WEAC is part of a new coalition focusing public attention on meeting the future needs of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Way is a grassroots project that pulls together the support and resources of a wide variety of interests to find ways to build a stronger Wisconsin economy that can better support public services, including education. Coalition partners include the Wisconsin Counties Association, the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association and the Wisconsin Realtors Association.

The key to the state’s economic future is to maintain and constantly strengthen our great schools, said WEAC Executive Director Dan Burkhalter.

“By strengthening the investment in our schools, we can do an even better job of preparing our children for the jobs of the 21st century, which provides our growing businesses with a larger pool of highly qualified employees, leading to even more job growth and economic vitality. It is a cycle of success that feeds off itself,” Burkhalter said.

Public relations executive James B. Wood, whose firm Wood Communications Group is a partner in Wisconsin Way, unveiled the project to participants at the WEAC Summer Academy.

Noting that Wisconsin faces escalating demands for services and infrastructure but a shrinking tax base, he said, “This is not a good equation. … We need to address this issue now.”

Wood said the Wisconsin Way initiative is designed to engage the public in discussions about how Wisconsin can change its tax structure to meet the needs of the 21st century.

Wisconsin residents, he said, support the concept of adequately funding public schools to provide quality education but are feeling financially strapped, making it difficult for them to vote to tax themselves to maintain that goal.

The Wisconsin Way, Wood said, will focus on a strategy of reaching consensus for both lowering property taxes and funding excellence in public education, as well as meeting the state’s other needs.

The program is designed to “energize civic engagement” through a series of town hall-style forums. The ideas generated at these meetings will be analyzed and codified into a plan that will be presented to legislators.

“The Wisconsin Way is grassroots at its best,” Burkhalter said. “It is designed to pull together the experiences, perspectives and knowledge base of citizens as well as a wide variety of experts in various fields.”

In addition to this OnWEAC Web page, more information can be found on the official Wisconsin Way Web site.

First set of forums completed

Through rain, fog, sleet and snow, more than 5,000 Wisconsin citizens participated in Wisconsin Way forums over the past few months to share their vision for a brighter future.

During 15 citizen forums, half a dozen community training sessions and 75 meetings with opinion leaders and elected officials, the Wisconsin Way project initiated a public conversation about how we can make our tax system fairer without compromising the public services that contribute to our quality of life.

Participating in the discussion have been teachers, builders, farmers, veterans, elected officials, Realtors, business owners, accountants, religious leaders, attorneys, assessors and more. These forum attendees ranged in age from middle school students to college undergraduates, young professionals, new parents, empty-nesters and retirees.

Forum participants said they were driven to join in out of concern over troubling economic and demographic trends threatening the future of our state.

Among the facts that laid the foundation for the discussions were:

• Wisconsin’s work force now lags behind the U.S. average and that of 26 other states with just 27% of our citizens holding a bachelor’s degree. Economic forecasts point to the greatest number of jobs being created in relatively low-skill, low-wage industries, and together these trends spell trouble for Wisconsin’s revenue base in the years to come.
• In the 1990s, there was a narrow gap of less than $1,850 between the per-capita income of Minnesota and Wisconsin residents. Due to the slower pace of high-tech, high-wage job growth in Wisconsin, however, today our state’s income lags nearly $4,000 behind that of Minnesota.
• Trends like these have a major impact on government’s ability to raise the revenues needed to pay for public services. Today, if our per-capita income had remained competitive with Minnesota’s, Wisconsin’s tax base would be nearly $13 billion per year larger than it is now.
• An aging population, growing need for major infrastructure expenditures and increasing costs of basic necessities for families also factor into the challenges facing our state.

Wisconsin Way participants said they recognize that these trends signal a need for change in the way local governments fund public services, and believe we must reduce our reliance on property taxes to pay for education, services and other programs. Participants in the public forums, which kicked off in October in La Crosse and concluded in Platteville in January, praised the inclusive and collaborative nature of the effort and expressed hope that the project would help advance constructive solutions.

The organizers of Wisconsin Way include the Wisconsin Counties Association, WEAC, Wisconsin Realtors Association, Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association and Wood Communications Group.

Updated June 5, 2008