the county that has now an attached child care center. The county board just supported that last year, a year and a half ago and it helps with recruitment and retention. So we need to do more of that. Next slide please. So this is your making process. So next steps ahead, you're sitting there thinking, well how do I get my hands on some of that, right? How does the process work? Well we have certainly two processes in play and there again, right in the county board's wheelhouse. This is how we roll. One is the annual county board budget development process. Everyone in the county has an opportunity to get their fingerprints on it, suggest ideas. It's very collaborative. Bill Gehring is the chair of our finance committee does a nice job but again our executive finance committees they really help lead that charge. All proposals come in from departments and liaison committees. They're all reviewed by myself and the finance director. They're considered by at least the finance and the executive committee and they go on to the board. So we can build some and we've already built in a few into our annual budget process but just a few initiatives because again this is so early and we're waiting to hear more from these task forces but that's one route and every year we have an annual budget process effect. Dietra and the chamber board seek some assistance from the county for the good work that the chamber does as does the SEEDC and I'm pleased to share. Dietra didn't didn't know this yet. Just this week the finance committee unanimously supported the chambers request as well as the SEEDC's request so there is there's strong synergy and support there. Next slide. And then if you're coming in from one of the task forces that again will be reviewed by myself finance director other key staff we try to make sure you know it's well prepared and thoughtful and questions are answered and then that too will go on to executive finance committees to the county board but with the ARPA request as they said we want to collaborate with the city of Sheboygan. We want to collaborate with the SEEDC because the more we can leverage resources if the city comes in and says I'll put a million toward that the county does and the SEEDC does or you know some businesses like Sargento or Kohler for child care the odds of that going forward are so much greater so we're looking for those opportunities goes through our liaison committees refer to the board and once again the county board is the final decision maker. Next slide. Other initiatives in progress and I've got like two slides left here and we'll open it up to questions. The county board just about three months ago we were contacted by Discover Wisconsin. One of the things we can use ARPA funds for is marketing the area workforce development bringing more attention to the job openings we have here the wonderful quality of life we have here and so to the county board's credit to the city comma council's credit and mayor Sorensen and to the SEEDC's credit all three entities pulled together and are all taking a piece of that responsibility to fund this initiative so that's a place. Rocky Noel out of our 19 departments this is probably the department I'm most concerned about right now why do you think that might be what's happening what's happening in health care right now staffing health care professionals are burning out my wife's one my daughter's whole work in health care I hear the stories they're burning out and right now I don't think there's a nursing home in our county that isn't struggling to keep staff it's been a grueling year and a half and for all of us who have felt it one way or the other I think of health care workers who are in the direct line of fire holding the hands of people that have passed away and the family can't even be there there's exactly example after example but Rocky Noel right now is struggling with staffing and if you don't have staff at your nursing home you can't take care of your residents that concerns me and should concern all of us so the county board finance committee just this week and and the weeks prior to this have supported additional resources to help plug some financial holes there our census is way down so our revenues way down but we still have to maintain staff new recruitment and retention opportunities for our staff we train like 24 cna's over the last couple years and many of them went to the hospital why we learned that the hospitals provide tuition reimbursement so if you want to go from being a cna to a nurse good move right we weren't doing that at Rocky Noel we're going to be going forward we're going to raise their minimum wage from 16 to 17 dollars an hour 17 dollars an hour to do peri care which if you're not sure what that is that's wiping rear ends and some of the work that none of us care to do unless maybe it's our own grandchild 17 dollars an hour is the minimum wage I can go to Sargento or master galley gallery and make over 20 dollars an hour standing in the cheese line child care rebecca was sharing with me as we were talking just before this she worked at the ymc and steven's point but I won't say how many years ago she said she was making 789 or they're about state bucks an hour providing child care and I said oh it must be over 10 now she said no it's essentially that exactly the same what were our priorities we've got we got to change this model and we're we're going to in part start with rocky no and certainly we want to work with others as well we're using some of these funds for ongoing personal protective equipment cleaning and supplies we continue to do a lot of that not only in county government but throughout every business I think knows that we're increasing our judicial assistance we have five circuit court judges they've run behind in court cases and delivering justice so we're going to provide them with additional assistance so they can catch up we're looking to enhance mobile crisis services our health and human services mad strip modder the police chief for the city they've had some discussions with us on some opportunities there so we're looking in that we're exploring that and then if you're not certain there are federal reporting requirements so anything we do let's say it's a county that isn't transparent or isn't working with others and how are they going to use this funds I presume our state legislators think about that a little bit how is that county or that community going to use those funds because there's always bad actors there's always someone out there who screws up right well the federal government does have reporting requirements on how these dollars are spent and I'm glad it's there that's an important checks and balance to make sure again people are making wise thoughtful investments excellent so with that how am I doing on time okay so let's just open it up to any questions you have and I'm okay with stunk the county administrator because I'll be the first to admit I don't have all the answers but there are a lot of good people in the room that may be able to help me but whether it's COVID whether it's the American rescue funds whether it's county government as a whole Ryder Cup Tom Wagner's here as I said you name it but fire away any any questions for me Roger I think something that might need some clarification is the the health care and the child care Rocky Noel that's not county owned or operated maybe you should explain that to the group and and how that might fit for other large companies to do something like that as well appreciate that question excellent clarification county government is not looking to get larger county government cannot afford to get larger for the last 10 12 years our average property tax levy increase has been 1.2 percent 1.2 1.3 something like that I mean very frugal we're not looking to add staff however we are looking to problem solve and meet needs so at Rocky Noel when we established this child care facility we found unused space or underutilized space we the county board invested we remodeled it because we had to for a child care setting but we are contracting with generations in Plymouth to actually provide the child care so it's completely run by generations there's no subsidy from the county for running we just provided the space and first and foremost our employees get first kick at an opportunity and again it's been helpful we can we can see the impact it's having on employees who have children there and how much they appreciate bringing them in and picking them up and then if there's space we open it up further but thank you Roger for raising that question good clarification we're not looking to add county staff to run these facilities but we're certainly looking to partner and with ARPA Gina and I and Kate Bear we're just talking a little bit about the child care and again I know Rebecca's on it I can big picture I can envision us establishing one or more additional child care centers I can see that happening I can envision the county board potentially investing in establishing one or more child care centers I can envision the county board providing some funds to help with the staff support while they get up and rolling because we're not going to hire many people at eight or nine dollars are we Rebecca that's not going to happen but at some point it needs to be self-sufficient and county government is not interested in having those be county employees thank you Roger any other questions yes Adam you had made mention of the quick turnaround required for the bachelor balance back program grants those that are coming from the state do you have the database of that we as as community representatives could check into I know you know oftentimes there's only three or four weeks when a grant is issued for you know that window to respond I just want to make sure we don't miss anything such a perfect timely question thank you for that just yesterday during our first check in with all the chairs we talked about that very issue so we are going to either include it on our website or we're going to make sure that it gets out to key partners such as United Way or the SCEDC or both but the key is we want to make sure it gets out there it's public information we want people to benefit from it and so I thank you for that well I think next week we'll be able to trigger that different approach to make sure that it's more broadly distributed thank you commenting question uh first the comment you know having grown up here I remember as a kid coming hearing either it was on shirts or people saying you're entering shabuigan county turn your clocks back 20 years um I have to say it it isn't that way anymore and and thanks for your efforts it's uh it's a renaissance if you will but as it relates to other counties do you get a feel you've mentioned you know there's always going to be some maybe that aren't as transparent in talking with other counties are they taking the collaborative approach that shabuigan county is or are we unique in that everyone hear the question okay um big picture I think county government is incredibly thoughtful government and it's nonpartisan so we don't spend a lot of time worrying about winners and losers we focus on problem solving and it's one of the reasons why I love being a county administrator county government there's 72 counties I think overall they do an excellent job but of course everyone's different different issues what have you I was recently at a county's association conference where we talked about this and I was also at a regional meeting up in brown county a couple of weeks ago where we talked about this as far as I know we're the only county that is established task forces that are partnering with our largest municipality and the shabuigan county economic development corporation there may be others but as far as I know we're the only one but are there other counties that are certainly engaging in working with others in collaboration absolutely absolutely thank you please extend my deep thank you to the staff at rocky mill both my parents spent their last years and months there and I just can't say enough about compassion and the care every day on my question thank you for that please keep paying them as much as you can they deserve it they really deserve it the question is about broadband I live in rural alcarte lake and um my speed of my wi-fi when I can get it it depends on how many greens are coming so I'm actually looking forward to winter so I can get rough again that's crazy that's crazy so my question is you know I see this timeline when can I even hope to get decent wi-fi where I live and everywhere else in rural shabuigan county everyone hear the question for the most part one more broadband be more highly available my answer is I really don't know I really don't know what I can tell you is that a birch room which is a local broadband provider in the random lake area has applied for funds as have at least one other broadband provider and there are there are a handful in our community and they're all it's like spaghetti right they work together yet they're competitors when they'll receive the funds the time out for the build out I don't know what I can recall birch I'm sharing with us is if they're awarded the grant and if everything comes together I think they were looking at least a year and a half two year up two year build out that's my recollection but I would not hold your breath but the good news is there's discussions in play all sorts of consultants are chopping at the bit to tap into these funds and I really believe in my heart a heart of heart in the next two to three years it's going to be better than it is today thanks for the question Rebecca did you have a question I'm just curious Adam about testing it seems like for COVID I've been hearing the school district is having a hard time many tests I know that I think we started doing community testing again but is there a shortage and is that a financial constraint or is it just no no testing I don't think it's a financial constraint because there's all sorts of resources for test kits I think it's the test kits and the test supplies and those actually administering the testing that's that's a struggle right now I think most people if you want to get tested if you're proactive you know you gotta you gotta go after it someone's not going to knock on your door and say can I test you you gotta get on the public health website and look on look at the different opportunities Prevea you contact Prevea you probably get in for appointment within 24 to 48 hours Aurora the same we have urgent care we have Wednesday testing by the National Guard at the Aging and Disability Resource Center there are opportunities in fact you can go to Walgreens if they have them on the shelf and purchase a test kit or sometimes the pharmacist will actually test you right there but please know there's different types of tests and some are more reliable than others but if anybody is looking to get tested or you're asked the question I get asked that question frequently and because you don't think about it every day you're like where do I go how do I do this contact someone at public health look at the public health website honey website call someone there they will put you right in the hands or give you guidance on exactly where to go but you gotta be an advocate for yourself you gotta be an advocate don't wait for someone to come knock on your door to point you out even even getting the booster shots that's all coming up now where do I go to get my booster shot how does this work in the timing or a little where you're thinking about getting vaccinated where do I go be an advocate for yourself gather information talk to your doctor and get it done task force really is a risk for the county here I need to go out and do something like that I mean it's a more complicated way to do it but I give Adam a lot of credit and he knows this he didn't say that it was his idea I know other counties are looking at and saying wow that's really a great way to do that but there's a real challenge that but at the end of the day the risk I believe is worth the reward and the credit starts with Adam and the county board leadership to be willing to spread out that decision making even though the final authority rests with the county board these committees are going to be invested and we know how that works so I think there's risk here but I also believe there's greater reward and Adam didn't say it but he deserves a lot of the credit for doing it so just want to mention that that's kind of you thank you Tom appreciate it any other yes yes yeah um I question a comment on this transportation thing um I no longer work in the air but I worked in here over 20 years we would see a disproportionate amount of people that would be considered poor unemployed whatever I never yet saw a person that didn't have a car and didn't have a cell phone so I'm not sure that it's saying that you can't they can't afford a vehicle is exactly accurate and I wonder if it would be better to focus on the temp agencies because so many employers are you know temp to hire helping them provide transport I know some of them do already like they'll they'll say we've got all these jobs if you don't have transport we can get you there I believe that would probably be a better focus than some sort of government transportation system because you're helping the employers which are these temp agencies you're helping them directly and you're helping the people that work for them that they're taking to their jobs I appreciate your comment and I'm sure Derek make does as well he chairs that task force now obviously the city provides public transportation generally what I'm hearing from major businesses is they're looking for more opportunities for people from the city of Sheboygan or other areas to get to their place of work you know how many people have heard oh it's a long drive or I can't get out to Sargento I can't get to master galleries like the Lord really but if they don't have a vehicle I get it I get it I'm glad I'm glad Derek's here to listen to that because he's hearing your input so thank you thank you anyone else here to comment on the Gulf expert had referenced the risks involved with doing it in this fashion versus you just running you know doing that that the task force what what what are the risks I think what Supervisor Wagner was getting at is when you engage a lot of people as we have you raise the bar for expectations and you've asked all these people to spend their time and resources coming together and working on this and how disappointing it would be to come forward with one or more recommendations and they're not supported so there's definitely risk and then of course that's their risk the risk for us is they bring those all recommendations in let's say there's 30 of them and we can fund 10 then the county board has the established priorities and who's the bad guy right so we so you stick your neck out and but I would rather err on the side of engaging people and getting ideas and we don't have all the answers we've got all these wonderful experts around the table who are engaging folks but that's the risk we might not be able to meet everyone's expectations maybe I'll make a general comment being a task force chair you know these issues have been I think been a been a negative in our community for for many years and I talked about the transportation item because over the last you know two decades transportation has gone up in in expense and the providers doing it have decreased and COVID did not help that at all you've seen actually uber drivers go down you've seen the cost per trip go up there's been consolidations in the cab services private companies that once provided accessible handicap transportation we're down to one private provider in the county right now so infrastructure for trans transit resources have all but decreased over the last couple decade which puts a lot more demand on what we're doing as a service and that's evident in my 10 years in shabuigan our public transit system prior to COVID increased ridership by 54 percent that cannot be matched by any other transit agency in the entire state of Wisconsin so if we look at the need here locally there is a tremendous need and the task force has identified and I got to say I've got a passionate group of 15 to 20 individuals that will all stand up and say we have a disconnect we have a problem we've got large employers we've got locations that are under service we've got small communities that can't get transportation to and from medical facilities it's also the elderly too right I mean we have an elderly population that needs to get around go to the grocery store and it does help the school district yeah as well we've grown partnerships we've tried to provide more resources but unfortunately we're we're being hit hard right now with a shortage in labor so we can't even begin to look at expanding transportation services but this group of individuals has representatives from universities large manufacturers several organizations that we all know and shabuigan county not one of them is saying we don't have a transportation problem so you know this group is going to be very valuable now what adam hasn't stated is that we do have received uh we have received separate ARPA funds that were not distributed directly to the city they were actually separated out for public mass transit purposes so we have yet another opportunity to use some of these funds to um enhance and create a better transportation infrastructure but you know shabuigan county a great place I love this place it is such a great county but everything is spread out and we have to look at this as almost like a connect the dots because we don't have everything centrally uh located in in an urban setting we have it situated throughout our county and that also goes for people and where they live so this task force I have the full faith that these individuals are going to stay on well past December because this is such a short window and such a large issue that this group wants to stick together we want to put some solutions together and take a look at a long term approach not not necessarily just to meet adam's request here for report in january but also look at possibly infrastructure improvement that enhances the entire county as a transportation network thank you for derek and again we don't have to actually allocate the resources until December 2024 so we're not in a rush with our contributions but these other state and federal grants the better prepared we are in fact some that are looking for you to be shovel ready the better chance will bring some forward one last question and i'll close here anyone else yes sir yeah just uh we were earlier talking about the timelines and kind of struck me 2026 spend the money seems a long time for an act that was created to solve a real urgent need that what what are your goals as far as how soon you'd like to see the money actually utilized versus the deadline yeah everybody hear the question it is a long time generally we see appropriations from the state or federal government that's a year right maybe two generally a year at annual basis and county budgets are an annual basis so that this is unique but what is really gratifying is that for the first time let's just use the child care for example let's say the county board decides to build a child care facility or renovate some existing place and turn it into a child care facility and we are looking to recruit and retain staff and generations or whoever it might be that throws their hat in the ring the most they can afford under their current model is nine dollars an hour and we don't get anyone to apply or very few people the county board could say i'll tell you what we'll take year nine we'll leverage another two from sargental coaler beamess and johnsonville because we know they need these these workers and they're willing to put some skin in the game so now we're at now we're at 11 and then the county will put two more in and you'll be at 13 and now maybe we're getting some people to come you know something like that the time period allows us to invest over a period of years and get something rolling and then once the deadline approaches we're we're done and it's going to have to be self-sufficient so in some cases i love the fact that we can look beyond our nose and make some investments that are going to last a year or two or three or four in other cases it might be just some immediate infrastructure at rocky no we're gonna improve all the uh uh heating or air conditioning or something like that so we immediately improve the the safety and welfare for the residents that's one and done that's built into the budget but in other instances we might want that time to have a longer expenditure and we got to track it i mean we track it and report on it and it's different you're right it's different but i welcome that challenge all right i just want to say thank you for the opportunity appreciate the discussion good questions and thank you for the very good work that you all do thank you