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Hope Is Not A Strategy – State Government Seminar

12. Aug, 2010

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by Nicole Sidoff, Group XIV

“Hope is not a strategy.”  This statement, made by Wisconsin Counties Association Executive Director Mark O’Connell at the beginning of our State Government seminar, is a theme that resonated with me throughout the seminar. Government at the local, state, and national level is currently under extreme duress.

The deep recession impacting every strata of society is forcing governments to reconsider how they do business, particularly when grappling with the conundrum of providing services to an increasingly needful population while dealing with decreasing revenues with which to administer those services.

Seminar Chair Mike Koles and Legislative Bureau Director Bob Land both emphasized the fact that just ten programs make up over 82% of the State budget, with Elementary and Secondary School Aids, Medical Assistance (Medicare/ Medicaid/Badgercare), the UW System, Correctional Operations, and Shared Revenues alone comprising over 68% of the budget.
Legislators must make difficult decisions about cuts to these “sacred” programs to deal with the massive budget deficits plaguing the State. Both parties will have to make “shared sacrifices,” as emphasized by Assembly Majority Leader Donna Seidel and Assembly Minority Leader Mark Gottlieb.
Although the recession is responsible for some of the major challenges facing government, some of these challenges would have surfaced even without an economic crisis. Mr. O’Connell mentioned changing demographics, namely the aging of the population, as a primary concern for government. Between 2010 and 2035, the percentage of US citizens aged 65 and older will increase from 13% to 25% of the population.
Although we have discussed this issue at length during our County and local government comprehensive planning processes, we had not analyzed the issue in the context of what that means for per capita personal income levels, as Mr. O’Connell highlighted. He noted that the services demanded by this aging population would not create jobs that require a high level of education or pay living wages.
Additionally, The Roadmap for Government Transformation report, to which the executive directors of the Wisconsin Counties Association, Wisconsin Towns Association, and the League of Wisconsin Municipalities all referred, notes that nine out of the ten fastest-growing occupations require a high school level of education or less. For the economy to grow, it is necessary for incomes to grow, and trends indicate that the types of jobs being created in the future will not increase incomes.

The entire State Government seminar was not all doom and gloom; in fact, the lively conversations amongst fellows and speakers gave me hope that maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Ideas about how light rail can promote economic development and how combining local and global food systems can improve health and promote economic growth showed that innovative ideas can help move this State and Nation forward. Although “hope is not a strategy,” I will continue to hope that the progressive and innovative State Government seminar speakers and our Group XIV peers will continue to fight the good fight and develop additional strategies for tackling the biggest fiscal and economic crisis since the Great Depression.

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