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Milwaukee Talkie

  • The cost of Milwaukee's drop-outs, and what to do about it

    A new report by the Alliance for Excellent Education estimates the economic costs to cities of having high drop-out rates. In the four-county Milwaukee metro area, it is estimated that cutting the drop-out rate in half, or having an additional 3,200 high school graduates annually, would result in an additional [...]
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    Posted: December 03, 2009, 11:15am EST
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • The People Speak: Citizens' views on transportation, education reform, taxation

    Number of comments: 0
    The second installment of the results of the autumn People Speak poll, conducted in partnership with the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee's Center for Urban Initiatives and Research and The Business Journal Serving Greater Milwaukee, focuses on public policy issues such as mass transit and mayoral takover of MPS.The People Speak is [...]
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    Posted: November 17, 2009, 8:00am EST
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Mayoral control isn't magic, but it might be muscle

    Number of comments: 0
    In 2007, when the New York General Assembly was considering whether to renew the legislation authorizing mayoral control of the New York City public schools, a Commission on School Governance was appointed to study the policy's benefits, drawbacks, and outcomes and to recommend whether renewal was appropriate.The Commission heard testimony [...]
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    Posted: November 09, 2009, 8:00am EST
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Gasbag or effective legislator?

    Number of comments: 0
    Some people accuse the U.S. Congress of being all talk and little action. Now there's a website that's tracking that talk in a fun, interactive way, allowing you to pit any two Senators or members of Congress against one another in a war of words.For example, when Wisconsin's two Senators [...]
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    Posted: October 28, 2009, 8:33am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • The People Speak: Greater Milwaukee citizens' views on the economy

    Number of comments: 0
    The Public Policy Forum is pleased to launch a new research product today in partnership with UWM's Center for Urban Initiatives and Research (CUIR) and The Business Journal Serving Greater Milwaukee: results from our new The People Speak poll.The People Speak is a tracking poll that will be conducted at [...]
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    Posted: October 23, 2009, 8:00am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Milwaukee city and county budgets not for the faint-hearted

    Number of comments: 1
    The Forum released its analysis of the 2010 proposed City of Milwaukee budget this morning, following up on our similar analysis of the 2010 recommended Milwaukee County Budget released last week. I wish we had better news.A recurring theme in both analyses is that expenditure needs largely driven by increasing [...]
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    Posted: October 20, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Pittsburgh's model of school governance reform

    Number of comments: 0
    In the past few weeks Milwaukee has had numerous town hall meetings, panel discussions, and presentations regarding the idea of school district governance reform. At issue is whether the mayor of Milwaukee should be in charge of the Milwaukee Public Schools, rather than an independent board of directors.At each of [...]
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    Posted: October 15, 2009, 11:16am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • The luxury of mass transit

    Number of comments: 1
    The city-state of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, opened a new high-speed rail system last month. The Los Angeles Times reports that despite the city's crushing traffic congestion (estimated to cost over $1.4 billion annually in lost productivity), it will be a hard sell to get riders.The article calls Dubai a [...]
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    Posted: October 13, 2009, 10:38am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • How do we compare to our neighbors? Depends on whom you ask

    Number of comments: 1
    You know the drill: Wisconsin’s economic strategy just isn’t measuring up compared to others.A July 18th editorial claimed “Wisconsin is struggling.” It said Iowa seems to have a better plan. An August 8th column by John Torinus argued, “We get outgunned by states with much larger budgets for economic development.” [...]
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    Posted: October 01, 2009, 12:42pm EDT
    by Melissa Kovach

  • All politics and all health care reform is local

    Number of comments: 0
    Here at the Forum we try to keep our work current, focusing on topical issues of importance. Health care reform is obviously one such issue. Yet the Forum's mission is to inform local policy debates, not national ones. So it was not immediately apparent what role we might have to [...]
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    Posted: October 01, 2009, 10:01am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Revisiting the Missouri approach to juvenile corrections

    Number of comments: 1
    In a blog post published in March 2008, we cited an innovative juvenile corrections model used by the state of Missouri and asked whether that might represent a cheaper, better approach for Wisconsin.Eighteen months later, the Missouri model is attracting increased national attention. ABC News recently ran a feature on [...]
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    Posted: September 24, 2009, 7:30am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Perfect storm of increased need and decreased giving hits area nonprofits

    Number of comments: 0
    This year’s Report Card on Charitable Giving is different than in past years. In every report prior to this one, we surveyed the same small bellwether group of organizations. For this year’s report, we surveyed a larger number of nonprofits in the region to get a broader picture of what [...]
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    Posted: September 20, 2009, 8:00am EDT
    by Jeff Schmidt

  • One-time revenues are hilarious

    Number of comments: 0
    Here at the Forum, we've been cautioning local governments for years about making budgeting decisions that help balance the current budget but contribute to deficits in future years. We just didn't see much humor in these types of desperate budget tricks.Leave it to Jon Stewart and The Daily Show to [...]
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    Posted: September 18, 2009, 9:18am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Will economic crisis breed government innovation?

    Number of comments: 1
    The Forum's recently released report on the City of Milwaukee's fiscal condition includes a small section discussing how other cities are grappling with their recession-induced fiscal challenges.We essentially found two camps: those looking to "ride out the storm" by implementing one-time savings opportunties (e.g. employee furloughs) and tapping into reserves [...]
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    Posted: September 16, 2009, 8:40am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Racial achievement gap in SE Wisconsin not shrinking

    Number of comments: 1
    The Forum's latest research on K-12 education finds the region’s racial achievement gap on state reading and math tests has remained virtually constant over the past five years, as has the statewide achievement gap.As previously noted on this blog, on the national NAEP test Wisconsin is the only state to [...]
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    Posted: September 15, 2009, 8:00am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • City of Milwaukee finances: between a rock and a hard place

    Number of comments: 0
    Milwaukee's mayor has labeled the city's 2010 budget "by far the most difficult" he has faced in 25 years of public service, while the majority of its common council already has supported a proposal for sharply higher user fees. Meanwhile, the independently elected comptroller has proposed exploring a politically volatile [...]
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    Posted: September 01, 2009, 6:00am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Who says MPS needs more accountability?

    Number of comments: 0
    The MPS school board will soon be considering a controversial recommendation from a special committee created to increase fiscal accountability within MPS. The committee's recommendation is to create a new Office of Accountability that reports directly to the school board and to move some functions that were formerly performed by [...]
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    Posted: August 26, 2009, 8:00am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • NYC inspired by Milwaukee

    Number of comments: 0
    The new transportation hub at the World Trade Center, designed by Santiago Calatrava, has risen from the pit of ground zero and looks to be a near twin of the Milwaukee Art Museum. The building is slated to open in 2012. Cost overruns and a slow construction pace are making [...]
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    Posted: August 21, 2009, 8:00am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • PPF Pearls: Mayoral takeover of schools

    Number of comments: 1
    Last winter, at the behest of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the Forum conducted an analysis of other urban school districts that had undergone governance reform such as state or mayoral takeovers. Our findings are pretty much summed up by the subtitle of the report: The Devil is in the Details. [...]
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    Posted: August 19, 2009, 8:00am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Slow growth in property values could mean higher tax rates

    Number of comments: 2
    After several successive years of property tax rate decreases and a slight increase in 2008, gross property tax rates in Southeastern Wisconsin increased 2.8% in 2009, according to the Public Policy Forum’s latest report on property taxes and values, which can be accessed here. A pull-out poster listing property values [...]
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    Posted: August 07, 2009, 6:00am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • MPS teachers link preschool to better performance in Kindergarten

    Number of comments: 0
    Survey results released today by the Public Policy Forum conclude that MPS Kindergarten teachers feel high quality early childhood education can have positive impacts on school readiness and academic performance. The survey is part of the Forum's three-year research project investigating the impacts of high quality early childhood education on [...]
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    Posted: July 24, 2009, 8:00am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • PPF Pearls: Addressing Milwaukee County's transit crisis

    Number of comments: 1
    The more things change, the more they stay the same when it comes to Milwaukee County's mass transit debate.In the wake of Governor Doyle's veto of a Milwaukee County-only transit authority with sales tax authority, the county's struggling transit system submitted a report to the County Board last week projecting [...]
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    Posted: July 23, 2009, 10:45am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • New Milwaukee effort avoids the pitfall of recreating suburbs

    Number of comments: 1
    It is an uphill battle to revitalize downtown retail in this economy, but Milwaukee’s downtown Business Improvement District is responding by hiring Deanna Inniss to recruit retailers to the city.One may question why her list of tasks, as reported by the Journal Sentinel, does not include the troubled Shops of [...]
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    Posted: July 22, 2009, 2:26pm EDT
    by Melissa Kovach

  • Is it time to dissolve Milwaukee County government?

    Number of comments: 4
    With Milwaukee County Board Chairman Lee Holloway's proposal to abolish the position of county executive, and County Executive Scott Walker's counter-proposal to eliminate all of county government, policymakers and opinion leaders in Greater Milwaukee once again appear primed to discuss big changes in the structure of local government.But will this [...]
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    Posted: July 21, 2009, 8:45am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Who's responsible for the achievement gap?

    Number of comments: 0
    A new federal study of standardized test scores finds Wisconsin has the most persistent achievement gap in the nation between African-American and white students. This story received prominent play in the New York Times on Tuesday, but was covered with a just short article inside the local section of the [...]
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    Posted: July 17, 2009, 12:30pm EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Interesting tidbits from Texas Transportation Institute Study

    Number of comments: 1
    Television and newspaper coverage of the new Urban Mobility Report from the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) has emphasized the $300 million annual cost of traffic congestion to Milwaukee area commuters while also acknowledging that Metro Milwaukee's traffic conditions are tame when compared to other urban areas.A review of the full [...]
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    Posted: July 10, 2009, 8:30am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Is there an optimal rate for municipalities to use tax increment financing?

    Number of comments: 4
    Tax incremental financing (TIF) is the most widely used economic development tool of local governments in Wisconsin. TIF uses future property tax revenue to provide up-front assistance for real estate developments. Notable projects such as Grand Avenue Mall and the recent redevelopment of Bayshore Mall relied heavily on TIF assistance. [...]
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    Posted: July 07, 2009, 8:55am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • The future is today for STEM-savvy workers

    Number of comments: 0
    The Forum's latest report, on the need for science and math skills in the state's future workforce (which was reported in Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and followed-up with an editorial today) highlights opportunities for the state to strengthen policies regarding science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education in K-12. And [...]
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    Posted: June 30, 2009, 10:08am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Is Wisconsin state-of-the-art for K-12 science and math education?

    Number of comments: 1
    The Public Policy Forum's latest report, released today, finds that of the 10 career clusters predicted to grow the most over the next five years, seven include occupations requiring strong backgrounds in science, math, technology, or engineering (STEM). Of the 10 specific jobs predicted to be the fastest growing in [...]
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    Posted: June 29, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • The art of selling tap water

    Number of comments: 1
    In a bid to solve some of the city's budget woes, a proposal was floated last fall to privatize the city water works. Opponents of the idea noted that privatization would likely mean higher costs to water users, which in turn caused the common council to consider keeping the water [...]
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    Posted: June 26, 2009, 9:29am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Child care quality: Third time is not a charm

    Number of comments: 1
    Governor Doyle's third attempt to include a Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) for child care made it through the joint finance committee this time around, but appears not to be included in the Assembly and Senate versions of the budget bill. A QRIS is a voluntary rating system for [...]
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    Posted: June 19, 2009, 8:00am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Milwaukee County's disappearing budget "deficit"

    Number of comments: 2
    While elected officials and bloggers pontificate about Milwaukee County's mysteriously disappearing budget deficit (now down to an estimated $650,000 based on a new report by the county auditor and county board fiscal and budget analyst, after earlier being estimated at $14.9 million by executive branch officials), there is a pressing [...]
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    Posted: June 17, 2009, 8:50am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • PPF Pearls: What may Milwaukee have in common with Baltimore?

    Number of comments: 1
    The City of Baltimore has filed a federal lawsuit against Wells Fargo bank, alleging that the bank pushed high-interest subprime mortgages on homebuyers, and deliberately did so more often to African-American borrowers than to whites.Baltimore is seeking damages from Wells Fargo because more than half of the Baltimore homes on [...]
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    Posted: June 11, 2009, 8:22am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Some good news for Milwaukee County

    Number of comments: 0
    The Forum has spent considerable time during the past year researching and framing the issues facing Milwaukee County government. We began with a comprehensive analysis of Milwaukee County's transit crisis last May, continued with a Viewpoint luncheon on the structure of county government, a survey on citizen views of the [...]
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    Posted: June 08, 2009, 9:30am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • National programs aim to help MPS, require monitoring

    Number of comments: 0
    While we wish Milwaukee’s public schools were gaining attention for being top-ranked, or even just “most-improved”, at least the district’s notable challenges have placed it firmly on the radar screen of a number of national programs aiming to help ailing urban school systems.Most recently, the Journal Sentinel reported that Milwaukee [...]
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    Posted: June 02, 2009, 11:00am EDT
    by Melissa Kovach

  • National programs aim to help MPS, require monitoring

    While we wish Milwaukee’s public schools were gaining attention for being top-ranked, or even just “most-improved”, at least the district’s notable challenges have placed it firmly on the radar screen of a number of national programs aiming to help ailing urban school systems.Most recently, the Journal Sentinel reported that Milwaukee [...]
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    Posted: June 02, 2009, 11:00am EDT
    by Melissa Kovach

  • The Economic Impact of the Child Care Industry in Southeast Wisconsin

    Number of comments: 0
    Lately, mention of child care is likely to evoke recollections of scandal and fraud. What sometimes gets ignored is that child care is an industry in its own right that makes a sizeable contribution to the regional economy.The Public Policy Forum’s latest report from its three-year research project on early [...]
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    Posted: May 29, 2009, 8:00am EDT
    by Melissa Kovach

  • The least objectionable of several undesirable options?

    Number of comments: 1
    The Journal Sentinel's Dan Egan and Larry Sandler did a nice job in Monday's newspaper summarizing the issues surrounding a potential long-term lease of the Milwaukee water utility.The story aptly captures the overriding concern likely to be associated with the proposal: relinquishing control of a public asset to a profit-driven [...]
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    Posted: May 28, 2009, 11:45am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • PPF Pearls: Some deficits are structural and not caused solely by recession

    Number of comments: 0
    There’s no question that the fiscal condition of many local governments has weakened as a result of the compounding effect of the poor economy. Private and public job reductions lower income tax revenues, diminished consumption decreases sales tax revenue, foreclosed properties and drops in home values stress property tax collection, [...]
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    Posted: May 22, 2009, 7:30am EDT
    by Vanessa Allen

  • A different path toward regional decisionmaking?

    Number of comments: 1
    A recent article by Alan Ehrenhalt, editor of Governing magazine, suggests an interesting approach to bring metro areas closer to the elusive dream of regional government. The piece may be particularly provocative for those areas that have dabbled with the notion of regional government but appear to have little hope [...]
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    Posted: May 12, 2009, 10:45am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Affordable housing efforts hampered by fragmented approach

    Number of comments: 0
    The housing bubble burst and subsequent foreclosure crisis have brought the need for affordable rental housing into sharp and immediate focus for many affected families locally. However, even before home prices crashed, the rental housing market in Milwaukee did not meet the needs of many households at low income levels. [...]
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    Posted: May 05, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Laura Million

  • Crime, punishment, and state budgets

    Number of comments: 0
    Governor Doyle's proposal to reduce the state corrections budget by allowing for early release of some inmates has been controversial, with some law enforcement officials concerned about the message early release sends to would-be criminals, while others note the potential cost savings that can accrue from having fewer inmates.The debate [...]
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    Posted: April 29, 2009, 8:10am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Entrepreneurship Drives Job Growth

    Number of comments: 0
    The health of America’s big corporations dominates daily business and economic news. But as market watchers contemplate whether the latest corporate earnings statements signal that the current economic crisis has hit bottom, policymakers can ill-afford to overlook the role new and small companies can play in reviving the economy.A series [...]
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    Posted: April 22, 2009, 10:30am EDT
    by Laura Million

  • Budget woes demand collective response

    Number of comments: 0
    Former UW-Madison political science professor Donald F. Kettl, leader of the "Kettl Commission" (which worked on reforming government structure in Wisconsin nearly a decade ago), pens a foreboding piece in this month's Governing magazine.Entitled "After the Stimulus Ends", the article warns of the "long-term fiscal crisis" facing most state and [...]
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    Posted: April 16, 2009, 9:50am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Why the MPS audit wasn't a "how to" manual

    Number of comments: 1
    Many hoped that the long-awaited audit of MPS finances and operations, which was released last week, would provide step-by-step instructions for fixing the looming MPS budget imbalance, not to mention improving student achievement. Instead, the audit demonstrated just how difficult solving MPS's problems will be.The audit does focus on opportunities [...]
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    Posted: April 14, 2009, 11:35am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • A school choice paradox (or two)

    Number of comments: 0
    The latest results of the longitudinal evaluation of Milwaukee's school choice program were released by the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) at a Forum Eye-Opener Breakfast last week. (You can listen to the podcast here.)Dr. Patrick Wolf, the lead evaluator, does a nice job summarizing the findings of the eight [...]
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    Posted: April 03, 2009, 8:04am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Wisconsin's sticky brains

    Number of comments: 1
    I have a secret algorithm for filling out my NCAA basketball bracket, since I know nothing about basketball, that entails complex calculations filling numerous spreadsheets. In collecting the data I needed to make my picks last week, I came across two interesting slices of Census data, which when juxtaposed got [...]
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    Posted: March 27, 2009, 10:26am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • The ABCs of PPPs

    Number of comments: 0
    The notion that government should even consider leasing public assets to the private sector evokes passionate debate. But whether or not one is disposed ideologically to support that strategy, it is clear that the number of public-private partnership (PPP) proposals will be increasing significantly in the near future - both [...]
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    Posted: March 26, 2009, 4:15pm EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Milwaukee County's fiscal condition: crisis on the horizon?

    Number of comments: 0
    It has been almost three years since Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker launched a “reality tour” to warn citizens about county government’s deteriorating financial situation, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel followed up with a multi-part investigative series detailing the fiscal crisis. So what has happened since that time, and is [...]
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    Posted: March 24, 2009, 9:00am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Regional identity could help Great Lakes cities leverage their assets

    Number of comments: 0
    We’ve all heard of the brain drain—that powerful vacuum sucking all of the college-educated young professionals out of cities like Milwaukee. More recent reporting suggests that many who leave later return to the Milwaukee area. What do these returned brain drainers like myself have to say about their beloved but [...]
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    Posted: March 19, 2009, 9:00am EDT
    by Melissa Kovach

  • Experimental policy: when social science trumps politics

    Number of comments: 0
    The "broken windows" theory of policing proposes that crime arises out of certain conditions and that tolerance of misdemeanor crimes can result in greater incidences of more serious crimes. If crime-ridden neighborhoods are cleaned up, if graffiti and jaywalking and loitering ordinances are enforced, the broken windows theory predicts violent [...]
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    Posted: March 17, 2009, 8:51am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Don't loan money to friends, family...or state government?

    Number of comments: 0
    Here's one positive spin on Wisconsin's state budget woes...at least we're not in the position of having to delay processing 2008 state income tax refunds, as they have in California and Kansas. It seems collecting taxes is one thing, returning them is another. The economic crisis is affecting nearly every' [...]
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    Posted: March 09, 2009, 12:34pm EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • "Shrink gracefully, rust belt," suggests Florida

    Number of comments: 0
    Richard Florida, that is. In this month's cover article in the Atlantic Monthly, the professor famous for his "creative class" theory of urban renewal suggests that the recession will result in growth in a few mega-regions across the country and cause other cities (read Midwest, rust-belt cities) to shrink. Florida's' [...]
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    Posted: March 05, 2009, 10:03am EST
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Milwaukee Community Justice Council: Reaching Its Full Potential?

    Number of comments: 0
    There was much praise for Milwaukee’s year-old effort at criminal justice coordination at Marquette Law School's February 20th conference, “The Future of Community Justice in Wisconsin.” But, more than merely showering members of the Milwaukee Community Justice Council with acclaim, panelists also discussed ways the group can reach its full [...]
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    Posted: March 02, 2009, 8:30am EST
    by Melissa Kovach

  • Stimulating Awareness: When, where, and how will the $787 billion in economic stimulus funding be spent?

    Number of comments: 0
    There's no shortage of opportunities for regular citizens seeking to track implementation of the massive federal stimulus legislation and for auditor-types looking for work associated with the package. In fact, according to a New York Times article, $350 million of stimulus funds are dedicated to the effort of stimulus oversight.For [...]
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    Posted: February 27, 2009, 10:30am EST
    by Vanessa Allen

  • Where's the conversation about consolidation?

    Number of comments: 1
    Release of Governor Doyle's 2009-2011 state budget has engendered a range of predictable responses. Republicans decry tax increases and argue that not enough has been done to cut spending. Democrats applaud tax fairness and argue that critical investments in education and safety net services are being preserved. In the meantime, [...]
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    Posted: February 24, 2009, 10:10am EST
    by Rob Henken

  • A transportation finance concept with widespread appeal?

    Number of comments: 0
    Governor Jim Doyle's apparent pronouncement that he is open to considering tolls to help finance transportation improvements in Wisconsin (which has since been qualified) was treated as front page news in yesterday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. While this may have been justified from a political perspective given the Governor's previous strong [...]
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    Posted: February 20, 2009, 8:30am EST
    by Rob Henken

  • A shift in child care policy philosophy

    Number of comments: 0
    At the Forum's Viewpoint luncheon last week (available as a podcast or video), Wisconsin Secretary of Children and Families, Reggie Bicha, noted that the creation of his department in the last biennial budget was the result of a shift in philosophy regarding child care policy. Where the state once viewed [...]
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    Posted: February 18, 2009, 9:57am EST
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • The Devil is in the Details

    Number of comments: 0
    Are the problems facing Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) sufficiently intractable that a new governance structure is required? And, even if a new structure could produce better accountability and fiscal stewardship, would it result in improved educational outcomes?The Forum's latest research, commissioned by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, attempts to provide insights [...]
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    Posted: February 16, 2009, 10:00am EST
    by Vanessa Allen

  • Voucher schools similar to MPS schools

    Number of comments: 0
    Big headlines last winter proclaimed voucher students "achieve about as well as those at MPS," provoking debate about whether private voucher schools should be expected to perform similarly to MPS or better than MPS.Today, findings from the Forum's 11th annual census of voucher schools reveal a likely contributing factor for' [...]
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    Posted: February 05, 2009, 12:23pm EST
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Searching for pension solutions

    Number of comments: 1
    As state, local and municipal governments confront the reality of huge losses in their pension fund assets and grimly assess the impact on future budgets, many will pursue innovative or even radical solutions, including some that likely never would have seen the light of day in ordinary times. Out of [...]
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    Posted: January 23, 2009, 2:00pm EST
    by Rob Henken

  • MPS: What's the problem?

    Number of comments: 1
    You've probably read or heard quite a bit lately about the need for solving MPS's problem. That sentiment is unlikely to draw opposition. However, we're not all on the same page as to what the problem is exactly.Is it a governance problem? A finance problem? An achievement problem? Many would' [...]
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    Posted: January 16, 2009, 10:45am EST
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • The housing crash and your property tax bill

    Number of comments: 0
    Milwaukee seems to be weathering the housing crisis relatively well. Foreclosure rates in 2007 in metro Milwaukee were lower than in most other metro areas and housing prices in metro Milwaukee, alone among the largest 25 cities in the country, rose between Oct. 2007 and Oct. 2008. Other more current [...]
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    Posted: January 12, 2009, 9:02am EST
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Stimulus or no stimulus, Milwaukee County needs an infrastructure plan

    Number of comments: 2
    Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's statement (as reported in today's Journal Sentinel) that he will not request federal stimulus funds already has generated considerable reaction from other elected officials and in the blogosphere, and likely will continue to do so. While taking sides in the ideological debate over the need [...]
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    Posted: January 07, 2009, 5:00pm EST
    by Rob Henken

  • An economist's take on Brett Favre and municipal budgets

    Number of comments: 0
    In economic theory there's a notion called deadweight loss, or market inefficiency, which impacts a consumer when the value of an item's utility is less than the price paid for it. What does that have to do with Brett Favre? According to Stephen Dubner, one of the co-authors of Freakonomics, [...]
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    Posted: January 06, 2009, 9:46am EST
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Some call for investment in people, not bricks and bridges

    Number of comments: 0
    A recent Milwaukee Talkie blog post asked, “Can’t we all get along when it comes to spending stimulus funds?” That post tackled state-vs.-local issues with regard to infrastructure spending, but not everyone is even at the point of agreeing that President-Elect Obama’s forthcoming New Deal-like plan to stimulate the economy [...]
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    Posted: December 30, 2008, 9:20am EST
    by Melissa Kovach

  • Can't we all get along when it comes to spending stimulus funds?

    Number of comments: 0
    For years, state and local officials in Wisconsin and across the nation have pleaded with federal officials for more help in addressing their crumbling infrastructure. Now that it appears those pleas may be answered as part of a huge federal stimulus package, disagreement has arisen over who gets to control [...]
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    Posted: December 23, 2008, 9:00am EST
    by Rob Henken

  • Mitigating the risk of making a bad schooling choice

    Number of comments: 0
    'Tis the season for school shopping, as certain programs and schools have deadlines for fall enrollment quickly approaching. An article last week in the New York Times covered this subject by following one mother's struggle to find the right high school for her daughter. The irony was that this mother [...]
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    Posted: December 16, 2008, 11:39am EST
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Could last resorts spur action on Milwaukee's mental health complex problem?

    Number of comments: 0
    High on the list of "fiddling while Rome burns" situations is the plight of Milwaukee County's mental health complex.For years, the county's Behavioral Health Division (BHD) has been trying to provide emergency, acute inpatient, and long-term mental health care services to indigent county residents in a sprawling complex that is [...]
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    Posted: December 12, 2008, 8:30am EST
    by Rob Henken

  • What's Wrong With Local Competition?

    Number of comments: 6
    Do regional economic development initiatives have plenty of gloss but little substance? That’s a question some are asking after a recent Journal Sentinel report that our own regional initiative, the M7, is shifting its strategic focus. The M7 commissioned a study to outline a strategy for recruiting some businesses that [...]
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    Posted: December 05, 2008, 10:30am EST
    by John Kovari

  • A ray of hope in Milwaukee County's annual budget fracas?

    Number of comments: 1
    With the dust finally settled on this year's Milwaukee County budget debate, it's hard to avoid thinking of the movie "Groundhog Day". Once again, the county executive submitted a budget that did not raise property taxes and that was heavy on privatization, reduction of full-time parks workers and cuts in [...]
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    Posted: November 20, 2008, 1:50pm EST
    by Rob Henken

  • Despite article, some areas in the region lack banks

    Number of comments: 0
    From the sound of this week’s Journal Sentinel article entitled, “Bank branches proliferate in state,” our community streets are being practically taken over by bank branches. The president of Community Bankers of Wisconsin is quoted as saying “There’s no doubt Wisconsin is very bank-heavy.” But count the banks in certain [...]
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    Posted: November 13, 2008, 9:49am EST
    by Melissa Kovach

  • All politics is local...and global

    Number of comments: 0
    This week none other than The New York Times and National Public Radio are making national stories from news about local school districts in our state. It's a reminder that Wisconsin is, in fact, on the globe.The story, covered locally by the Journal Sentinel, can be simplified as follows: Several' [...]
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    Posted: November 07, 2008, 9:22am EST
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • So you think MPS has troubles?

    Number of comments: 0
    Those who think there couldn't possibly be another major urban school district under greater fiscal stress than Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) need look no further than across Lake Michigan. Articles in Saturday's and today's Detroit News report how Detroit Public Schools (DPS) was required either to accept a consent decree [...]
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    Posted: November 06, 2008, 8:12am EST
    by Rob Henken

  • Local media coverage of politics impacts federal spending

    Number of comments: 0
    A recent working paper by professors James Snyder of MIT and David Stromberg of the University of Stockholm, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, finds that local media coverage of politics affects not only citizens' knowledge of their elected U.S. representatives, but also how hard those officials work' [...]
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    Posted: November 03, 2008, 11:38am EST
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • MillerCoors leases headquarters space in Milwaukee region

    Number of comments: 0
    One way of looking at MillerCoors' announcement of its new headquarters location is that the company decided to stay in the Milwaukee region after all. Their new headquarters in the West Loop area of downtown Chicago would place them exactly 1 hour and 4 minutes by high-speed rail from downtown' [...]
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    Posted: October 31, 2008, 10:00am EDT
    by Ryan Horton

  • What should we expect from a sheriff takeover of Milwaukee County's House of Correction?

    Number of comments: 1
    The county executive’s 2009 budget proposes merging the Sheriff’s Office and the House of Correction (HOC) under the leadership of Sheriff David Clarke, a proposal recently endorsed by the county board’s Finance Committee. This decision would transfer $49 million in additional funds to the sheriff’s jurisdiction for operation of HOC [...]
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    Posted: October 28, 2008, 9:00am EDT
    by Vanessa Allen

  • A troubled outlook for Milwaukee's city and county budgets

    Number of comments: 1
    While the news of a potential $3 billion deficit for the state’s next biennial budget sent shockwaves throughout the State capitol, perhaps no group of people were shuddering more than county and municipal budget officials. Facing their worst budgets in years and highly dependent upon the generosity of the state, [...]
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    Posted: October 21, 2008, 9:00am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Clarke Street School program targets achievement gap

    Number of comments: 0
    A new program at Milwaukee’s Clarke Street School, announced last week, will provide 80 first- and second-graders with extra help through elementary, middle and high school and a guarantee that they will be able to afford college. The I Have a Dream Foundation effort builds on a quarter-century of the [...]
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    Posted: October 07, 2008, 11:05am EDT
    by Melissa Kovach

  • You say "accountability," I say "longitudinal study"

    Number of comments: 1
    In a report released last week that did not get press other than a post on the education blog of the Journal Sentinel, the Legislative Audit Bureau rehashed the first-year findings of the School Choice Demonstration Project's study of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). Interestingly, the Bureau found the [...]
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    Posted: September 24, 2008, 8:10am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • No Worker Left Behind: Testing job applicants not shown to harm equity

    Number of comments: 0
    UWM economist Marc Levine’s most recent figures (2006 data) on what he has termed “the crisis of black male joblessness in Milwaukee,” identifying that 46.8 percent of working-age black males in the city are out of work, suggest that Milwaukeeans should take notice of studies about minorities and employment. A [...]
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    Posted: September 22, 2008, 9:09am EDT
    by Melissa Kovach

  • The Wire's lost sixth season: Pothole crews

    Number of comments: 0
    The realism of HBO's gritty series set in various Baltimore institutions is often debated. One nuance that didn't miss the producers of The Wire: the intense biweekly CitiStat meetings in which a city department head is in the hotseat as the mayor and his staff comb through reams of departmental [...]
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    Posted: September 15, 2008, 10:21am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman

  • Transportation on my mind...

    Number of comments: 0
    Before heading over to Marquette University Law School yesterday to watch Mayor Barrett and County Executive Walker debate Milwaukee's transit future, I came across three other transportation stories making news that day.The first, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, headlined a call from the I-95 Corridor Coalition , made up of east' [...]
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    Posted: September 10, 2008, 10:55am EDT
    by Rob Henken

  • Windfall federal housing funds headed to Milwaukee

    Number of comments: 0
    What happens when a large pot of one-time federal funding becomes available to local governments? In the case of Milwaukee County and emergency flood aid, it was the unfortunate incident outside the Coggs Human Services Center. In the case of New Orleans and federal disaster assistance, it was a slow [...]
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    Posted: August 28, 2008, 9:12am EDT
    by Ryan Horton

  • How can state and local policies blunt the impact of the mortgage crisis? Part II of II

    Number of comments: 1
    The home foreclosure crisis obviously affects individual homeowners and the entire credit market, but it is also a crisis for local governments. The Pew Center on the States estimates that the nation’s lost property tax base due to foreclosures amounts to $356 billion so far; and projects Wisconsin’s lost tax [...]
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    Posted: August 22, 2008, 10:15am EDT
    by Anneliese Dickman
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