Soaring prices in Vilas County make moving hard for new EMS chief |
Jason Joling was a dream candidate for a dream job in a dream location. Just one problem: He couldn’t afford to live there.
“They offered me the job and told me, ‘We expect you to be living up here within four months,’” Joling said. “I said, ‘That ain’t gonna happen.’ I had been on Zillow and there wasn’t anything we could afford. I told them I could give them 50 hours a week. I just need a cot and a closet.”
Joling got the job, and the planners for what has become the Northwoods Emergency Medical Services District got their man. Joling and his board of directors are building the first professional EMS service for the towns of Boulder Junction, Manitowish Waters, Presque Isle and Winchester in the lake-bejeweled northwest corner of Vilas County.
The home, however, took a little doing. Joling is living in a 24-foot-long, eight-foot-wide tiny home next to a permanent home on a generous part-time resident’s lake property. |
Badger Institute reporting on crime-ridden schools goes back years |
A Milwaukee County judge lambasted the Milwaukee School Board in a rare broadside this week aimed at finally getting cops back in MPS high schools that for years have been overrun with trouble that led to police calls.
“The gall and the temerity of, again, primarily the school board, but to the lesser degree, the city is breathtaking,” Judge David Borowski said Monday in ordering an end to the saga.
Twenty months after legislators reached a deal with Milwaukee leaders on the issue, Borowski ordered the district and the city to split the cost evenly and have 25 police on duty by Feb. 27 or be held in contempt of court. |
Sen. Felzkowski and Badger Institute made the case for dental therapists |
According to Badger Institute research, 58 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties have too few dental providers per capita. For years, the state has had among the worst dental care access and usage rates for disadvantaged populations. More than half a million children who receive dental benefits through Medicaid struggle to access routine oral care.
These “dental deserts” motivated state Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) to add Wisconsin to the growing list of states that allow dental therapy. “Dental access in the state is a big deal,” she said. “We have a lot of areas that are underserved.” |
The Assembly Committee on Ways and Means held an informational hearing on tax policy yesterday. The Badger Institute submitted the following written testimony. |
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At the heart of our proposals for tax reform are a move to a single-rate, or “flat,” income tax, one in which taxpayers pay a tax bill that’s proportional to their income rather than punitive toward success. Our proposal, valid as ever, takes advantage of Wisconsin’s sliding-scale standard deduction to ensure that taxpayers currently in a bracket below the proposed statewide rate suffer no loss, and it uses the state’s surplus and the fact that Wisconsin has an unusually low sales tax to ensure that the state government has sufficient revenue in the future.
It is a realistic proposal, a proposal that works in the real world. |
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The total number of incarcerated persons in Wisconsin’s prisons ticked up between 2023 and 2024 but is still lower than its pre-COVID level, data from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections show.
Between 2000 and 2019, the total number of prisoners increased by 3,160, or 15.5%. By 2020, however, it had fallen by over 3,400 to just 20,011, fewer than the level in 2000 and a 14.8% drop from its peak. The Appleton Post-Crescent reported that the decline was due primarily to fewer arrests, slower resolution of cases, and fewer people being admitted to prison during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
The Vicki McKenna Show | 2.17.25 | Segment begins around 18:40 |
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Regulating direct primary care (DPC) as if it were insurance would restrict providers’ flexibility to innovate and at least partly negate DPC’s cost and service advantages that stem from having less overhead for expenses such as the large buildings, infrastructure and administrative staff of hospitals. |
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Weekly survey: Will there be 25 school resource officers stationed in MPS high schools by Feb. 27?
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