We're informing people at the same time of why these buildings um deserve the designation that they receive.

We are a group that does look, in fact, at other things than simply the uh the historic nature of places.

We look at the economics of things, we look at a number of things.

Those of us who have lived here a long time don't always appreciate the many architectural styles that are prevalent here.

Milwaukee is a treasure of historic homes with several dozen architectural styles.

Some are designated landmarks, others simply outstanding examples of popular styles from another time and place.

So the city has been very much support in support of historic preservation because it encourages the revitalization of old neighborhoods, and uh it's good for property values, and because um they view it as a way to market the city to businesses and individuals who want to move in based on the fact that we're unique old city with wonderful old buildings and neighborhoods.

In virtually every neighborhood, you'll find the duplex, the most popular housing type in the 1890s.

The middle class Milwaukee bungalow showed up around 1905, and there's that distinctive Polish flat, apparently a response to narrow urban lots and population densities and working class neighborhoods around the turn of the century.

The city wants you to know about all of them.

One of the other things we've done is is uh we realize that um visitors to the city as well as city residents don't have or haven't had any way of really finding out about the city's historic buildings or knowing what they're looking at when they're draw walking around.

So the city did a series of nine walking driving tours of historic neighborhoods in the city, and we're going to be expanding that number by doing a few more this year.

Of course, the other thing we've done is we've published a book called As Good Is New, which is uh a guide to how to rehab your old Milwaukee house.

It's an illustrated guide that sort of leads you through the various steps involved with rehabbing the exterior of an old house.

Historic preservation commissioners hope the old rural craftsmanship that remains will not be lost in the name of modernization at boys and girls' clubs.

It's not just about trying new things.

It's not just about exploring the future, it's about helping them build it.

It's about making the connection, it's about proving every kid and team who enters our doors has what it takes.

Great futures start here.

Call our toll-free number, one A77 64747, or visit Furhousing Wisconsin.com.

So there's this guy I heard about Michael.

He's just a kid.

He thought he was pretty cool, though.

He liked to act tough, steal cars, stuff like that.

And Michael just tended to get in trouble a lot.

One time he picked his friends up for a free ride in Australia.

He wants to impress the growth in the back seat, and they kept telling them, come on, faster, faster.

So he floored it.

And smashed into another driver to an 80.

And then he ran.

He ran away without checking to see if other people were okay.

They weren't.

They were dead.

They are dead.

They were dead.

Bernie and Tina were just a block away from their house when Michael killed them.

That's somebody's mom and dad.

And he just ran away.

But he didn't get far.

There's no such thing as a free ride.

After he was arrested, Michael had to face the families of the people he had killed.

Now he's serving thirty years for vehicular homicide.

This ain't no video game.

Monday, May Fourth, twenty twenty-five.

I am probably sure Alderman Lamont Westmoreland joined to my right.

By Alderman, Robert Bauman.

Or line.

Alder Woman, Andrea Crett.

And to my far left.

Alderman President Joseph Perez.

Also to my left staff, Joanna.

Or T.

One two five one.

Five one three.

Resolution relating to the claim of Shelton King Junior.

Doesn't look like it.

Yes, this is the second one.

Motion on the motion by Alderman Film.

Item two.

Two five one.

Nine five six resolution relating to the claim of Julius Adway.

Is Julius Adway present?

First time.

Motion by Alderman Bauman is hold.

Hearing no objections.

So order.

Item 3, 251 384.

Resolution relating to the claim of Meg Dalia Sher Bati.

Is Meg Dalia present?

Magdalena.

Magdalia.

Thank you.

That's say the last name right.

No, that that's on your own.

All right.

Uh second time.

Second time that show, Mr.

Chair.

Uh motion by Alderman Perez is denial.

Hearing objections.

Could someone else be on the record for that?

Yes.

Motion by Alder Woman Pratt is denial.

Hearing no objections, so ordered.

Item four.

Item 251631 resolution relating to the claim of Julian Woodroof.

Is Julian Woodruff present?

Doesn't seem like it.

First time.

First time.

Move to hold.

Motion by Alderman Bauman is hold.

Hearing objections, so ordered.

Item five.

Is Stephen Brandenburg present?

First time.

Right.

First time.

Yes, motion by Order Woman Pratt is hold.

Hearing no objections.

So order.

Item 6, 251 629.

Resolution related to the claim of Peyton Reznor.

Is Peyton Reznor present.

Very good.

Is there any anywhere, sir?

Good morning.

The floor is yours.

City attorney.

Yeah.

So Miss Resner alleges that uh her vehicle was damaged by a manhole cover on August 10th, 2025.

Uh at or around 2829 South Howell Avenue.

Uh this was the same date as the historic floods in Milwaukee.

Um she alleges that uh she discovered a hole on the roof with significant damage to the driver's side interior.

Uh she alleges that a manhole cover uh landed on uh her vehicle.

Um a DPW field investigator was did respond to a missing lid complaint and secured the lid.

Uh there were no prior calls regarding this or any other manhole covers in the area.

Um and as I said, the on that date the city uh had a rainfall of 14 and a half inches.

Um and the city's attorney's office has recommended a denial uh because the city had no notice of the defect and was not negligent in its response.

Good morning before we go on the claimant that I see the claim is uh I want to go to public works.

How is this possible?

What's the dynamics in play that would push a good morning in the air Jason Sanders Sewer Services Manager DPW sewers?

So the on August uh 10th, that was the weekend we had the storm where you see 14 inches of rain.

The sewers were filled over capacity, so the pressure, the back pressure knocked the lid off and blew it, and I guess it's possible that it did damage the car that was parked there.

So it can go into it can actually propel the lid into the air.

The back pressure from everything that backed up and went into the air.

Um I can't say how far it went into the air.

Um as far as historically, as far as I've seen is maybe four feet at the most.

Um I can't attest to it actually damaging the top of the lid, but I mean I'm sorry, the roof of the car.

But the lid was at the time covered with um asphalt because it was located in the bike lane, and you know, from the freeze in the thaw of the man, the street, the lid may have sunk down a little bit, so someone patched over it to make it you know safe for a cyclist to travel in the bike lane.

So at that time, it was probably asphalt.

And it's a very big lid.

It's is very big.

So I'm that that satisfactory, thank you.

Good morning.

Morning.

Um, your name and address, please.

Thank you.

Um Peyton Resner, 2475 East Sharon Drive, Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

Um, but I was visiting at 2829 South Hell Avenue where my car was parked.

Um so yeah, the manhole from what I saw that morning, uh the manhole, I have some photos.

It was located on like on the street on the inside corner of my car.

We have and we have those samples.

Oh, perfect.

Okay.

Yeah, and then uh there was another photo on the opposite side of my car where you can see where the manhole uh ended up.

It looked as though it and my neighbor also saw it happen.

He it looked as though it blew, hit the top of my car, rolled over the other side and landed in the ground.

And then from when I discovered it had it had been moved back to its cup where to cover the manhole, but I'm sorry, that happened in the entire time you were in?

Um it was it happened while I was asleep.

I discovered it the next morning.

I'd seen uh the damage and it's taken the photos and wasn't sure what happened until I talked to my neighbor who told who had seen it and told me what he saw.

Mr.

Chair.

Alderman Press.

Yeah, I I'll just ask DPW.

So someone from DPW took the manhole cover, put it back.

Yes.

We responded it was about um four o'clock in the morning.

We received a missing lid, so we went out and we put uh lid back on the manhole.

And then w do you guys leave a note for someone realizing the damage?

I mean, what's the procedure you guys know they may not have noticed the damage to the vehicle wherever they picked the lid up from it was usually a missing lid complaint.

I'm not sure if the complaint said that there was damage to a car or anything like that.

I'd have to check and see if the report said that, but as far as I know, it was just another missing lid where they replaced it was right next to the car.

So I don't know how they wouldn't have noticed the damage to the car.

It was on the other side of the car.

Right, exactly.

And I I mean on her mother.

And I think for us thinking we were never notified, what if, you know, I mean, yes, she saw it the next morning, but what if this would have gone on for days?

I mean, the car was totaled and she only had it for a month and a half.

Um, so I I guess the communication piece, and then shortly after the next week, they were work.

There was, you know, there were we sent a picture of the work being done on that exact lid, which seemed a little ironic that right after this happened, then there was being repairs done to that area of uh of the road specifically to that manhole cover.

This car was total?

Yes, that car was totaled.

Yeah.

The Jeep was totaled.

Yes.

The Jeep was totaled.

From the damage on the roof?

Yes.

And you can see the crack because the water hybrid.

It was the electrical damage.

Oh, and the insurance our insurance plate is on here, but it was completely totaled.

And did the insurance pay pay this out?

Not the full amount that was paid for the Jeep.

There was a difference of like five thousand four hundred and thirty-five dollars between what was paid for the Jeep and what the insurance covered.

What was your deductible on that?

Five hundred dollars, I believe.

Yes, five hundred dollars.

And what's your theory of negligence?

How is the city negligent?

Just the notification.

I just how would that have affected the damage?

It wouldn't have, but just knowing next how to proceed, because I had to file my insurance claim, not really knowing what like necessarily the damage was.

I just had done weather damage, but it was kind of weather-induced damage because it wasn't really direct directly from weather, but because of I guess uh side effect of the weather.

And I think just because then shortly thereafter it was being worked on.

So obviously there was probably something wrong with it.

Maybe the weather just made it worse, but it just seemed to be ironic that then all of a sudden there was work being done on that specific area of all the areas of the city.

I'm sure there's you know that it was that it was right in that spot.

Well, there's there's really no evidence of actual negligence here.

I mean, damage, yes.

And a nature induced mishap, yes.

And frankly, if we start settling all these claims, we'll be there'll be a lot of money involved.

So I'll move denial.

Motion uh is for denial by Alderman Bauman.

Any objections?

Hearing none, so one objection, uh note it alderman price.

Um order.

City attorney.

So this is the first step.

What happens next is that the recommendation of this committee will go to the full common council, uh which next meets on May 12th, uh 2026.

Uh if the full council adopts this committee's recommendation, then you'll receive a formal notice of denial by mail.

And then once you have that notice of denial, uh you can file suit in circuit court if you wish to pursue this matter further.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Like to make everybody aware that um you're holding I approve you.

Okay.

Item twenty's here for item twelve, that item will be held.

And I'd also like to make everybody aware that we've been joined by Alderman.

Russell Stamper, welcome.

Hey, man, thank you.

Item 7, 241 692 communication from the Intergovernmental Relations Division and Legislative Affairs Division related to legislative updates.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Um, Jordan Primaco in a government of relations uh division director.

Um we did add um Katie Yeager and I in a government of relations division along with the lab division.

Um now that the legislative session has wrapped for the year.

Um we wanted to just quickly run through um legislation that the city uh had advocated for or against and talk about the impacts.

Uh there was a um PowerPoint presentation included in the file.

Um, but we can just quickly run through that now.

Uh Katie want to take it away.

Sure.

Um so like Jordan said, and sorry, Katie Yeager, intergovernmental relations, like Jordan said, um, we did put together a slideshow, so if you have that um and can follow along, um we broke it down into categories um and included things that um all of the bills that either um well all of the bills that did pass that we had registered in support of um to highlight for you all a lot of them were discussed before this committee throughout session.

Um so we'll begin with uh bills pertaining to housing and development.

Um last meeting I touched on it a little bit, but the um truth and planning bill was passed, the governor signed that one.

Um we were registered as sideways on it because there were aspects that we did support, including the TID extension, um, but then other aspects um that we weren't fully in support of um, but it will have a um large financial financial uh impact on the city because it will increase our pot of affordable housing funds um in the millions.

Uh there was also um uh Wisconsin Act 237.

Uh this is a WEDA program fixes.

Uh these were broadened the scope of allowable uses for uh developmental or project loans uh in the WEDA fund.

There was about half a billion dollars in a WEDA fund to allow coupling with both TIFF funding and historic preservation tax credits that should loosen restrictions on those WEDA funds to help move along housing development projects in our community.

Uh another one was Wisconsin Act 238, historic reservation uh rehabilitation tax credit program.

Um this broadens the use of the historic preservation tax credit program again with the hope this would help move projects along in our community.

And similarly, um Act 239, um similar to the WEDA program.

It made uh some changes to the state housing tax credit program, um, which will expand access to financing um for various workforce housing um and increase mixed income and uh middle income housing development.

Uh next under the environment category um Wisconsin Act Acts 170 and 171.

Um, these established a battery stewardship program.

This will help with fire safety, shift some of the recycling costs to the producers, taking some of the burden off of local governments who offer those types of services and allow better access to recycling options for batteries.

There was also Wisconsin Act 15 increasing the bonding authority for the environmental improvement fund.

This legislation approved $732 million in bonding authority with the state for water infrastructure projects.

This is not a fund that the city has traditionally tapped into, but being that federal funding may be running out for led lateral replacements.

It would give the city another option to potentially tap into the state's bonding authority to continue to do water infrastructure projects, including lead lateral replacements for the city of Milwaukee.

There's also a number of public safety bills that we worked on this session.

The Impower Reckless driving vehicles.

I know the LAD Division worked hard on this one as well as intergovernment relations, Wisconsin Act 46, Alderman Westmoreland.

We're all well aware of that bill and the impact, the positive impact it's had on our community to uh continue to attack reckless driving in our community.

There was Wisconsin Act 36, uh reimbursements for EMS services.

Um this broadens uh services from our emergency services of which uh the fire department um conducts a lot of those services that it will increase the financial sustainability of local EMS services and will also provide training programs for EMS services to increase the pipeline of individuals trained for EMS coming into our system, so it should have positive impacts to both the Milwaukee Fire Department and EMS services as well as the private ambulance providers in our community.

Um and then some really monumental bills that passed on the the very last days of session that will have really positive impacts for health for Milwaukee residents, one of those being the postpartum Medicaid extension.

Um this is the bill that extends postpartum Medicaid coverage from the current 60 days to one year and bringing us uh up to speed with the rest of the country, except for one other state at this point.

Um, and then another one uh Wisconsin Act 103 um providing uh breast cancer screenings um under the medical assistance program um which again uh will increase access to um great preventative care for Milwaukee residents.

Uh next category is uh we kind of called economy and jobs.

Uh there was Wisconsin Act 15 creation of a state film office.

Uh something that um there was a large coalition pushing forward to create uh a new incentive program for filmmakers uh to come make their films in the state of Wisconsin.

We are already seeing the impact of films being shot in the city of Milwaukee, and these also lead to the creation of jobs.

So we're uh we're excited to we're happy to have supported and cited to see that program.

I know, I believe last month uh the governor announced the hire of the new director of that office.

Um that is uh up and running and successful already.

Uh and then uh Wisconsin Act 175 opportunity in attraction program.

This is a new set of state funds to help attract large scale events to the state of Wisconsin, things like the NFL draft, uh the RNC, uh, other large events that we might host.

I know we've talked in the past about potentially WWE events.

Um this would create a state pot of money that will allow um uh uh that would allow the state or local governments to apply uh to uh tap into those funds to draw a major event into the community.

Um so that was uh another piece of legislation we supported.

Uh we talked about Wisconsin Act 240 uh the last hearing, but um that was the occupational credentials for DACA recipients, um, again expanding local workforce options for uh dreamers in our community.

Um there was Wisconsin Act 176 uh in relation to the Transform Milwaukee Jobs program, um a state and local partnership.

Um just slightly updated some of the eligibility requirements for residents to participate in this program.

Um, and by participating in the program, it expands their access to workforce training, um, some transitional employment opportunities, um, helping to strengthen pathways into full-time long-term employment.

Um I also just wanted to note that the governor did veto the restriction uh on local government programs.

That was Assembly Bill 165 that the city had registered in opposition to because it would have directly disallowed us from offering various city programs that are currently offered.

And then just an overview.

Again, not considering the city of Milwaukee, which is really unique and having central account locations and logistically, these bills just would not have been feasible for an operation of our size.

So there was a lot of educational education going on behind the scenes to make sure that these legislative offices that were introducing this these types of bills kind of understand that the city of Milwaukee is extremely unique in our size and the scope of elections here.

So I think that these were really great learning experiences.

Thankfully, and I think in a future meeting we'll have Paulina Gutierrez here to and available to to discuss some of these things in greater detail.

So that's a wrap-up.

I do want to give an opportunity for uh Lad Division to add anything, but before I do that, um many of you saw on Friday, uh Katie Yeager is leaving the city of Milwaukee.

Uh I just wanted to take a moment to thank Katie for all of her hard work.

Uh we've been tremendously lucky to have her on our lobbying team.

Um many of the things that we just went over would not have happened without her hard work out in Madison.

Uh she is uh believe it or not, headed off to bigger and better things.

Uh as we like to think maybe nothing's better than the city, but uh tremendous opportunity for Katie.

So I just wanted to take a moment to uh thank her for all of her hard work.

Thank you, Katie.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I I so appreciate the opportunity to get to represent the interests of, like I said, in in my note to you all, the the greatest state city in the state of Wisconsin.

So thank you for allowing me to do this great work.

Are you happy or say it?

It's bittersweet.

It's bittersweet.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, that's hard to follow.

However, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, thank you.

Um before we get to ours, I'd like to talk with Jordan.

Jordan, did we um on the bond authority?

Yeah.

What will be our ability to use it?

Well, it really depends.

So right now, uh, you know, primarily um from my understanding discussions with what Milwaukee Waterworks we've been tapping into the funds that have been made available of the bipartisan infrastructure law under the previous presidential administration to replace lead laterals in our community.

And this council uh along with the administration have worked very hard to prioritize uh equitable distribution of removal of those lead laterals, communities of need, uh places where work is already happening, and we've been able to at this point in time tap into those substantial federal funds to produ uh to do that work uh without additional cost to the ratepayer or many times the homeowners.

Okay.

Um if that line of funding were to dry up, and again it is uncertain if that will be renewed by the current Congress administration.

Um there are we are advocating for it to continue, but if it doesn't, this 700 million plus dollars from the federal uh from the state government in bonding authority could be another avenue for us to pursue to do these projects uh as well as another avenue of against state bonding authority for any other major water infrastructure project we might look to to entertain.

How much money is left?

Yeah.

Um so I think that money was just set aside this session.

I believe applications are ongoing to tap into it.

So uh my understand I think the whole 700 and some million dollars are still there.

Um, but again, as we're all well aware, water issues, water infrastructure issues, uh uh PFAs, things of that nature are an issue around the state.

So, yeah, you to your point, uh money could go quickly, but I think this set a new standard for the state.

What we're hoping is that budget after budget, the state will continue to put this I mean this this pot of bond, do you remember Katie?

It went from I think it was uh the number that's in my mind it was fifty-six million, and uh uh you know that had historically been enough for the applications that they were receiving, but a lot of the water infrastructure was created in the 1970s for a lot of local governments, of course, um as a result of the the Federal Clean Water Act.

Um now that infrastructure is kind of nearing its its end of life and is needing replacement, of course, communities um small the smaller communities in Wisconsin are also growing, which is putting greater strain on these um this aging infrastructure.

So that money became um a lot more coveted, and um in the last round, I I believe that MMSC or or the city was going to be putting in an application, and they were told this is already so competitive.

Uh city of our size does have the ability to go kind of private market to to get bonding author or to get to do bonding, and smaller municipalities did not.

So those smaller communities were prioritized for the fifty-six million dollars.

So um now with this huge expansion of of bonding authority, we would be able to apply for it once more.

That's good.

So do they take in consideration the aging of our infrastructure on the last four floods that we just experienced?

Uh you know, I don't know.

That's a good question.

I think Pat Pauley or someone from Waterworks would have to answer that or MMSD.

Um and certainly since this legislation was passed.

Um I mean, I believe if memory serves, this was passed before last August.

So we've had two major floods in our community directly impacting water infrastructure.

So uh even when this was passed, um, we've had major incidents.

I mean, I think the good news is that the state was able to recognize we are why vastly uh under bonded in this program.

They added 700 million dollars of new bonding.

I could see this continuing to be discussion at the state moving forward um so that they can make sure to continue to renew that money in bonding authority or increase it if necessary.

Excellent.

Okay.

And then uh who was the author of this large event fund?

Um I don't remember offhand.

I know Visit Milwaukee was a tremendous advocate for it.

You know, that's something uh you know, Peggy Williams Smith, uh Claire Hannon and the team they pushed very strongly for because they are our leaders when it comes to pursuing these major events.

Um so I don't remember the uh authors uh offhand, but visit was very prominent.

You know how much is available?

Uh I believe it was I think they put like 20 million in the fund.

20 million.

And I believe Senator Bradley was one of the the key sponsors on the Senate side.

I'm not sure um off the top of my head who is um leading in uh the assembly.

Okay.

Then last uh on April 30th, 2026, the US Supreme Court in a 63 decision in Louisiana Virginica significantly weakened section two of the voters' right act of 1965.

Uh where are we as a state in our opposition to this strike down?

And do you think it'll reach up north or the midwest any time soon?

That was a Supreme Court decision.

Louisiana versus Callis Calvin Lee with the legislative affairs division.

Alderman to your question.

Um there was an analysis that I prepared and sent out last week for you.

Okay.

Um so please check your email or I can reforward that to you.

Um obviously Kitty had brought up some of the election materials, some of the bills.

We will be working closely with the election commissioner and protecting everything that we can do here.

But uh depending upon who you speak to, many are looking at this at as being a resurrection of Jim Crow laws, in my opinion.

Well, obviously, but what I'm saying is that we can in your email did you put something in opposition to this as a city.

It was an email to inform you about that decision.

Yeah, I think we'd wait for this body, particularly Judd Lake to put a file forward.

And I can and I can say what you know what we're seeing in an immediate response to that Supreme Court decision are redistricting efforts, like you had said, particularly in southern states.

Right now our state legislative maps were agreed upon between the governor and the Republican state legislature.

So our maps um should be in how long do they last they would these maps would go until 2030 when the next census is done and redistricting would be done at that point in time.

So so right now these maps should be in place until 2030.

There have there has been litigation around our congressional map um recently two three judge appellate court panels have denied a redrawing of that map.

That has not yet made it to the state supreme court if it does but um you know we are not seeing the efforts of re of mid um mid-decade redistricting like they are in many other states with going on what's on federally I think we can I think it certainly does behoove us as a community to speak up and say we oppose the Supreme Court decision.

I think for the four of us up here are the our divisions we're gonna have to be diligent in making sure that these sorts of efforts if they happen in our state our community particularly our vulnerable communities are protected.

But I do not see anything immediate or nor have I heard anything immediately on the horizon from this Supreme Court decision coming to Wisconsin.

Okay but 230 okay uh that's if they don't try to do anything in the right now the threat is with uh a different governor well it's a threat.

It with the different governor uh it would obviously go through 2030 and then it depends on the legislature so the governor and the legislature would have to determine and set what those maps are based on the census and now that uh race or demographics cannot play into how those are mapped out um it would be structured population wise which could have an impact on uh how these particularly inner city districts look right okay and I will just point out just rumor mill that there is um quite a bit of attention to the county maps that were um agreed upon so I would not be surprised if there might be some sort of challenge in the future on the county maps.

Um speaking with Jim O he's fairly confident that we're in a very good spot as far as the city maps go, alternative boards things of that nature that would that won't be impacted and things should be in place at least through 2030.

Those issues you mentioned be in direct correlation with the changes of this law if it comes forth.

So fortunately um for for Wisconsin a lot of the provisions uh I mean the the voter rights act federally had had various provisions um in addition to redistricting um and uh we have state laws that reinforce a lot of those federal provisions um so it would actually take some undoing of state law as well um to increase vulnerability of certain voters um other than throughout the redistricting process okay um and we have been in conversations with Paulina um to be a little bit more specific um and add items in the legislative package uh to account for these attacks uh that were noted in the PowerPoint and then of course sure um I'm sure Paulina has some ideas um to protect us against the the impacts of that supreme court decision as well thank you excuse me I haven't read an email but I'll get right on it and get back to the only thing that I wanted to recogn um advise you of as well is in that you will see towards the bottom of the email a part of that analysis was a decision from 2023 versus the most recent decision here in 2026.

Okay.

All right Mr Chair but the reality is is that they really don't pay attention to the local maps as much as they do the state and the federal the congressional seats.

Yeah so do you guys have any assessment that those are challenged before 2030 or is it just depend on what the state governor looks like twice had uh uh assigned uh a body of judges that would look at um redistricting the congressional maps um twice they've said that they don't have the authority now to do that so it's very unlikely that we'll see anything before this election I would not be surprised if we see continued efforts um to restructure those um going forward there's also some conversation that the legislature might come back in the near future uh certainly to discuss uh what to do with the surplus that they have on hand but also maybe coming to some sort of agreement on congressional maps simply because uh the Republicans perspective is a worry that Supreme Court or Democratic control control legislature will um uh change those significantly to to benefit them um so they might get ahead of that and cut some sort of grand bargain on those maps.

Um so they might get ahead of that and cut some sort of grand bargain on those maps.

It's hard to to say exactly what it's gonna be, but um there is conversation and part of what I was gonna say uh in my update as well, is that they have uh schedule to come back next week on uh uh special session to to meet on the floor.

Um I believe they have an agreement um of some sort or at least one in place uh regarding the surplus.

I'm not sure where they're at with the maps quite yet.

And I will say to your question, you know, the Supreme Court created new case law.

Uh and that case law now carries throughout the United States of America.

So there's always the opportunity that a uh law firm or a concerned citizen could bring a lawsuit against the city of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, the state of Wisconsin, uh and uh under the new case laws and and the the changes to the voting rights act.

Uh we are certainly that could happen in our community.

Uh I'm sure uh City Attorney Goike and his team are on top of it, but there is always the case that a new suit could be bringing on brought under this case law to challenge what we've done here.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Guys keep us posted.

Yeah, and I just want to point out one other thing as legislation or the session wraps up in the legislature for the year is I think it's really important to understand the landscape there, and one of the interesting facts that have come out recently is Democrats have authored more than five hundred uh and introduced five hundred bills, of which only five had received even a committee hearing.

So one percent of Democrats' efforts have gone through the actual political process that we all know and understand.

So uh 500 and how long?

Just in the the last two years, and though this last session bills and four only got to five got to uh a committee hearing and were heard.

That doesn't even mean that um they made it to uh full enactment of law and that the government signed them into law.

So is their process similar to ours?

They need someone to sponsor?

Well, they need someone to sponsor, um, and uh bills that were authored or sponsored by a Democrat had only seen five of them receive a committee hearing.

So it just goes to the committee hearing, how does it get there?

It's a sign yeah, the committee chair chooses what bills are heard at their committee.

So they they just don't charge.

Yeah, if it's a republic that the the all the committees are chaired by Republicans, and so the Republicans can choose what bills do and don't come in front of their committee.

Okay, what about do they have the same processes on the floor?

No, no, different.

So you can't even bring it on the floor.

No, so that there are some uh you know operational strategies that can help at times, such as what we saw with the DACA bill and some of our Democrat allies helping to negotiate.

But there is a tremendous amount of power in committee leadership and certainly um you know, majority leader and and speaker to control were so.

Five some of those ours.

No, they were.

I mean I'll have to go back and see exactly what the I'll have to go back and double check that the that information just came out last week that what specifically they knew were I think we would need to pay attention to is that there was a lot of bipartisan support.

This team had worked diligently and hard on those bills that had passed through this legislative session.

It was tough.

Um however, we were able to move quite a few things forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are we making progress on the red light cameras?

Certainly not this session.

Um but speaking with the the Senate author last week at the MMAC night.

Uh he's optimistic that um depending on how things look next year um that they would more than uh likely be willing to introduce it or reintroduce it.

Excellent.

Thank you guys.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

No.

Uh just quickly too, just on behalf of lab, we would like to thank Katie and all her efforts.

You know, on the record that we we certainly appreciate working with her and and wish her all the best.

Thank you.

Good luck.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chair.

Yes, sir.

So you guys updates are you guys similar updates or you did your own update, or that was the same update?

Yeah, it's a collaborative city.

So they covered uh a good summary of everything that got sure.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, um over the weekend at uh Cico the Valle, uh Cinco the Mayo event that um Conquistador did.

Um they honored the city for um their work on uh the DACA.

So I wanted to thank everyone involved for the state level licenses that was approved, which is basically around we have about 5100 dreamers in the state of Wisconsin that now have an ability to apply for licenses from plumbers to nurses, which is huge for them, not only for us to retain them there.

I think we can recruit other DACA folks to come to the to the state and work.

So they honor the city, and so I just wanted to say thanks to the all the team that had anything to do with working on that.

And uh it is a big deal.

It's probably the most important piece of legislation for Latinos in the state of Wisconsin.

So thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Uh motion by President Perez, uh hold to the call of the chair.

Any objections, hearing none, so ordered.

Thank you.

Um item eight.

Right.

Just live for a second.

252 220.

Substitute resolution amending the city of Milwaukee State legislative package to express support for legislation requiring the installation of speed limiting devices on vehicles owned by those repeatedly convicted of reckless driving, sponsored by Alderman Stamper.

Alderman Stamper.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Yes, I read that in Maryland they passed a bill requiring repeat or extreme speeding offenders to install intelligent speed assistance, which is a device uh that will prevent you from speeding.

So uh I thought it would be a proposal to bring it to the city of Milwaukee.

And uh the pros of this legislation is that it directly stops dangerous behavior, not just punish it, it stops you.

Um it targets the highest risk drivers.

It has proven technology and it's an alternative to license suspension.

So um being that Milwaukee has a speeding problem, reckless driving problem, uh just becomes a public safety issue, and I like to add this to the legislative legislative back uh uh package along with the red lights and everything else we're doing those curb reckless driving.

And that will oh yeah, go ahead.

Oh, I was gonna say ultimate samplers um as we discussed weeks before.

Um this bill there was this bill was introduced in the legislature this session.

Okay.

Um both Representative Goodwin and Senator Larson.

It did not advance.

Um I appreciate you wanting to reintroduce this.

I think this adds on to the work uh over the last two years with like the reckless driving bill that Alderman's uh Westmoreland wanted us to pursue.

Um with this, um we are in the process also uh putting together the ledge package as well.

So this will definitely be added when we get ready to run, start running and get ready for next session.

Sure.

Um you mentioned Maryland and so forth.

To the best of my knowledge, I think there are 10 states, and I can provide this to you later after the meeting that have introduced or moved forward with this type of legislation in the nation.

So cool.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Um, Olliman, I appreciate you asking about the red light camera bill.

Um so we were working on that one as a way to deter the reckless driving from occurring in the first place.

Um, you know, when somebody comes up to an intersection, they see that there's um that it is camera enforced.

Um they slow down, they stop at the red light actually.

Um so that was our um more so preventative effort um to to uh decrease reckless driving in the community.

Um this uh bill that Calvin just mentioned was introduced by um a senator who um actually is is very very opposed to the red light camera district.

So we tried to do some educational work there to um help to get him to a place where he maybe wasn't in such opposition to a preventative solution, and then um we would you know like to support the you know kind of last stitch effort of literally slowing speeder's cars down.

Yes.

Um we weren't able to get there, unfortunately.

Um we do hope um I I hope this team can can work on that senator and get him to a different place next session because it would be great to have a Milwaukee senator um in supportive of a bill that would be uh of huge impact to uh the massive issue of reckless driving in Milwaukee.

Well, can you continue to help us in your new thank you so much?

Just one last thing.

Um to your point, Altamont Stamper.

Yes, sir.

Uh so that the public understands what this bill is, it states you stated what it is, but it's actually the installation of a speed device that would prohibit you from going over a certain um miles per hour over the speed limit or what the registered speed limit is.

So yeah.

And then one note on that if and maybe you'd like this to be specific in the ledge package, but um there were a lot of questions and concerns about the burden of cost and who actually pays for that technology to be installed in the cars.

Um and then what happens, you know, if if the owner of the vehicle can't uh afford that expensive technology.

So maybe consider um adding a specific revision to account for that.

Yeah, okay.

Unfortunately, this was one of the 500 bills that did not get a committee hearing, so that wasn't fully fleshed out in the negotiation process.

All right.

Do you do you know if this one because I'm um I like and I like this?

Um Thank you.

I'm curious if if all goes well and and we can do this, if we would have the ability as a city to have these installed prior to an impounded vehicle being released.

I wish at one point are they installed.

I mean the the legislative is completely open to uh being reconstructed, so that's something that we can have discussion currently, how it currently I I believe that it would be something similar to uh an ignition device if you were to get a drunk driving um arrest.

Whereas you have to use it you have a certain amount of time to put it in your vehicle before you can drive it again.

First offense.

And I think I mean this is the sort of thing that needs to be the priority of intergovernmental relations division is always to craft legislation the best we can in Madison to give you all the opportunity to design it.

You know, what I'd love to have the state say is that these devices are permissible.

Local municipalities can require these from you know these devices, and then the local governmental bodies can say in our community if you get impounded, we're not releasing your car until the device is installed.

So I think you know, again, legislative package wise, it's always good to look broadly of give us permission state, and then let us design how that works for because it may we may want to do something in Milwaukee than they want to do in Green Bay or Madison, and it's our we have to the state needs to start recognizing better municipalities are different, we have similarities, but we're different across the state.

Right.

So allow the local governmental body that it's closest to its residents determine what's best for their community.

Right.

Particularly because not every city has enacted the um impoundment bill for reckless driving.

So right there there'd be some of the things that we've got to do.

We don't know how many has half.

I don't not at the top of my head.

I mean, we could probably check with LRB and see if they hit their uh I'd like to be added as a co-sponsor.

Thanks for today.

Any other questions or comments?

No, thank you guys.

Uh Alderman Bauman moves for adoption, hearing no objections, so ordered.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good luck to you now.

Item nine, two five one six nine six communication from the office of the assessor relating to 2026 assessments sponsored by Alder Woman Cox.

I'm here.

I'm here, I'm here.

I'm here.

Okay.

I'm on the board.

Um I do just like to say assessor.

I know we have this on last month's agenda a little prematurely.

Um but now that folks have received um their assessments.

I try to do this every year, or we kind of have the assessor because they can go through the assessments, what the city average is, but also where the highest spikes are, or the declines and all of that kind of thing, and to answer some of the questions that some of us may have been getting from some of our residents.

Um and with that, I think we can go ahead with the assessment.

Thank you.

Uh good morning everybody.

I'm Ryan Ranker, the deputy commissioner of the assessor's office.

Um and today we're gonna talk a little bit about uh the 2026 reevaluation we've done for uh city property assessments.

Um I'm gonna start with some broader themes, talking about what a revaluation is, um, some of the uh statutes within which we have to operate.

Um where assessment and public policy might kind of cross paths and how assessments are determined.

I'll finish then with uh where we're in right now, the open book period and how uh property owners can discuss or appeal their assessments.

Um and also to my left here, I have the assessor's office real estate modeler, Mr.

Colin Williams.

Um he'll present a little bit later into more of uh some of the specific sales and activity within neighborhoods.

Mr.

Chair.

Yes, sir.

Yes, what is a real estate modeler?

Uh so basically I'm the uh the main math guy in the office.

So I collect all the data, uh process it, do statistics, um, develop the citywide models for um real estate values.

And what do you use?

What do I use?

Um we use a combination of Excel and an open source um statistical package called R.

Um, it's a common um statistics and modeling software for the assessment industry.

The city wide is uh countrywide.

Uh offices uh across the country uh use this.

Um use um proprietary software, so either Microsoft product or um there are various other ones that vendors um charge for, but this is a free open source uh software that I I'm able to use.

And you manually insert the data.

Uh we get um not manually, we're not hand typing, but um I'm manually manipulating all of the data once we get it from our various sources.

And I'll get into kind of how all of the what data we have and how all of that works um in the presentation as well.

Okay, and what kind of software is that again?

It's called R, just the letter R.

Okay.

All right, and where's the commissioner today?

She and I have been having some discussions.

I was expecting her today.

She had a family event over the weekend, so she's probably not gonna be in our office all week.

Sure, okay.

Well, we wish her the best.

Thank you.

All right, thanks, guys.

Okay.

Um, so I'll just um start here and I'll kind of talk um, you know, what is our revaluation?

Um so that refers to the reassessment of all parcels within a municipality.

And this is necessary because economic conditions are constantly changing.

Um so properties are revalued to reflect those changes in the market and also at specific properties if there are raisings, um, kitchen or bath updates, things of that nature.

Um the two uh most prominent statutes that kind of define how we are to value real estate are um 70 oh five Wisconsin State statute, um which basically says that we need to value all classes of property within 10% of full value.

Um so that's 10% of the market value.

Um and that's for all classes, so residential, commercial, agricultural, undeveloped.

Um and then the other statute that we um kind of lean on is 7032, which it's how we are to value it, and it's either from actual view getting into a property, which is up to a property owner if they want to let us in or not, um, or the best information available.

So that's and could be an exterior inspection, that could be information we've gleaned online, um, and other information that's available publicly to us.

Um and what we're trying to do in the end is figure out the assessments are what we anticipate a property would sell for based on that data.

Excuse me, Mr.

Chair.

Yes, sir.

On evaluating what a property would sell for.

Is that pure subjective, or do you have a formula?

Yes, where the modeling comes in.

I would say yes, that is where the modeling we have we have based, we have the city broken into neighborhoods based on the style of property.

So we're not valuing commercial with residential, and we're not looking at triplexes to value a ranch.

So we try to get you know down to the level of detail that makes sense so that we can see patterns and trends and identify that ranches in this neighborhood are selling for 150 dollars a square foot.

Um so that's kind of how we try to break up the data and make the most sense of it.

We're not you know, we're not comparing north side to south side or anything like that.

It's it's very compartmentalized when we're looking at the data.

Oh, so it's not blanket throughout the city, you go district by district.

Yes, we have the the city broken up into numerous uh residential neighborhoods and commercial neighborhoods.

Different formulas or the same formula?

Uh the same methods are applied to all of them.

I mean the formula is more based on the data that is available.

Um, if there's not sales available and it's a newer development, the cost might be the most pertinent way to value those properties.

So it it it kind of goes hand in hand with um the location, the property, and then the data available to make a value or an assessment on that property.

Okay, but the data that you receive and the numbers you put together to evaluate a property, is that standard or is that the same?

No, it's standard procedures, and it's all dictated by either statute case law or the Wisconsin property assessment manual, which is put out by the Department of Revenue.

By district, though.

We go through the same.

It would depend on what the sales are in.

So we don't consider aldermanic district when coming up with values, we purely look at neighborhoods.

Um, but it depends on what the sales look like in each individual neighborhood.

And for context, there are approximately 140 residential neighborhoods that we have the city broken up into.

So if you have two identical houses um in uh different neighborhoods, and we have sales of those identical houses and ones for 100,000 dollars and one's for 150,000.

Our modeling process and valuation process would put an assessed value of 100,000 on the one that sold for 100 and anything like it in that neighborhood, and 150 on that property and any similar properties in that neighborhood.

Right.

That's that's understandable.

But the where you do that, is it the same?

Yes, it's a yes.

In each throughout the city.

All of the neighborhoods are treated identically throughout the city.

We're not looking, you know, one by one at them.

When I get the data in, the same procedure is applied to all 140 neighborhoods.

And is that separate than the R software?

No, I apply the methodology using the R software and our other IT.

How does the R software relate to the state statute that you referenced?

So I look at the state statute for the prescribed methods for valuation.

I basically convert what the state statute and the manual say into code that takes the data that we have, what the state law says, and it outputs assessed values, and then those go into our system, and then there's levels of checks that are applied by other real estate professionals in our office.

So it's not just what I say or any one person says.

Okay.

Yeah, I'll wait to the presentation to continue the conversation, but thank you very much.

Thank you.

Well, real quick, I would because I need to know as I think about this presentation.

Um you use sales, right?

Yes.

Only sales.

Uh for residential properties, yes.

Okay.

And how many do you use to evaluate a property?

Um it depends on so we've used this year for all residential properties, there were over five thousand usable sales.

I'll get into what makes the sale usable in a moment.

Okay.

Um and in each individual neighborhood, it just depends on how many properties sold in that area.

The current assessment of properties will outweigh the amount of sales.

Is that calculated?

If you have a block, if you sell one uh whatever radius you use, but at the most three or four or five.

But the amount of homes that are much, much less than that ten percent uh or less than that, um, are they used as an evaluation of the properties?

For example, I got let's say I have three blocks and five foreclosures or or a burnt-up house or dilapidated house.

Sure.

Uh or just negligent landlords, but you a house on that block is sold and rehabbed and fixed up and sold for 250,000.

But these houses aren't worth nothing but a hundred thousand or less.

Right.

Do you consider that?

Yes, we do.

So we have um property records for every property in the city.

Um, and so we have um a ton of property data, size, condition, number of kitchens, number of bathrooms, um, any sort of um issues like that.

Um we get data from uh permits um observation when our our team is in the field, and so we'll update that and we make sure to validate what data is on sales.

So in the case that you uh described where there's a house that was flipped, that would be in above average condition, it might be good or even very good.

Um and the surrounding properties would be average, fair, or even lower ratings.

Um and so that's then taken into account um when we're developing the value.

So we're not saying that that flipped house is the same as all of its neighbors.

Gotcha.

And if you can't find a house that has give you enough um proximity to a neighborhood, do you continue to go out further?

Or just stay within a certain stay within the district or you go out further.

We will um go out further as appropriate.

So if we won't just indiscriminately expand a circle until we find something because neighborhood markets can change very rapidly as you go block to block.

So that's where our um our appraisers when they're reviewing the values, um, if there weren't any sales of a particular property type, they will find the most comparable nearby uh neighborhood or area.

And the sales that includes sales that are sold with subsidies attached to it.

Uh part of the sales validation process that I'll describe.

Yeah.

Uh evaluates the uh a whole range of things, including the relationship between buyer and seller and the financing involved.

I'm just talking about a house that receives significant government subsidy.

Now they're selling it.

Yeah, so if the if the previous owner had received subsidies to fix up the house um and then it sold on the open market, we would consider that sale because if a house hadn't received subsidies and was in the was in the same condition um and was sold on the open market, that would reflect what the market is for that type of property.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

So I'll just consider like, and I think we've we've kind of talked to our discussions here a little bit, but so what is it that we're considering when we're trying to figure out assessments?

And it's it's sales, it's what properties are transacting for by class and within certain you know boundaries or neighborhoods.

Um and we're specifically looking at arms length transactions, which are the buyer and seller acting independently, there's no pre-existing relationships, no coercion, no special interests.

Um and this will usually ensure that it's a fair market price.

When you know both parties, the buyer and the seller are acting in their own self-interest.

This usually results in what's known as market value.

Um some of the items or sales that we generally don't include in our analysis are auction, foreclosure, or properties that are sold under duress.

What about city sales?

We generally wouldn't include those.

Wouldn't include.

Mr.

Chair?

Yeah, go ahead.

For arms like geographically.

How close?

Um the closer the better.

Generally, we like to stay within what is defined with our neighborhoods that we have defined as far as residential properties.

Um but again, there there can be properties that we can't find a good comparable right in that neighborhood, so we might expand to an adjacent neighborhood that we find similar.

Um that's part of a sales comparison approach where you can make adjustments for the slight differences between one neighborhood and another.

Um but the best sales are gonna be as close to January 1st as we can get and as close to a certain subject property that we can get.

We like to stay within a neighborhood with the sales.

Part of the reason that I ask is because in some of our neighborhoods um block to block is a world of difference.

For sure.

For what a buyer would actually pay.

So, yeah, a house two blocks away um may have sold for 350,000, but my house with the similar amount of bathrooms, similar amount of bedrooms in this direction, two blocks would never sell for that.

So if that's what you're using for the assessments, it puts it puts my house at a disadvantage from what it would should actually be.

That's correct.

Yeah, and generally we would avoid that, and that's one of the things we're looking at.

So if we use an adjacent sale, but we know that that neighborhood is sales are typically 20% higher, we're gonna make that adjustment when and reflect it in that neighborhood.

We're not just gonna we don't reach out uh far and wide and just apply anything to any neighborhood.

That's why I say we tried to kind of make it an apples to apples comparison in our review of the sales and the data.

And if a resident felt like you didn't do that properly, that's what the appeals process is for.

Correct.

That's that's the appeals open book period that we have.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chair.

But but you but uh Alhamdulillah.

Like, do you go a mile out, two miles out, three miles out?

What do you do?

It depends on the neighborhood and the data.

So what's the furthest you've ever done?

Um well in commercial, I've gone out of state.

Um for residential, um, generally geez, I'm a mile.

One mile.

Probably would be, you know, like a mile is good.

I mean, with it, you know, typically if we're when we have to defend stuff at the border review, I like to have sales within a few blocks of you know, somebody that might be it it and again it will depend on the neighborhoods because some neighborhoods are much tighter and smaller, there's not even a mile across.

So it just depends, you know, we have to go by what the best sales tell us.

Um so if I have a good sale, but I think that the subdivision or the neighborhood is very similar to the house I'm looking at, I'm gonna use that sale.

But if I know that that subdivision generally sells twice as much, I'm gonna ignore that sale and not consider it as something that would reflect the value of a home that I'm looking at.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Go ahead.

Um you guys take into account like the natural boundaries of districts.

I look at the freeway dividing my district and night and day east and west of it.

Yes, those would general generally it's either a river, a commercial strip, a highway, that does usually kind of demarcate different neighborhoods and different kind of investment patterns or sales prices.

So we do reflect that.

That's that's one of the things that kind of helps us determine where neighborhood boundaries are.

So with that case, like tell the woman cogs this point, you have a house, you go two blocks in one direction from a busy street, it's much higher.

You have a house two blocks to the east, it's lower.

What does what what decision you make at that point?

So it's the same same neighborhood, whether it's even two blocks or three blocks of a of a difference, they're still within the range of someone might say, Why aren't you taking the low one?

Yeah, and again, that would come down to the apples to apples again.

What is most comparable?

If I'm looking at a property and I've got a couple of sales that I think are really comparable, and they're at one price point.

If I go to this better area or higher district, that's two blocks away, and it's a much larger price point.

To me, that's but they're not competitive properties, and that's a sale that I wouldn't use to value that property.

And that's that's you personally saying, Oh no, I'm not going to evaluate that property.

You not that we're not going to evaluate that it's the fact that I don't know that it's a good comparable to determine the market value in that scenario.

In that instance instance, it's the deputy director, not the machine.

No, because we're and Colin will get into how we list these properties.

It gets into size, condition, location, all of those neighbors, and within neighborhoods, you can have sub-neighborhood factors.

Because just as in one in a residential district, there could be that one block that historically always sells a lot higher than the other blocks.

So there's a lot of different factors and variables that we can adjust for to try to catch instances like that where two blocks over on this neighborhood, it always outsells the rest of the neighborhood.

So we have to have some type of economic adjustment for that.

Okay.

Can I give you a scenario?

You have January first is the date that you collect the data, right?

Correct.

Well, January 15th, a house sold uh for a hundred thousand dollars.

Okay.

Now this you you you it's a sale, so you have to evaluate that, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Now they fix it up, they flip it the next year or the same date, they put in whatever amount of money.

Now it sells for 250,000.

Will the entire area change as that just like it changed or what would would it change both times?

Well, the property record obviously would change.

So that's going to be updates to kitchens, bath, overall condition.

So that alone, the capital improvements to the property, you know, that changed because it's better.

But the neighborhood change.

Well, and that's it's it's going to obviously the neighborhood change then is dependent on all sales in the neighborhood.

But we're not generally going to look at a completely updated or brand new property to value, let's say a distressed property.

I mean, it's almost it was it was a stressed.

Oh, you don't evaluate distressed properties that sell.

According to other distressed properties.

I mean, if I was if I was looking at a property that was in say fair condition, I wouldn't look to the completely remodeled property to try to come up with a value for it.

I would look for other properties in similar condition, those would be a better indicator in the market.

Yeah, but if more houses sold at a unrehabbed price.

Do you consider those as sales when you do your assessments for that year?

We consider all sales in a neighborhood, but again, they each kind of operate within a specific market.

If you know the generality is fine.

I'm just talking about this particular situation or these situations.

When houses sell for less and then the final year they sell double.

Does that affect assessments in the neighborhood both times?

Yes, it would, but the first time it would affect so you can think of maybe three tiers of properties.

You've got distressed properties, your average properties, and your high-end remodeled flipped properties.

The first time it would affect the properties in the neighborhood that are in that same tier.

So if it's an average property that's sold to a flipper, it would that sale price would affect average properties.

The properties that are not updated but not in bad shape, um, just kind of your typical property in the neighborhood.

The second time it sold after it had been remodeled and flipped, it would affect the the prices for that higher tier because our staff is reviewing the sales of both, seeing it's an average property the first time, it's an above average property the second time, and so they're not claiming that you know, on average, about you know, sixty to seventy percent of properties in a neighborhood are in the about average.

There's maybe 10% that are in that high-end tier, and it depends on the neighborhood exactly what those breakdowns are.

But that second sale wouldn't heavily affect the rest of the properties in the neighborhood because we identify it as atypical for the neighborhood.

Both times.

The first the second time it wouldn't affect the rest of the neighborhood because it's now atypical.

The first time it's more of a typical property, and we'd look at that first sale price.

Okay.

But as far as evaluating the area and other houses, does that change?

Yes.

So if we have a property on record that's and it's on record as being very similar to the house before it was flipped, it's just the average house.

Right.

If it sold for 100,000, then what we're looking at is is okay, there's a very similar property next door.

We think that that property would then probably sell for about a hundred thousand dollars.

It sells a year later for two fifty and it's flipped.

Well, it's no longer like the next door neighbor, so we don't say the next door neighbor is worth two fifty.

We might say it's worth a little bit more because there's other sales in the neighborhood, and the you know, the average properties have gone up in price, but we're not looking at that 250 and saying the next door neighbor is the same.

Right.

Okay.

And when you say wait, you're talking about the the mach the uh the formula.

It's a combination of both the mass appraisal process that I lead and our staff reviewing the assessments.

Both both parts of the process are looking at it.

It's a yeah, you could say the machine the first are you going to give the process?

Yes.

Like who does what?

Yes.

Okay, thanks.

Yes.

Okay.

So uh next I just want to continue on kind of talking about um where like assessment and public policy meet and kind of the objectives of maybe some different uh departments and kind of how the assessor's office uh can be impactful or you know what are what we can do for other departments.

Um assessments are data points amongst other market and social indicators.

Um the real estate market is an investment or asset market.

So whether we're thinking of real estate as office buildings or restaurants, other commercial properties, or we're looking at homes such as bungalows or duplexes.

These are markets with buyers and sellers creating or indicating the market for those properties.

And at the assessor's office, we try to capture that market value as of January 1st each year.

Um but assessment data are sales, our assessment values, that's available for policymakers for decisions for their departments and their offices.

Well, excuse me, what is our data and our assessed values, our sales values, all that's available on our website.

No, I'm talking about what policymakers can change.

You just said something about is at the hands of policymakers.

Yeah, so um whether it's um the common council or the mayor or no, no, I'm not communicating.

I'm talking about we have the ability to change the policy for the assessment's office.

No, no, no, no, no.

I'm saying people can use our data to apply in their endeavors, you know, as they see fit, as it might be helpful to them.

Gotcha.

Um again, so the the real estate and market data reflects and informs tax policy, development policy, and budgets.

Um where this is most uh applicable to the assessor's office is probably tax policy.

And I had mentioned some stats earlier uh in chapter 70 of Wisconsin State statutes, which get at the valuation of and how to how to value real estate.

Um but we also have in the Wisconsin Constitution the Article 8 uniformity clause, which basically says that we must value all classes uniformly at market value.

Um so those are those are some of the prime directives under which I would say the parameters under which the assessor's office really has authority or jurisdiction to operate.

Um the levy that is created uh is set by the budgets of the city, the county, MPS, MATC, and the sewage district.

Um as far as development policy is concerned, this is not something that the assessor's office is specifically involved in or really has any control over.

This is something either set by the common council or the mayor acting through different departments or agencies, um, and this might involve planning, zoning, tax incremental districts, um, or policies that are aimed at providing affordable housing or lead abatement, things of that nature.

Um and then another realm that people might try to influence is um social policy, which is aimed at making society better in some way or another through department through some act, um, and this might involve libraries or the health department.

Um of the more recent things are our violence prevention program or traffic calming that we've tried to put through different roads within the city.

Um so although the assessor's office doesn't make development or social property, we can aid and support other departments in those endeavors.

Um, and we do this through discussions with elected officials, city departments, community partners.

Um we work with them, we provide data or reports that we have available based on our assessment data and what we know of the neighborhoods and the markets that is occurring.

Um we also have had uh in the past we discussed this with some researchers at universities or community advocates that are looking to us to find information on property data or sales data that might have some influence or connection to whatever project it is that they're working on so how are assessed values determined?

And I think we we've gone back a little bit on this, but um our appraisers are reviewing roughly 13 and a half thousand sales every year.

Um, and they do this by looking at uh real estate transfer returns that have to be filed with each sale.

Um they look at property listings uh that are available for sales.

Uh we send out questionnaires to buyers to try to find out you know what they were thinking when they purchased it, and or then we do uh internal or external inspections of the properties to make sure that we have the correct record to match the sale record.

Um the other thing that would influence a property value is the actual property record, what's going on at the property, which is why we review all permits associated with properties, and over the last three years uh annual permits that we've had to review in the office have ranged from 17,500 to over 22,000 permits.

Um and again, a similar process happens where we send inspection letters, we try to get in and look at these properties, and or we do external inspections to try to review these permits that are occurring at the properties to make sure we have the most updated information on our property records.

Another way that we uh try to get data is that we review online listings.

I'm sure everybody's familiar with Zillow or Trulia, we do look at those.

We look at apartments.com.

Uh one of the biggest as far as residential is the multiple listing service or MLS, we review that data.

Um we also look to what local real estate brokerages are reporting as far as quarterly reports or listings that they might have available.

We take all of that information and and you know, kind of try to distill it within our mass appraisal process, and with also using that to update any property records that we might have in correct.

Um so now I think is the time I'm gonna pass it over to Colin.

He's gonna get into um mass appraisal, sales data, market value, some of those things.

He'll get into some more details on that, and then I'll kind of close with you know where we're at right now and how owners can talk to their local appraisers and possibly appeal if they feel that's necessary.

I mean, Mr.

President, I'm gonna I'm not a madam or a president, but go ahead.

Mr.

Chair.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Hey, uh in the budget process.

When is your number determined?

We got fees, we got share revenue, now we have property tax, and then we have property taxes that make up our budget.

When is yours determined?

When do we finalize our assessed values each year?

When does the city or the direct budget director know how much money is going to come in from taxes?

But uh that's part of the budgeting process.

So the common council and the various committees set the No, I know that, but you got what is your do you give a number?

We we tell them what the total we provide um both to uh the council and the states are uh statement of assessment, so the total amount of assessed value in the city.

Um believe it's the second Monday in October.

Um and so once the budgeting process is done for all of the uh the jurisdictions that have leviting levying power, then uh we work with the treasurer's office to uh uniformly divide up the levies based on assessed value of the properties.

Yeah, but when is that done?

And the city knows the number that we can operate off of the we provide the the final assessed values for tax billing the second Monday in October.

Second Monday October, okay.

All right, thank you.

Mr.

Chair?

Yes, sir.

Uh the appraisal of multi-unit apartment buildings.

I want to read you an excerpt from a report out of the Marquette Law School involving the Barata properties.

Uh we own some 10,000 units.

Now, quote, listen carefully, please.

All this scale, the accumulation of wealth is enormous.

The 2025 assessed value of all these properties together was around 625 million.

But this is substantially, but this substantially understates their market value.

I matched 26 individual mortgages obtained by Burrata Companies with City of Milwaukee parcel records.

Each mortgage covered between 67 to 168 apartments, and altogether the 24 mortgages refinanced 2,629 units over a quarter of Barata's total.

That data came from prospectuses filed in 2024 and 25.

The city assessed value of these properties.

The city assessed the value of these properties at 116.3 million dollars in 2025.

However, the appraisals of these properties showing to investors totaled 471.4 million.

In other words, these properties were assessed by the city at just 34% of the value at which they were appraised by the market.

Some of the appraisals came after the assessment window ended, but some did not.

Applying this ratio of assessed to appraised value to the rest of Barrada's properties would suggest a total value in excess of 1.7 billion.

What do you got to say about that?

I think we just went through giving us all this chapter and verse about market value and 100% of market value and state law.

What do you say about that?

Sure.

And I actually have uh um tried to connect with the author of that, and he actually has sent me some data that I plan on reviewing to see if we might have a property record wrong as far as those apartments are concerned.

Um but I started looking into all of the mortgages concerning that property owner, and many of the ones that I saw contained 10, 15 properties with a mortgage amount.

Um now we haven't been provided any of these appraisals.

How did he get them?

I have got the prospectuses.

I don't know.

They're a public record.

That's why I say I'm in contact with them.

I'm following up on that to all this modeling and expertise and following state law in Barada, who's a very problematic landlord, is that it's assessed at 34% of his market value?

Well, according to that article, his calculations again, that's what we want to look into.

You guys there's obviously a flawed system.

Do you guys those numbers right there don't even match?

Well, again, we have to be able to look at all that data.

But you have to come in.

You have your own data, right?

Yeah, and that's why we have apartments uniformly assessed based on the information we have.

If this article unearths more information regarding these specific properties, we'll gladly apply it and update those records.

You rely on a Marquette Law School to uh drive the appraisal of commercial properties in Milwaukee?

No, I'm saying on those specific properties.

We rely on any uh available data, whether it's a property owner, a neighbor, uh uh a brokerage firm.

We use all of these.

What is your point?

How did you assess their that entire portfolio for 650 million?

What's the process?

Well, rent records, rent rules.

Do you estimate, guesstimate?

Do you model what a typical one bedroom apartment goes for?

What the income you use an income approach or replacement approach for those properties?

We use an income approach to model what we're seeing in the sales.

Sales of the property buildings of apartments, yes.

So we look at apartment sales, and then we look at rents, what what they're reported to be for cap rates according to those sales, and that's how we develop our models for those.

John Johnson.

Yes.

And he shows the the effective gross income per month is 1,222 across Barrado's entire properties, which puts his net in gross income at 149 million dollars a year.

Okay.

Is that useful information to appraise this portfolio?

Well, uh Barada has properties all over the city, too.

So well, actually not.

They're concentrated in Old U and Caucus district, my district, Alderman Stanford's district.

They're actually not all over the city.

Well, I meant they're they're in different neighborhoods.

Sorry.

He has a lot of northwest side notes.

Yes.

Yes, that's true.

I do have a question though.

These aren't good questions, I think.

Um Mr.

Chair, if it's okay.

These are the questions.

I think Arteman Bauman is asking, and it it makes me think about a couple of years ago when the state let us know that we weren't properly assessing um not residential properties but uh corporate properties or whatever commercial properties, and we had to adjust some things to fit within the parameters of what the state um felt the number should be uh or else they would come in and start doing it um as well.

So I guess this is sounded kind of similar to me.

So I guess and and we were told by the assessor that you all have done whatever corrective stuff you needed to do, and you are in line with what the state um have wants it now.

So I guess what I'm my question is do you uh guys ever get like audited or do you do self-audits or something, like samples or something to like let you know if the the computer system you're using, the discretion of the assessors, if the way that you're doing it is is right, is um is as fair and as accurate as you could possibly get.

Yeah, even beyond challenges from um residents or or um commercial owners, um do you all get audited or do you self-audit or anything like that to try to capture?

Because for example, if so what to me, what the state was accusing of uh uh with the commercial thing, um it that was a huge, it was a huge enough gap to me.

Um, and that to me ended up for those years that that we did that, it put pressure on the residential side for whatever to me.

I felt like it may residents have to pay a little more than they probably would have, if we would have accurately um assessed the commercial.

With this, um, if you examine the market stuff, and what if the guy's right and we're not properly assessing by potentially hundreds of million, this one owner, what additional pressures is the lack of us doing that putting on the other taxpayers or whatever.

So I guess, yeah, what systems do you have in place that try to you know capture those mistakes or those inconsistencies?

So uh because uh our state definition of accuracy is market value based on sales.

What we do is we look at the previous year's sales or previous uh years assessments, so they're set as of January 1st, 2026 in this case.

If any property residential or commercial sells in 2026 after the assessments are set, that's a measurement of how accurate were we for that year.

And so then when we're working on 2027, then we update um our values, our models for that property class.

Um one of the big challenges with um value in commercial property, um, there's a number of them.

One, we don't have as many sales, so it's hard to know exactly, which is why we rely on an income approach.

Uh when we do uh receive income and expense data, we get some from third-party uh sources.

Um but the largest batch we would get, I'd estimate is from appeals.

So these are property owners who um believe they're over-assessed and are per then providing our income and their income and expense information.

Um we and then on top of all that commercial property owners are the most savvy and have the most resources to appeal and have their values lowered.

Um and there's financial implications for the city.

Um when we do that after the um once tax bills are sent out.

So all of this leads to us kind of constantly fighting to capture as much apartment value or commercial value as possible without putting the city at risk financially by need needing to pay remissions and going through costly litigation.

Um so when we get new sources of information um such as uh private mortgage documents, um when we get income and expense information, we we'd love it for every property, we'd love honest documents from every property owner, um, and that would allow us to be as accurate as possible.

Unfortunately, they have strong incentives not to provide that to us, and so there's only so far we can go on our side to obtain um comparable information.

Well, I do hope as you um seek the information from the particular author of the study that in your dialogue, which I hope he does allow hands up to have with you all, that you also try to seek sources.

Um he's not the only source that he could um let you know what his sources are, whatever he's comfortable with sharing, so that in future years it doesn't take a report um to to get you the information you need that you could go to those sources um as well.

Yeah, Mr.

Chair, I just want to emphasize this is all public information Security Exchange Commission.

I mean it's John Johnson's not a rummaging through Burrata's garbage cans to find uh documents accidentally thrown out, it's public record.

Why aren't we looking at those public breakers, especially for these massive landlords?

I mean, right, the Mon PA guy that owns two duplexes.

I don't know you gotta go to the SEC for him, he's probably not there.

But the guy who has 10,000 units, the quick check.

What do the SEC have to say?

And sure, this guy could dig it out.

I think we need a subcontract with John Johnson to run the assessor's office because obviously we're missing as all one cut potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of the state value, which transfers the burden to the homeowners.

And that's the real issue here because they're the easy ones.

You can you can beat up on them, they can't push back, they can't hire lawyers, they can't hire appraisals.

It's easy to load up on the homeowners because they're defenseless.

Well, you try to load up on a big 10,000 portfolio guy who's with a net worth of a billion dollars.

Yeah, he will push back.

He will litigate, guaranteed.

But so we don't want to go there because the homeowners are easy.

I think it's what I read in that article is that our assessment process is arguably fundamentally unfair to homeowners in the city of Milwaukee.

Well, again, like I say, I would have to look at more of the data.

I don't have all the appraisals, and like you're saying, some of it is available publicly.

Uh, but also too, we have 20 appraisers in the office to search through 160,000 parcels and try to dig into those every year.

So part of this is also time and how much are we involved?

We have tons of sales too of apartments and income information.

So if we were to just say pull out Barada's properties and suddenly increase them, you know, 300%, that wouldn't be fair and uniform either because it would be, but if it's yes, it would be fair and uniform if it was market value.

If it actually was you're you just made the argument in essence that because all of our commercial properties are under assess, it would be unfair to assess somebody at market value.

That would be a violation of uniformity clause in reverse.

Everybody's underassessed in commercial properties.

If we assessed one to market, that would be a violation of uniformity clause because we uniformly underassess.

You understand the the illogic of that?

I get the point, and I'm not saying that we can't raise him.

There's an undernote circumstances could we raise his values.

I'm just saying I can't pick him out and say I've got this one data point on you.

Of course you can.

But we've also got a lot of other units in sales.

Two out of three tenants live in a barata building.

Again, I'm I'm happy to look at that data, look at those rents and check them against our models and make any changes that are necessary.

Which won't be until January 2027.

Yes, it would be the next the next round.

Okay.

Well we went on this presentation.

I'm good on.

Oh, you got more?

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I think that's a good question.

Yes, we do.

This the presentation, this process uh describes the residential revaluation process where we do have an abundance of sales information.

Uh the commercial process is different.

Um we can answer questions about that.

Um but it all starts with collecting sales data, as Ryan just uh said earlier.

We get every property conveyance record um from the state and the county in two different formats.

We validate whether or not that sale is arm's length.

Um, and then based on our appraisers uh work, they will uh conduct file maintenance.

So that means they'll look at listings, they'll do inspections if the owner allows it.

Um they'll look at permit data for sold and unsold properties, and they'll update property records based on that.

Um then what we do is um to all the Roman Cogs' question, we do evaluate the previous models.

So we'll look at by neighborhood, look at by uh building type, uh grade condition, age of properties, we'll see how accurate we are within those groups and across those groups to see where the model needs to be updated for the next year.

Um then this is where uh I get involved with uh the statistical software.

So we will update the model parameters.

So for example, the price per square foot of a ranch on average citywide will get updated, and then we'll update based on neighborhood, then after that, as part of the statistical modeling process.

Before I provide the initial numbers to our staff, I'll be double checking the new model against the sales to make sure that we're at 100% of market value and uniform across price points and different property types and neighborhoods.

Uh once I provide that information to appraisers, then the individual uh neighborhood appraiser who's responsible for doing inspections, doing uh appeal reviews, customer service with pro uh property owners in each neighborhood, will review that that neighborhood's new assessments.

They will make changes if they notice you know, say one block is over or underassessed based on market uh forces.

They will update the factor on that block to say, you know, if it's the residential property on a high traffic street, they'll make sure we're uh valuing that uniformly.

One thing that we evaluate is proximity to college campus.

Um I work with um appraisers every year to make sure that we're capturing the value added by being close to Marquette and UWM, and then seeing where that value goes away as you uh depart from campus.

Once the appraisers are done and their supervisors have uh reviewed their work, we publish the new assessments.

So that's what happened on April 17th.

So we published the data online and sent out notices of assessed value.

Um that leads us right now to open book.

Um this is where uh property owners are able to call us, tell us they um think that our opinion of market value is wrong, the assessments wrong.

Um sometimes they bring to light um inaccurate property record cards, which which we'll fix for them and change their assessments.

Um and after all the conversation work we do with property owners without an appeal.

If we're still at an impasse, we've got we've looked at our data and we feel the assessments accurate, um, and the property owner disagrees, they can then submit an appeal to us.

Um, at which point we will put in additional work to review whatever data the property owner provides.

Um we'll do our own secondary inspection if we haven't been on site in four or more years, um, or if we have evidence that something on the property changed, such as a permit record.

And then once all of this is done, then the appraiser will submit their recommendation to the board of assessors and then defend their opinion and value to the board of assessors, and then later uh stages of appeal to board of review and circuit court if it reaches that point.

Um I've just got a quick example for how this translates into the top line numbers you might see um on the reports we publish.

Thank you.

Yes.

Oh, sorry.

Um so say this is a neighborhood with three properties.

We have a smaller home, a ranch with one and a half baths, 1200 square feet.

Two bathrooms, and an 1,800 square foot duplex with three.

So let's say the market was relatively weak on the smaller home based on the sales.

We'll raise that assessment 5%.

House B had a stronger market based on the sales.

So we raised that one 10.

And then the duplex, we find that duplexes are booming in the neighborhood.

All the sales show an increase in price of 20%.

So that's how we increase the assessments for that.

When you see the top line numbers that Commissioner Larson shared in April and are on our website, that all translates to say neighborhood change of 13%, with us adding up all those disparate changes dividing by the pre total previous value, and that gets us our total change from 25 to 26.

We included these slides just because we get a lot of questions from taxpayers on.

Well, I saw that my neighborhood went up, you know, 5%, but my assessment went up seven.

What happened?

So we just wanted to be public about how there can be different changes within one neighborhood versus the top line.

So then our actual uh changes for this year, um, the citywide increase um between all classes of property was a total increase of six percent.

Um that was 6.43 for residential properties and 5.31 for commercial properties.

Um the district with the lowest total residential change, which is a 1.4% dis uh decrease in the fourth district, and the highest total residential change was 13.1% in the 7th district.

Um our internal predictions, so the sales and our initial communications with the Department of Revenue uh indicates that both the residential and commercial classes uh will be determined by the state to be at 100 at or near 100% of full value within at least 5%.

Um I'd estimate about 98% for both.

Mr.

Chair.

Go ahead.

What um neighborhood or census track or how we I vote about it now has the single highest um increase.

Uh if you give me one moment, I have all the neighborhoods listed here.

Like I said, we have 140 residential neighborhoods.

We do not value uh residential neighborhoods on census tracked, so I don't have that data offhand.

Um just looking at our charts, and this data is published online as well in case I'm misreading the line, but I believe it is um what we have labeled as neighborhood 2960, it's a central and near north side, and that is you find it on my map right here.

That is in Aldermanic District 7.

So it's uh looks like just north of center street.

Uh about 35th in center.

And that's what percentage?

Uh that was a 26% increase.

Thank you.

Um so this is yes, sir.

Thank you.

So wait, wait, wait.

I appreciate the questions.

I kind of want to let them get through the uh presentation first and then take questions at the end instead of sounds good.

All right.

So then this is just a chart of the median property prices by um residential split between residential and commercial property types.

Um you can see um after uh commercial property values flattened um slightly last year, they're increasing again.

Residential has been on a steady increase really since 2019-2020, and the uh residential real estate um boom happened across the country.

Um Milwaukee was certainly part of that.

Um so then again, speaking to um our accuracy and equity in assessments, um, there's um we measure equity, the uh industry standard for uh measuring equity and assessments is called uniformity.

That's our industry jargon for it.

Um there's two types of uniformity there's horizontal uniformity and vertical equity.

Horizontal uniformity means that inside of a group of similar properties, we treat everyone the same.

And then vertical equity means that as the price point of the property changes, the level of assessment doesn't change.

Meaning if I've got a 100,000 house or a million dollar house, I'm valuing both both of those at 100% of market value.

So we compared our 2026 assessed values that we just published to the 2025 sale prices.

All 15 aldermanic districts meet um IAAL, which is our professional organization, the International Association of Assessing Officers meets their standards for both uh vertical and horizontal equity.

Okay, so I'll just uh kind of finish up here with a few of our last slides here, and so why are values increasing?

And our assessments, again, as we've kind of discussed here in detail, they reflect what's happening in the market.

And right now we've got a combination of high demand, limited supply, and lack of new construction, which also helps lead to increasing prices.

Um, in this instance, how can we assist property owners?

Well, like we had mentioned, right now is what we consider our open book period, which lasts four weeks.

Uh, it began on April 20th.

It goes to the third Monday in May every year, which this year is May 18th.

Um, and we have a number, 414286, 6565, that anyone can call and speak with their neighborhood appraiser to discuss their assessments, property values, listings, anything that they any information that they would like to get, they can call us to find that information.

Uh we also have the latest property information and sales data on our webpage, which is available for anybody to look at.

Um further, we we use this information as we kind of discussed a little earlier to work with other departments, um, to you know, we attend a lot of community meetings with older persons, we uh take part in uh community meetings with some advocacy groups or neighborhood groups.

Um so whether it's in person or virtual, we we um you know, we try to be available to you know explain the information we have in the assessment process to anyone that might be interested.

Um we are also obviously uh we take take uh requests from the media uh information requests from them and try to explain the process to them as needed.

So right now, uh what can properties property owners do regarding uh the 2026 assessment?

Um I would say if you have questions, um call that number and ask to speak with your neighborhood appraiser.

Um have a discussion with them, and based on how you feel, then you can go right online and file an objection.

Um you can come into our office to file an objection, or you can have a form mailed to you to be completed and then return to our office.

And again, the deadline is Monday, May 3rd, or the third Monday of May, May 18th.

Uh the deadline where at least it has to be postmarked by is 445 on that date.

Um and owners would want to include anything that supports their opinion of value.

If they're if they have knowledge of sales, if they've had a recent appraisal, if they have uh quotes for issues or repairs that they have with their property, all of that's good information to make your neighborhood appraiser aware of and provide to them.

Umce an objection is filed, um basically the neighborhood appraiser then discusses with the homeowner, they might do an inspection, they do a review of sales, they try to look at whether the assessed value seems fair, is it within a market value?

Is it low, is it high?

And they'll they'll make the changes that they they see necessary according to their review.

They make that recommendation then to what's known as the board of assessors, which that begins meeting on May 11th this year, and the board of assessors is basically the managers in the office.

They review the appraiser's recommendations regarding appeals.

So they look at you know what information have they gathered, what's their explanation, is do they are they recommending it be lowered, are they recommending it be sustained?

But we review the information that they've provided, and then based on that, we send out a notice of determination to the property owner.

Um the property owner can either accept whatever determination we made or the the next step past that is appealing to what's known as the board of review.

Um and the board of review will begin considering 2026 appeals on May 29th of this year.

Um and the board consists of five to nine city residents, um none of whom can hold public office or be publicly employed.

Um they're appointed by the mayor and approved by the common council for five-year terms, and the current board has six members, and the board of review is basically a quasi-judicial entity that looks at the evidence provided by the property owner and the appraiser to determine whether the assessed value is fair and should be sustained or not.

Mr.

Chair.

As done.

Yes, sir.

That that's it, yes.

All right, let's go to uh Alderman Stamper first.

What percentage of uh appeals by one and two family homeowners see an adjustment?

Uh I don't have that number uh off the top of my head, Alderman.

I know one percent, ten percent, thirty percent.

I would say a thirty percent is a a decent number to start.

Um 30 percent of people who appeal their assessments, formal appeal now, not just the open book process, but formal appeal, 30 percent get an adjustment on their assessment?

That's typically because we don't have um accurate property information because we haven't inspected their property and it hasn't sold in the last five-ten years.

Okay, well that's that that that's a pretty pretty pretty good odds then.

Yeah, so uh I would I would want you to confirm that because I don't believe that number, but that's fine.

If that's what the number you think it is, that that's pretty strong motivation to file an appeal.

Can you get us?

Can you get us the accuracy on that?

I I will confirm the accuracy on that for you.

And yes, we certainly encourage property owners either now or at any time throughout the year, if um to reach out to our office, ask to look up their property records, and we will happily come out and confirm them for them.

Uh we like I said, more information is better, so we're always happy to uh schedule an appointment with uh property owners.

Uh does the property order run a risk of being reassessed upward after you come out and inspect?

If yes, if the if the if they've done uh work without the benefit of permit, is the primary situation where that would happen if they have if they've remodeled and they didn't file permit?

What percentage of appeals resulted in an increase in the assessment?

Uh very few.

We'll change it for the net we'll change the ratings for the next year, but um there are a handful of properties that actually do want their assessments increased, so we don't generally understand the logic behind it, but okay, fair enough.

We'll consider those appeals.

Yes, uh back to that question regarding the city budget.

Okay, property taxes and what is produced from the assessments.

When do you know that number?

Well, I'm trying to figure out is which number is first when you determine the city's budget.

Is it the fees?

Is it the ship revenue?

Is it the sales tax or is it the property taxes?

Well, for our office, we're just developing the total assessed value of all properties.

Um fees are a separate item that get added on to the bills and stuff.

And taxes, whatever the case was produced in taxes.

We are not involved with our office doesn't set tax rates, we don't uh set special charges for anything besides uh the fees we charge on exempt properties uh for handling their applications.

Do you guys produce the amount of tax each property owes?

We we do not number we do not would you have that number?

The number of we we said my house, um I owe eight thousand dollars.

Would you would you do that?

No, the we do we do not do that.

We provide the total assessed values to the treasurer's office, and once levies are set, they split up the total levy amongst all hundred fifty-one thousand taxable properties in the city.

Okay.

So do you have a goal for the year?

Goal of I'm sorry for what do we have a tax assessment goal?

When your office looks at the assessment for the do you have a goal?

Our goal is to be at 100% of market value.

We don't if we were to lower everyone, if we were to slash everyone's assessment in half, that wouldn't across the board, that wouldn't affect their property taxes.

It would just double the mill rate.

Okay.

If the levy stayed the same, yeah.

Okay.

Oh uh Mr.

Chairman, are you allowing public comment?

No.

All right.

Let's see here.

Uh just a communication rate.

Yep.

All right.

Well, I do expect a follow-up.

So in organizing a community meeting to instruct individuals how to conduct an appeal, who comes out from my district.

It would depend on the specific neighborhood, but generally district wide appeal.

Who do I who would come out?

My entire district, I'm offered to appeal.

Yeah.

Who will come out?

Um we would find uh the appraiser that has the most neighborhoods in your district, they would come out and then you could also request um either uh Mr.

Ranker or Commissioner Larson if she's available.

I know I'll just give me that information than the information on that software and then the steps on how you equate the evaluations, please.

I'd like to use that for my community meetings.

Uh one last question on the 30 percent.

Is there an error of um is there a margin of error?

Is there a margin of error?

Um when you calculate through your different systems, is there a margin of error?

There's not one margin of error that I can recite to you because the individual appraisers are making edits as part of their final review.

Um you know, the goal is to have every property plus or minus 10 percent of market value.

We in some neighborhoods were where there's a lot of uniformity between property types, we're well within that when there's a lot of disparate ones.

Um we might be closer to the boundaries on that, but there's not one margin of error.

Okay.

All right, and we have the appeal process, and what's the best way to win an appeal?

Uh appraiser or show that we have your property assessment or property record wrong in some fashion.

We've got too many bathrooms, too much square footage, um, or provide really comparable sales that the assessor didn't previously wasn't aware of.

Okay.

What about the fact that you we can we wouldn't be able to sell a house for for example other 250,000?

My house is only worth 100,000.

You went up 30 percent on my house.

That's definitely something we would consider if you have a listing out there and our assessment is above your listing.

We consider that in an appeal in re-evaluating the assessment.

Sure.

And you said it's a it's a uh committee that does the decision making.

The it's uh the board of assessors that reviews the neighborhood appraisers' recommendations regarding the appeals.

Are they local people?

Are they from Milwaukee?

Yeah, they're all the managers in the assessor's office.

Okay, okay.

All right, thank you very much.

Uh Mr.

Chairman.

You're welcome.

Any other questions or comments?

Motion by Alderman Perez is uh to receive in placement file.

Any objections?

So ordered.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Item 10 251 433, substitute resolution directing the chief court administrator to report program metrics to the common council sponsored by our alderwoman Dmitrievich.

Oh right.

Uh motion by Alderman.

The court people are here.

Well, she may want to be here, Marina.

Okay.

You want to hold it?

You want to make the motion?

Fine, we motion to hold the caller chair.

Motion to hold by Alderman Bauman hearing no objections.

So ordered.

Item 11, 25237.

Resolution approving the revised municipal court non-traffic deposit schedule.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Three down to one.

Right.

What odds?

Okay.

Is it still morning?

Yes.

Good morning, Chair and Committee members.

Um, this is an annual file.

It is the non-traffic deposit schedule.

There are two main changes in this year's file.

Um, one is that the state recently passed a law to increase the cur clerk fees by an additional ten dollars from previously 38 to 48.

So every ordinance on here has been updated with that new clerk fee.

And the second is to address the discontinuation of the penny.

So any total that was in here that had an odd number at the end of it.

I readjusted to the nearest even five cent amount.

Heard they're gonna get rid of the nickel too.

Good grief, I'll have to do it again.

Any uh questions that are coming what is this exactly?

Well, thank you for asking.

Um so the non-traffic deposit schedule sets the dollar amount that ends up on a citation.

So any given non-traffic violation of a city ordinance would end up having, if you look at the final column, there's the adult total and the there's the juvenile total, so it depends on you know whether you were 18 or not when you violated it and then were adjudicated as guilty.

Um that would be the dollar amount that you would pay for violating that ordinance.

So this is so I am given a let's just use housing court housing code violations if I'm prosecuted in muni court by the department of neighborhood services for pick a violation.

Um grass.

Yeah, so the how does this play into that process?

I'm glad that you asked because I know that I had a conversation with you previously, and at that time there was one piece of information that I did not know, and I have actually looked into it further.

But in this schedule, there are building and zoning violations.

I'm gonna see if I can find them the ones okay, it'll be on page 12.

So the violations that are listed here are the violations that would receive a citation, and if there's a dollar amount, it would be that dollar amount that appears on the ticket.

However, there are also building violations that receive a summons and complaint, and those are assessed by DNS.

They have a formulation for how they end up determining those dollar amounts.

So those don't appear on this schedule.

Okay, so that so there's a sum of them complaint, and that complaint will contain a judgment amount that they are seeking from the court.

Right.

This is if I'm given a loitering ticket.

Yeah, or that's what this appears or dog bite or yeah, so this really should say non-traffic and non-housing court.

Yes, right, said that would I mean literally that would clear up the confusion.

So this is irrelevant to the file we talked about regarding penalty enhancers.

Yes.

Very good.

Well, that's actually a big clarification.

Okay.

So then in housing court, the court is only bound by the statutory or the ordinance a fine schedule, the minimum maximum.

In for a building violation or for the building.

Yeah, that I think so.

I don't know how DNS assesses all of those, so that's another conversation that I need to have with the commissioner.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because tomorrow we have a file involving penalty enhancers.

Okay.

For housing violations.

Okay.

In Muni Court.

So judges can go significantly above what is the current range for chronic offenders, basically.

Okay.

That's what we discussed.

Yeah.

A week ago.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you.

Then I'll move approval of this now that we've clarified.

Okay.

Motion by Alderman Bauman is approval.

You're in no objections, so ordered.

Thank you.

Thank you.

As I mentioned earlier, item 12, 252, 230 is being held at the re at the request of uh Alderman Bauman.

Item 13, 2528 resolution reserving and appropriating up to 150 million dollars in a 2026 damages and claims fund, special purpose account and authorizing the settlement of the lawsuit entitled Barry Beverly versus City of Milwaukee.

Deputy City Attorney Naomi Sanders.

Um this is just this actual this file was passed, I think two um committees ago, or maybe last one, but it had a uh clerical error.

It said the 202 um five contingent fund instead of the 2026.

So we just made that uh that change.

Okay, the only difference.

Any questions or comments?

Uh Alderman Bauman.

We don't have qu they need to come back in.

There's oh, okay, they got it.

Okay.

Sorry.

Uh Alderman Bauman uh moves with this uh adoption.

Here, no objections to order.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The judiciary and legislation committee may convene at the closed session on Monday, May 4th, 2026 in room three one B City Hall, two hundred East Wells Street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, pursuant to S.

Nineteen point eight five one G, Wisconsin's statute for the purpose of conferring with the city attorney who will render oral or written advice with the respect to litigation in which the city is or likely to become involved and then may go into open session for the regular agenda.

Hi, Mr.

Chair Alderman was morning.

Hi.

But you probably won't.

You're busy, kids, work.

Show coming back in forty-eight seconds.

So let's do this now.

Hold up one finger if you're a man, women, zero.

Three more fingers if you're over sixty, two over fifty, one over forty.

If you're not sure, keep in mind you're sitting on a couch right now.

So one more finger if you're not very active.

One finger if yes, zero if no.

One yes, zero no.

Next, find the body type that looks most like you and hold up that many fingers while I look around awkwardly.

And that's it.

If you're holding up five fingers or more, you probably have pre-diabetes.

Sorry to be so blunt, but hey, you're busy.

Just go to the site.

Public works for the city of Milwaukee has an opportunity for you.

We are currently looking for operation driver workers to provide professional driving and critical manual laboring functions, including municipal solid waste and recycling collection, snow and ice control removal, and safe operation of various seasonal equipments for the Department of Public Works.

This position is critical to provide cleanliness, health and safety to the city, its residents, and visitors.

We offer on the job paid training by our DOT certified instructors.

We offer a great starting wage, competitive benefits package, paid time off, defined pension, and a deferred compensation option.

The City of Milwaukee is proud to employ a diverse workforce that is committed to providing dedicated service to the city's residents.

If you have a passion for being a part of an exclusive team of public servants, please consider this opportunity and go to Milwaukee.gov forward slash jobs for more information.

We hope to see you soon.

When I found a gun, I told an adult.

Residents who have requested to receive notice about the business's hearing.

The notice of public hearing includes information about the business that is scheduled to appear before the licenses committee, the license types that the licenses committee is considering at the hearing, the date, time, and location of the hearing, how to attend the meeting in person or virtually.

The letter also includes information on how to provide testimony at the hearing.

Review this information to ensure your testimony is relevant and permissible if you plan to testify at the hearing.

Some key points to remember.gov or call us at 414-286-2238.

I didn't see the car coming.

It was just a complete surprise.

I was T-boned.

I couldn't hear anything, couldn't see.

I was completely stunned because I had uh such a bad concussion.

It was literally like a hellscape.

I am very lucky that I could walk away from that, but a lot of people aren't.

Speeding.

We can live without it.

When a business applies for a new license or renews its license from the City Milwaukee license division, its agent may have to appear before the licenses committee.

In these cases, the license division will send a notice of public hearing to the following persons.

Residents within 250 feet of the business or the nearest 100 single family residences, whichever is greater, residents who have requested to receive notice about the businesses hearing, residents who have submitted an objection to the business application.

The notice of public hearing includes information about the business that is scheduled to appear before the licenses committee, the license types that the licenses committee is considering at the hearing, the date, time, and location of the hearing, how to attend the meeting in person or virtually.

The letter also includes information on how to provide testimony at the hearing.

Review this information to ensure your testimony is relevant and permissible if you plan to testify at the hearing.

Some key points to remember.

Your testimony should only include your first hand experience.

The license of this committee cannot consider hearsay and its recommendations to the common counsel.

Keep your testimony concise and relevant to the license applications listed on the notice.

The licenses committee limits testimony to three minutes.

And she drove way too fast.

She died, and so did the guy that hit us.

Probability that he survived would have been rape.

He left her there.

And he stopped on his way home and watched the blood off his car.

And I kind of covered my head, and I could hear the window shattering, the boys screaming.

And then all of a sudden, everything was quiet.

You know, you you don't want somebody getting killed and ruining your whole life because somebody had to have a drink or two before they went home.

When you, as an individual, or you put somebody else or a family in this position, or you kill them.

It's forever.

As my only sister was killed in an automobile accident in the winter time due to the driver driving too fast for conditions.

A one-year-old cannot take the shock of going from highway speed to an up and like that, because that's okay.

Stop the heart.

Um, she was a single mom and had two young children, and she died instantly because of me, a drunk driver.

Me and a couple friends were out drinking and partying, and um, we decided to get in the car and drive that night, and um, you know, I buckled my seatbelt right away because it's just something I've always done.

My parents have taught me to do, and um, we were going around a corner, and we were probably going about 70 miles an hour.

You know, I knew it was coming.

They knew it was coming too.

A couple cuss words came out, and um as we take the corner, we started to roll, and I'm sitting upright in the car.

And um, you know, I started screaming screaming, you know, what happened?

Where are you guys?

And screaming, Matt, Derme, Kyle, where are you guys?

And kind of look around, nobody's in the car.

I'm all alone.

So I unbuckle my seatbelt, car smashing all around me.

I can't get any doors open, but um, I crawled out a window, and I seen um my boyfriend Matt lying there right away, and he was lying on his back like he was sleeping.

So I actually now beside his head, and I lifted it up, and there was a hole.

The size of probably a baseball.

Lots of blood.

You know he's dead, but you don't want to believe it, kind of thing.

I was the only one wearing a seatbelt, and um, you know, the boys they were just they were having a good time, they were all laughing, and I even said, you know, we're going kind of fast, you guys put your seatbelt on.

They just didn't think it could happen to them, you know.

With the alcohol impairing their judgment, they just didn't think, I guess.

My 27-year-old son was a teacher, uh, was returning uh from a reception actually on his birthday, and was involved in a car accident and died.

Uh, and unfortunately he wasn't wearing a seatbelt at the time.

Yeah, according to the uh physicians, it was uh the cause of death was head trauma.

So, in all likelihood he would have survived uh had he been wearing a seatbelt.

You know, for a long time I didn't wear a seatbelt, and it's unfortunate that tragedy has to impact on you before you see the importance of this very, very simple task.

It takes two seconds to buckle up.

Um, you're putting your life in jeopardy, and you're putting children's lives in jeopardy when you don't buckle up, take that two seconds just to buckle up.

My friend was killed by the drunk driver, and she was a sergeant here in Wassa, an army recruiter.

Uh the drunk driver was passing a vehicle, and we were going 65 miles an hour, and he was too.

Due to the accident, uh, you know, getting hit by a drunk driver, and the fact that I was not wearing a seatbelt, and I was not a seatbelt wearer before that accident.

I ended up having injuries that I had to deal with, uh ending up in the hospital for two months, having glass in my forehead because of hitting a wind chill, and I'm still getting working on getting that glass out.

My ex-wife and I were driving um back from taking a load of uh boxes or whatever to a new home we were moving into.

And um we had to make a stop at uh a truck stop because one of my daughters had to go to the bathroom, and we were in separate cars.

At the same time, a young uh man was celebrating his 18th birthday with a bunch of his friends, and um he was coming back from the celebration, traveling at a high rate of speed without his headlights on.

And just as I was getting ready to cross the highway, this young kid hit me broadside, and his car exploded, went up in the air, um, bounced off car in a truck stop parking lot, and uh threw him out of the car, and then eventually his car landed on top of him.

They literally had to scrape him off the ground.

That's and he died in the uh accident.

My car went up into the air, flipped three times in the air without even touching the ground.

When I finally landed my car, um slid like about 300 feet down the um highway.

That I've been left in um is I'm a C45 quad.

Um paralyzed from about the middle of my chest down.

Uh I feel nothing from that down.

Um the splints on my wrist helped to stabilize my wrist, keep them straight so I can drive my wheelchair and do other things.

I have no use of my fingers.

Um, there's no dexterity in my fingers at all.

If I hadn't been hit by this speeding young um drunk driver, I would have been able to do a lot of the same things everybody else does every day.

Um, or when they go on vacations or so on and so forth.

Um, I wouldn't be limited to just this life in a wheelchair.

Well, the things I used to love to do prior to my accident.

I played guitar for about 18 years.

And um I used to love swimming.

I used to love playing football.

Uh as odd as it sounds, I used to love the mole lawn.

It was especially frustrating when uh my young grandson came up to me one day when he wanted to give me a kiss goodbye.

And he put his arms up to me and he said, uh, you know, Papa, to give me a kiss, and I couldn't reach down and pick him up.

For people that say that it's okay to drink and drive.

I tell them to more or less dig a roll or a step in my shoes for six months.

And they'd find that um the urge to drink and drive would go away really fast.

My daughter, Amy Stam Kubler was hit by a drunk driver while she was jogging along the road, and she was struck so hard that she went 500 feet into a deep ditch.

Amy was married, and her husband had come home that night and found her that found her not home.

So he had he looked around and he saw that she had some of her um jogging clothes, was gone, so she thought he thought maybe she was still out running, but it was 10 30 at night by that time.

And so he called my son who lived about three, four miles away, and he came over really quickly, saw a shoe in the high on the highway near where their house is, and they called 911 and my son went down into the ditch and where the shoe was and found her there.

And neither one had ever seen anybody die before.

They loved her so much.

If this hadn't happened to our family, to my daughter, I think we'd be happy.

Losing a child.

One thing I would say to anyone who gets in the car after they've been drinking, or using anything that would impair them, is don't take anybody's life in in their hands.

You could hurt an innocent child, an innocent person.

You people go off the road all the time and they think, oh, I didn't hit anybody.

But that man that hit my daughter went off the side of the road and he hit somebody.

My husband Walter, our 14-month-old son Matthew, and I went up to, we're going up to Three Lakes.

Um it was on a Saturday evening, and we were going up to visit my husband's parents.

We were on highway 45, about seven miles north of New London, when my husband noticed a pickup truck coming down going south on 45.

And he also noticed that this pickup truck was crossing over the center line into our lane.

Well, my husband tried to steer the car in out of the way.

He couldn't get it far enough out of the way though.

And we were hit head on more toward my front part of the car.

My husband, seconds after the crash, I'm sure, could tell that both Matthew and I were unconscious.

They came and got us and took us to the New London hospital where Matthew was pronounced dead on arrival.

What happens when you drive drunk?

Uh how it affects families, how it that it's not just a a headline in the paper, a blurb on the news, that it's real, that it affects people their whole life, and that it's wrong.

And I don't know how they live with it.

Because I know how we've adjusted to lose him, but how they adjust to the fact that their whole life they've got to know and remember that they actually killed someone.

I don't know how they can deal with that.

I was on my way up north to go fishing at our cabin.

And um in on the way up north, I drank in the car.

I had driven, drank and drove before, just north of Wasaki.

I drifted across the center line of the road and I hit another car head on.

I found out uh at the crash scene that a woman had died.

Um she was a single mom.

I didn't give her a chance.

You read the autopsy report, the injuries were massive internal injuries.

She died instantly.

I didn't give her a chance.

Um I heard those words go into my brain.

I understood them, I registered, I knew what that meant, but I don't know what the words are to explain the feeling you have when you're responsible for killing someone through a drunk driving crash.

Many people take drinking and driving for granted.

Sometimes it seems to be a culture in Wisconsin.

And and it's something that just people ha do without another thought.

I had drink and drove many times.

This was the first time anything has ever happened to me.

I've never had a drunk driving, although I should have had many.

I've never been involved in a crash, and my first crash from a drunk driving incident cost the life of another human being.

And um I had to deal with that.

It has not been an easy road to deal with.

But it doesn't compare anything to what that woman's family has had to go through.

They lost a mom, they lost a sister.

Um they they lost a daughter, and they've got to live with that for the rest of their life.

There's there's nothing I can do to bring her back.

You think that it's not gonna happen to you?

I'm here today to tell you that it can happen to you.

It happened to me.

I didn't think it was gonna be me, but it is.

So the dangers of drinking and driving are tremendous.

The the the ramifications are huge.

And we don't think about that.

And I think the reason we don't think about it is because we're selfish, we're doing what we want to do, and we don't think it's going to hurt anybody else.

But it does.

It hurts far more people than we can begin to imagine.

And if every individual will just take a little step forward and make a change and not get behind a wheel, we can start to take the culture Wisconsin and turn it.

We can start to get to the zero in Wisconsin.

We can make this work if we all try together.

The relationship between my sister and I was more than just sisters.

Considering my sister was 12 years younger than me.

It was almost like she was not just a sister, but almost a child to me, and we were very close.

She had many things going for her.

She was going to graduate from high school that year.

She was killed three months before graduation.

I would say anyone who thinks that they are an experienced enough driver or have been driving for I don't care how many number of years and thinks that they can drive as fast as they want in winter road conditions that are dangerous.

They're absolutely wrong.

Even going 10 under the speed limit most of the time is not slow enough.

We were coming home from the Madison Mallard's baseball team game.

It should not have happened.

My husband was crossing the street in a crosswalk, a lighted crosswalk when this lady hit him.

I'm, you know, it's it's just a very, very terrible thing that happened to our life.

In one minute, you have this wonderful life that you have a husband that's that's always there and you're always doing something with, and the next minute you don't have anything at all.

Your life is just gone.

My daughter's here and her friend Michelle were at a party.

Sierra had been trying to get somebody, had been calling friends, trying to get somebody to come and pick her up because she knew she had been drinking.

She had shouldn't be driving.

Subsequently, when they fled the party, they were operating way too fast, failed to negotiate a curve, and their car went uh sideways into a tree at a high rate of speed, and and it they both died instantly from the uh from the impact.

These teens think they're invincible.

My daughter told me three weeks before she died.

If I can't have fun, I don't want to live.

And I said to you know, Sierra, those consequences sometimes are deadly.

And then she proved it.

Since Sierra's died, our whole life has changed.

Our daughter, she didn't graduate from high school.

She'll never get married, she'll never go to college, she'll never have children.

Every day, every minute of each day I live with my daughters.

My daughter's death.

The the choice that she made that night affected so many people.

Not only did she take herself, she took her best friend with her.

Rose is right.

There isn't there isn't a day goes by.

Um you look at everything much differently.

All we can do is do whatever we can so that somebody else doesn't go through the same experience that we have.

If someone thinks that they're okay to drive after they've been drinking alcohol, I would like to take them by the hand and walk one black up from my house and go visit my daughter's grave and her friend Michelle's, just right down the way.

I go see my daughter every morning and every night before I go to bed.

That's how I see my daughter.

So if you think you're okay to drink and then drive, you you have a you have a rude awakening, a very rude awakening.

I love this every single day.

That's how I get to see my daughter.

Zero in Wisconsin.

Zero in Wisconsin.

Zero in Wisconsin.

Zero in Wisconsin.

Zero in Wisconsin.

Zero in Wisconsin.

A vision we can all live with.

A vision we can all live with.

My partner and I are postal inspectors, which means we investigate any crime that involves the mail.

Today that means doing a stakeout on a low-life accountant.

Works for an investment firm that's really just a front for a complicated fraud scam.

They've been ripping people off to the tune of thousands of dollars.

He's got no clue what that kind of financial loss means to his victims.

He never gets to see that side of the story.

But I do.

Do you have any luck flipping this guy?

No, he dummied up on me.

So they kept him in the dark about how business operated.

Certainly living the highlight for a CPA.

Not anymore.

Goddard.

Inspector Goddard.

This is Andre Bashears with News 12.

Did I catch it a bad time?

Actually, Andrea?

I got nothing but time.

What's up?

We're doing a special on fraud for sweeps, and we need some first person perspective on the crimes.

You know, talk to victims and hear their stories.

Do you think you can help us out?

Yeah, sounds good to me.

We could stop a lot of this stuff if more people were aware of it.

Hey, you know Carla Haran, our victim witness coordinator?

She might have some weeds for us.

We run this past her and I'll get back to you later this week.

Financial crime attacks its victims at their core.

Whenever someone loses control of their money or their identity, they often also lose their critical sense of security.

They doubt their own judgment, and many suffer depressive episodes after the crime.

My job is to help people rebuild not only their financial security, but their lives and trust.

Mr.

Miss Patterson.

Hi.

Thanks so much for coming in.

Listen, please don't be nervous.

If you stumble or you're not happy with what you say, we can always shoot it again, okay?

You ready to get started?

Tonight on News 12, we continue our special series on mail fraud, return to Cinder.

Three years ago, Matt and Lisa Patterson were the victims of identity theft, along with hundreds of other victims in the area.

They had their lives turned upside down by two young criminals.

Lisa, how did you find out that there was a problem?

We were trying to buy a new house.

And um our real estate agent called and said our loan would not be approved.

That we had outstanding bills on our um credit cards, and we even had uh a loan that we had defaulted on.

Matt, do you remember how you felt that morning?

Oh, that's awful.

Yeah, your first response is that it's um it's a mistake, it's it's just an error, but uh and it sinks in and you feel um angry and powerless.

We didn't get the house.

But we we were actually lucky.

The postal inspectors had a specialist to work with the victims, and she explained what steps we needed to take to repair our credit report.

Uh she helped us with letters and affidavits and really walked us through the whole process.

Um she she called my boss to explain why I'd have to miss work uh to appear at the trial.

Uh she even helped us with uh the victim impact statement for the for the judge to read before sentencing those two.

Think you could handle things for a while?

Sure.

What's up?

I think I know someone who needs to hear these stories.

I do not want to wait for him to catch the news.

I won't be long, okay?

Who is it?

It's Postal Inspector Alan Goddard.

Open up, Harrison.

Hello, inspector.

What can I do for you?

Well, you could ask me in for starters.

Thought we'd have a little chat.

I told you we don't know anything about this case.

I don't know what good it can do to keep talking to me about it.

Can I come in or do I need to get a warrant?

Hold on.

She asked you to leave, didn't she?

What'd you expect if you found out what kind of man you really are?

We didn't have anything to do with these allegations against the company.

Right.

Can I uh offer you a shot?

Inspector.

I guess not.

I'm duty and all.

You didn't come here to talk to me about my marriage, did you?

I came here to ask you a question, Mark.

Do you believe in fairy tales?

Fairy tales?

Yeah, you know.

Little Red Riding Hood, Humpty Dumpty.

Fairy tales.

Do you believe in them?

No, of course not.

Me either.

That's why I'm not believing any of this crap about you not knowing anything about the scams that your company is pulling.

See what I'm saying?

Buy what you want, believe what you want.

I told you already.

I mean, what do we don't want to do?

I want you to take a ride with me.

Arrested me.

No, you're not under arrest.

There's some people I want you to meet.

I just want you to listen to what they have to say.

Can you do that for me?

I lost nearly $30,000 in that investment fraud.

The worst part about it was that I thought that I had it.

It was a good investment.

I really thought it was good.

And I encouraged my family and friends to invest also.

And because my background is in banking, my friends, they listened to me.

When I found out, though, that I had been conned, I felt personally responsible for the money that they had lost.

You know, I felt like I lost my credibility.

Can you imagine having to go home to your wife and tell her that you've lost a large chunk of your savings?

Or calling my best friend to let him know that, you know, hey, the stocks that I told you were good were actually a scam.

You know, I felt responsible for that, you know, and and it made me look like a fool.

Mandy Richards served a six-month sentence in Alderson Federal Prison for Women for her part in helping provide list of potential victims that were used in an identity theft scam by her boyfriend.

She joins us by satellite now.

Mandy, I know you have been through a lot over the past year.

How did your boyfriend get you involved in all of this?

Well, he fooled me.

He told me that he really needed some help to meet a quota at work.

And he said, you know, how about getting me some of those applications that people turn in, the people that you guys don't hire?

What was he doing with those applications?

He was stealing people's identity.

I didn't know that.

He told me he was trying to do a good job at work.

So naturally I wanted to help him out, but it's not what he was doing.

How did you find out what he was using the applications for?

Well, when they came to my job and interrogated me.

And then eventually I was arrested, and they took my little girl away.

Well, that's one person who has suffered a lot is your daughter.

Yeah, tell us about that.

Well, I mean, like I said, they put her in foster care.

I went to jail.

They supervised my visit with her.

You have kids, don't you?

You cry when I would leave.

Yeah.

Two girls.

I didn't think I would ever get her back, but I found it.

People never think about the kids they get left behind when their parents go to jail.

I know that your boyfriend has threatened to kill you in the past.

What happens when he gets out of jail?

Well, I don't know, but there's a way I can find out when he gets out.

It's a website and it's called VNS, and everybody should know about it.

It's a victim notification system.

And it lets me know when he gets out of prison, so I don't have to be afraid of.

Great, thanks.

I lost everything.

Um my wife wouldn't forgive me for uh well I had borrowed money from our son's college fund.

I wanted to send him to a better school.

I thought I could double my money, but but I can barely afford the community college tuition that he goes to now.

And a few months after the trial, my wife left me.

These crooks got eight years for mail fraud.

Uh and the cells they live in, they they're bigger than my apartment.

My my ex-wife has to take a second job.

So do I.

It seems like my family went to prison, too.

Except they didn't do anything wrong.

I did.

That reaction isn't uncommon.

People often blame themselves for things that happen to them, even though they're really no fault of their own.

Oftentimes they are so embarrassed that they won't even tell their own family.

We see all kinds of very intelligent, educated people who fall into these scams.

Well, is Mr.

Matson's story unusual?

I wish that it were.

I've seen victims lose their homes, suffer job losses, have problems in relationships, even divorce.

Ready to?

Well, the good news is that you're there to help them rebuild their lives.

We're out.

All right, let's get out of here.

Inspector.

I'd like to talk to you about the company now.

I think maybe I can help put some of the pieces in place.

All right.

You want to bring your lawyer in?

That would be best, wouldn't it?

Do you think maybe the U.S.

attorney would make me a deal?

Well, I can't speak for him, Mark, but uh I'm sure I'll take your cooperation into consideration.

Remember those people we were watching today, ones that lost from our No, no, no, those are those are all from older cases.

I always thought the banks or credit card companies will cover their losses.

I know.

No, it's just like the fairy tale.

All the king's horses and all the king's men just couldn't put things back together again.

Let's go take that statement.

Need that paperwork by Tuesday.

You got a book.

All right, thanks.

Mark Harrison's remorse about his crime proved to be short-lived.

After agreeing to testify against the leaders of the fraud ring, he was arrested again less than a year later for helping to operate an internet auction scam.

These types of criminals rarely have any regard for their victims or the damage that they've done to their lives.

If you or someone you know has been a crime victim, it's important that you know about victims' rights and the services available to you.

In 2004, the Justice for All Act was passed, strengthening rights for federal crime victims.

Most states have similar protections for cases handled in the local criminal justice system.

All of these victims' bills of rights were created to give victims a proper place in the criminal justice system.

They provide an opportunity to participate and be heard and offer practical assistance to minimize the inconveniences and frustrations that crime victims suffer.

You can find out more about your rights as a federal crime victim by visiting this website, www.crimevictims.gov.

The U.S.

Postal Inspection Service investigates many different types of financial crimes.

Most are handled in the federal justice system.

In addition to providing educational material about crime victims' rights and services, the inspection service continually strives to inform the public about current fraud scams and how to avoid becoming a victim.

Education is your best defense.

Keep up to date on the latest scams by visiting our websites.

Wsps.com slash postal inspectors.

And www.looks too good to be true.com.

Remember, being the victim of a crime is nothing to be ashamed of.

Neither is seeking help to recover from it.

When we think about this promise of higher education in part the promise of economic mobility, what we've really done at Strata is to try to answer the question what are the things that can change or that can be more consistently delivered to ensure that everyone has a pathway to opportunity, no matter where they're starting from.

A pathway to opportunity isn't just a phrase at Strata.

So many individuals, people of color, those from low-income backgrounds, people who are first in their family to attend college continue to face barriers to their education and their careers.

These barriers are difficult to overcome without a change in the post-secondary system itself.

This is not about a lack of will or commitment from talented aspiring individuals.

It is a calling for our collective action and our collective will to build a post-secondary education system that truly works for everyone.

These measures will help states evaluate progress against the goal of ensuring that education after high school prepares all students for a lifetime of career opportunities and success.

My hope is that it is a catalyst for change, that it helps states and institutions see where they can improve, where they can truly change for the better.

Strata Education Foundation works to strengthen the link between education and opportunity.

We're here today for a very special announcement.

We're releasing publicly for the very first time the state opportunity index, a research-backed analysis of how states and institution leaders can strengthen the link between education and opportunity in every state across the country.

What we found is that while states are doing a lot of great work and helping people get access to college education, helping them complete college education, there really needs to be more energy around helping make sure that people that do complete are able to successfully secure a good job and have economic mobility in their career.

We're really encouraging states and institution leaders to focus on five key areas.

We've also encouraged institutions to provide quality coaching, personalized education and career coaching to help people make a plan and to overcome obstacles that they face along the way.

To ensure that programs are affordable.

Student debt's one of the big issues today in the country, but as it turns out, for those students who have good economic outcomes, most of the time they're able to pay back that debt without too much difficulty.

So while there's a lot of attention on the student debt issue today, and that's a very important topic, we need to be putting at least as much uh effort and energy on helping make sure that people are able to get good first jobs and launch into successful careers.

Because if they had good economic outcomes, they're very likely to be able to afford the debt that they take on.

The debt crisis begins with the affordability crisis.

So we've got to tackle the debt that is really an albatross around the necks of so many students, and certainly the Biden administration is focused on that.

But long term, we've got to make sure that college is affordable.

That really requires a partnership between the federal government and state governments to invest in making ideally community college tuition free, and then saying for our four-year institutions, how do we ensure that students graduate debt-free?

Supports around addressing housing insecurity, food insecurity, and it's an investment in economic opportunity for students.

Things like internships that give students a path so that when they graduate, they're really getting the return on investment.

We need to make sure that when people invest their time, their energy and their money into a training program, a higher education, college, university, that they are going to be better off and have more mobility and economic opportunity than they did before they took that time to invest time, energy, and money.

And what we're doing and seeing in this report is that there is a roadmap to be able to do that.

So again, thanks to Strata for putting us on this providing this roadmap and helping state policymakers understand what best in class looks like.

The tenure is the magic mark, right?

If they're when we calculate and say, is this is this post secondary education, whether it's a degree or a credential, uh, is there an ROI?

Can I, at the wage I'm being paid, have a reasonable standard of living and repay the debt.

I think that it's incumbent on all of us at the state level, particularly in publics, to understand how we best make use of those funds so that it is an affordable education for students.

And what can be done to reduce that amount of student debt?

To reduce the amount of debt, I think it's the input piece is to under for students to understand what pathways are available to the jobs that they'd like to have.

I want to provide some context for why Strata developed the State Opportunity Index, why we felt like this was an important moment in time to do so.

Um, you know, one of the greatest aspirations of the United States has long been the idea that with hard work and determination, there are pathways to opportunity for everyone, no matter how humble one's starting place may be.

For a long time, we called this idea the American dream.

And a cornerstone of that dream has been education.

Cornerstone.

Right now, our country appears deeply divided over many things.

You know, people increasingly have recognized that the American dream has not, and in many cases has never been accessible to everyone.

But one thing that nearly everyone agrees on is that a quality education can and should enable any hardworking person to pursue their own unique pathway to opportunity to define and achieve their own unique version of the American dream.

Although individuals pursue a college education for many different reasons, their motivations and expectations usually stem from a common belief that further education will make their lives better, both economically and otherwise.

Unfortunately, while a quality education after high school is the best and most reliable pathway to opportunity, that pathway has not always been equitable.

Much progress has occurred over the last two decades, thanks to the hard work of policymakers, institutions, and many other stakeholders, many of whom are in the room today.

Americans enjoy greater access to education after high school than ever before.

Completion rates have also increased significantly.

But even with those accomplishments, the pathway to opportunity is still too challenging for far too many students across the country.

Despite a growing array of post-high school education opportunities, including degrees as well as certificates and other credentials, education to career pathways are often difficult and harder to navigate, especially for low-income students, students of color, and those who are the first in their family to attend college.

Employers at the same time are also facing challenges.

Even with millions of Americans completing some form of post-high school education, many employers are still struggling to fill high-wage, high-skill jobs.

The good news is that we're here today to talk about solutions.

Solutions, ways to make things better, to talk about the things that can change to ensure that everyone in this country has a pathway to opportunity, no matter where they're starting from.

The first ever State Opportunity Index was developed to give states and institutions a quantifiable set of measures, a roadmap that support a stronger connection between education and opportunity.

And when that connection is strong, everyone wins.

Students will have the information and support they need to direct and pursue their career goals, and employers will have the talent they need to fill high-demand jobs.

The index looks at five priority areas: clear outcomes, quality coaching, affordability, work-based learning, and employer alignment.

A large body of research by Strata and many others shows that learners are more likely to successfully connect their education to opportunity when these five things are in place.

A clear and accessible understanding of educational and career pathways is informed by data.

Second, access to personalized education to career coaching.

Third, affordable education options.

Fourth, quality work-based learning opportunities like paid internships and apprenticeships.

And finally, fifth, access to education programs that connect to high-wage in-demand jobs.

Taken together, these five priorities provide policymakers and institution leaders a holistic framework for improving both policy and practice in supporting more equitable pathways to opportunity.

States that address these five priorities in the index will see substantial improvements in employment outcomes for students while also better meeting the talent needs of their employers, a win win outcome.

The index also provides valuable information about the percentage of college graduates in each state who are getting a positive return on their educational investment.

One of the things that we really embrace at Strata is that education after high school has many valuable purposes.

Preparation for career is just one of them, right?

But for the vast majority of people who pursue a college education is absolutely essential.

And we believe 100% of those students who attend and complete should have at least a positive return on investment, should earn at least enough that within 10 years they could pay back the cost of that college education.

I also want to reinforce that one of the reasons that we call this the state opportunity index is because state policymakers have an important role to play in enabling better outcomes for learners.

You know, we often think about here's all the things that university presidents and community college leaders should do, and there are a lot of important things for them to do, but some of the most important changes that need to happen to expand and strengthen that link between education opportunity are things that policymakers need to do.

So there's an absolutely critical role for governors and legislative leaders across America in driving this work forward.

Today's report is just the first step in what we hope will be an ongoing effort of accelerating progress over the years to come.

Our goal is that working together with policymakers, education leaders, and employers across the country, we can improve and enhance the state opportunity index with more data, better data, and more support from the many stakeholders who will benefit from this work.

We hope that all of you will become a part of this effort as well.

Most of you actually already are in one way or another.

We see the state opportunity index as a shared endeavor, something we'll all benefit from.

Working together, we can strengthen the link between education and opportunity across the United States.

Together, we can bring to life a post-secondary education ecosystem that provides equitable pathways to opportunity for all.

Thank you.

First thing, um, as Stephen said, you know, we are looking at the a twist on kind of an old question, which is is education after high school worth it?

And the thing to know about these numbers is they should be a hundred in every state, because that would mean that for every single student, they are experiencing that positive uh financial benefit from higher education.

Uh, as you can see, that's not where we are right now.

Uh so what this represents is two things.

People graduates experiencing higher wages as a result of graduating from post-secondary education, and that those wages are high enough to pay off the cost of what they invested in higher education.

So we know that on average higher education pays off.

That's been very clear.

Um, there's been a lot of great research on that on average or for the median student, but that's that's not enough, right?

Because we still know that there are students and unfortunately, not uh just a small number of students for whom that's not the reality.

And so as we see, you know, our mission is how to make that connection between education and opportunity stronger for all students so that every state can get to 100 on these uh metrics.

The other thing, so this this represents all uh bachelors and associate degree holders together.

If you take a look at separating them out, let's see.

Okay.

So what you'll see here for the bachelor's degree, it looks a little bit stronger.

We're still not all the way there yet.

Um, and you can see there's a lot of variation across states.

Um, but this is a this is a little bit stronger.

What happens when we look at associate degrees?

Here you'll notice a big difference, right?

And and this is a little puzzling because we know that associate degrees are less expensive than bachelor's degrees, but yet we see fewer students uh who are achieving that financial benefit, that positive ROI.

And so what this is telling us is it's not just about the cost of education, right?

Cost is important, and we're gonna speak to affordability, which is absolutely essential to make sure that financial barriers are not an insurmountable obstacle for students.

But this tells us that this is a problem that higher ed can't solve all by itself, that this has to be a partnership.

This is about the kinds of job opportunities that are available for students and how the education that they receive is really aligning and preparing them for good jobs in their states.

So, how can the business community come together?

How can policymakers come together and how can higher ed come together to all make sure that we're strengthening these links between education and opportunity?

All right, so we don't want to stay focused just on the problem, right?

This report really is about what can we do and what are the solutions that all of these stakeholders can come together and try to improve these outcomes for students?

So we're gonna go through these five priority areas that Steven mentioned and see how states are doing on each of these metrics.

This is not about ranking states, this is not about punishing, this is about encouraging progress across all states.

And so you'll see it's uh in a developmental framework with categories as to how each state is doing across of each each of these.

Um we spoke a little bit to what these areas are.

So clear outcomes is the data that enables us to understand the outcomes of graduates.

Quality coaching and guidance is about connecting students to that education or to that information and support that they need to make good decisions, affordability about removing those upfront financial obstacles, work-based learning about not waiting until someone graduates to launch their career.

How can you start that transition early in order to make sure they're already on the road to success?

And then finally, how do we understand the fit between the job opportunities that are available and the kinds of education that students are getting?

So I'm gonna hand it over to my colleague Dave Clayton.

Where do we find the intersection between education, employment, and the places people live and work and seek to raise their families, strengthen their communities, and be a part of people thrive when we have more intersection between education and high quality opportunities?

How do we get there?

First of all, do we have the data that will allow us to even see that?

One frontier that is absent in this report is our understanding of information about non-degree credentials.

You think of our data systems and the their relative maturation.

So this is not meant to be uniquely about higher education per se to and for your institutions in its future incarnations, but this is where we are today, and we hope that with all of us together, we're in a different place with more data and more insights going forward.

Over the last 18 months, a great group of state experts and national leaders have worked together to identify 10 criteria of an ideal state education to employment data system.

And you see these uh elements are in each state completed surveys, was interview research was done to evaluate their standing on each of these.

This is our commitment to sustainability that we didn't print this appendix.

But those detailed responses are in the digital appendices where you can see each state's progress on each of these 10 elements, so that when Colorado wants to learn from Alabama and when North Dakota wants to share how they're going about number nine of sharing their records with learners about their own validated learning and education records, people can see where that is and what that is and how to connect and learn together.

So again, in the spirit of these are new frontiers for states.

We've gone on a journey from access to completion and now to successful employment and equitable pathways to opportunity afterwards, and how do we get there?

This is a means by which we can see one another and see ourselves and others and see our aspirations and learn from our peers.

And so that's our our desire to provide the states.

Now, when you average these 10 all together, you can look and see the variety across states.

Now and and there is variety, but no one state is a four on everything, and no one state is a one on everything in these categories that they go across.

Um, everybody has relative strengths and relative weaknesses, and so our effort has been to say here are the things that will help you understand and identify those clear pathways to opportunity and how equitably they're being extended and delivered to individuals in your state through your public education institutions.

Cool.

All right.

Great.

So next we're gonna talk about quality coaching and guidance.

And the reason we believe that this is so important is just having the data is not going to be enough unless you can actually connect it to students and make sure students have that information that they need and have the guidance and support that they need when they're choosing pathways and overcoming obstacles.

So for this, uh unfortunately, there are not large-scale data sets telling us who has access to this kinds of coaching and guidance.

And so, what we did in this first iteration of the report was conducted a nationally representative survey to ask students, actually, recent graduates about their experiences with coaching and guidance.

So there were three criteria that you can see here.

The first is simply did students experience that personalized coaching and guidance to help them connect the education pathway that they're choosing with their chosen career.

Next is a series of questions about the kinds of information they received and where they receive or when they received it.

Because we know it's it's not adequate to have students receiving this information when they're a senior.

What we found is really we're at the foundational stage, both as a nation and then in the four largest states where we were able to get a large enough sample to display these state results.

So as you can see, it's really about one in five students who say that they're experiencing all of these aspects of coaching and guidance.

And this is particularly critical for students who may be the first in their families to go to college and you know who don't have the awareness of of what the possibilities even are for them.

So this is something where we really hope you know, as we continue to track progress that we can move these numbers up.

And we'll be coming out with more uh information and data on this specifically in the coming months.

Um but you know, this is something where everyone has some room to improve.

Oh, sorry.

Also, um, how do we know that this matters?

So, since these were recent graduates, we were able to ask them about their outcomes after they complete.

And what we found was indeed students who did report that they had that information and that support were much more likely to say that they were in a job that required a college degree and that they were satisfied with their job and they're satisfied with the progress they're making towards their long-term career goals.

So we think that you know, this is a promising sign that as we increase this access for more and more students that will have positive outcomes on you know their other outcomes after completion.

Much has been uh examined and done and make great efforts around affordability.

We wanted to ask one question to make this student centered is can it what is a reasonable expectation for an individual to be able to work their way through college?

So we looked at this construct in the sense of taking that net price that institutions report independently to the US Department of Education, and then we looked at through the census data, the American Community Survey allows you to calculate the median wage of a part-time, the median wage hourly wage of part-time work for someone who's currently enrolled in school.

So you can divide those two and you get the number of hours somebody would need to work while enrolled full-time in the summer, then how many hours would you need need to work while you're in school to break even on that net price?

What you see here, this is again the average of the two-year and the four-year net prices for each state, right?

But you can see that variation in what it would take to pay for that in-state resident public institution tuition, net price, cost of living, transportation, books, fees, all of that rolled in together.

Interestingly, tuition is only is I mean, the costs other than tuition are 50 to 70 percent of that net price, depending upon the state.

So that factors in tremendously, it's not just tuition alone that higher ed can control, also state policies on need-based aid and merit aid and those different approaches have an impact, as well as the labor markets, right?

This is rolled up to the state level, but you earn five dollars an hour more in Massachusetts than you do in Montana if you're a student working part-time.

Now, several state leaders, as we started to preview this, have said, well, we could look at that wage in this region of our state, and it's different in the rural southwest than it is in the urban northeast part of our state.

And so all of that opens up to institutions to be able to understand at least somewhere what that relative ask is between our price and could a student reasonably work their way through school.

Again, we know that working more than 20 hours a week has some negative impact on people's academic progress and success.

So, what are we expecting of our learners and students as they look to finance their education?

You see that breakout for the four-year public institutions across each state.

Again, back to Nicole's point about the ROI, that break-even threshold at 10 years, more likely, even with the higher expectation and cost of a four-year institution, more likely to get the ROI when you look at the two-year institutions, much of more affordable fewer hours to work per week to wait work your way through school, but that payoff not as strong across the average of all associate degrees.

All right.

So, work-based learning, again, this is the idea that in order to make that strong connection between education and opportunity, you can't wait until after a student graduates.

How do you already get them the kinds of experiences while they're learning to be able to jumpstart their career before they even graduate?

So the strongest evidence base for work-based learning is for apprenticeships and paid internships.

We were not able to include apprenticeships this year.

We hope to, you know, continue to be able to collect better data on that in the future.

So for this first year, we are really focused on paid internships.

The reason why we specify pay, there's there's two reasons.

One is the evidence is just stronger that paid internships are linked to better outcomes after completion.

So compared to unpaid internships, students who complete paid internships are more likely to be earning more and to have jobs that actually require their degree.

And it's a matter of access, right?

So students who need to earn money while they're in school don't have the option to take an unpaid internship.

So this is from our nationally representative survey data again.

And what you'll see is slightly better than where we were for that quality coaching and guidance, but still only about one in four students report that they've participated in a paid internship.

That's true nationally, and for those four largest states, at the two-year level, it's lower.

It's about one in ten students who say that they've participated in a paid internship.

Now there's a lot of other new emerging models of work-based learning that are coming out that we'd also be interested in understanding the evidence base for to see, you know, are there other options that are shorter term or you know, ways to transform student employment that could also kind of uh fulfill some of these same needs.

But right now we know that you know, for too many students, and particularly students of color and uh women and first generation students, they're not actually having access to these opportunities.

And again, here we see the difference that students report that this makes.

So you can see even here the difference between having no internship, having an unpaid internship, and having a paid internship when it comes to having that job that requires your college degree and uh being satisfied with your job and being satisfied with your career progress.

So we see this as an opportunity.

If we can move you know that needle for more students, then these outcomes should improve.

Stephen talked about frontiers and how do we measure this is this employer alignment metric is a frontier for us and for the field as you look around even internationally and across the nation.

How do we best understand the supply-demand gaps between education and workforce for skilled labor?

And so we we are grateful to the team at Burning Glass Institute and their leadership and our partnership with them to help develop this analysis that you'll see in this report.

This is one we hope to uh continue to iterate on and improve.

We hope to do it in a way that actually each state is empowered.

There's enough transparency and documentation, but that each state could build those data systems we talked about at the beginning and look at this for their specific priorities and their workforce and their alignment.

And so one of those areas in the clear outcomes data infrastructure was actually dedicating the resources within a state and assigning responsibility to make sense of and gain insights from and deliver those actionable insights from these data systems.

And certainly this employer alignment is a powerful frontier at that intersection of education and employment.

How do we understand their connection?

We have two scores that we average together to create this metric for this measure or indicator for each state.

One is, as Stephen talked about, this kind of classic supply-demand paradox.

You have an overplot supply of graduates, meaning there are more graduates with degrees who are not employed in college-level jobs, and at the same time, you have an undersupply of employers reporting that they're unable to fill their talent needs for high skilled jobs.

We looked at a subset of jobs across every state, knowing that each state's economy is not the same, but we looked at these nine fields of work that constitute a third of skilled kind of entry-level opportunity jobs, high-wage, high-demand jobs nationwide.

You see, they include nursing and finance and accounting and software and engineering and development and manufacturing technicians, but across multiple fields, uh those jobs that are in high demand.

When you look at this and you see the percentage of individuals in each state that have a college-level job, the percentage of recent graduates ages 26 to 30 in each state who are working in a college-level job, you see that two-thirds of the states are really between 53 and 57%.

There's not a lot of variation in that number.

The place where you do get the variation is in the fit between the graduates that are coming out of their institutions and the kind of less than three years experience job postings and openings that they have in the states, and you see a lot more variation in that across different states with this.

When you put those together, what you end up seeing is a real variety in this employer alignment.

You have places where there's both high demand and doing a fairly good job of filling that demand, and other places where college level employment is high.

And so when you have that combination of fit, those are the states that are strongest.

There are places that you can see individual state profiles and variation.

West Virginia supply does well in supplying the demand that they have for jobs, but overall lower levels of college employment.

Utah has high demand as a native of the state.

I'll highlight them.

They have high demand, they do a good job of filling that demand for those entry-level high opportunity jobs.

They also have high levels of college employment.

So that you need both of those to be at the front on this one in that regard.

We thank you for being here today.

We thank you for being a part of this for tomorrow, not our tomorrow collectively, but for the tomorrow of the individuals who do look to education for as their path, equitable path to opportunity going forward.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

And to get the opportunity to lead a conversation among four very distinguished leaders at both state and national levels.

What an opportunity for us.

I want to also say, Dave, Nicole, thank you for being the catalyst for such a lively, vibrant opportunity for us to think together about the opportunity before us at the level of states, at the level of institutions, at the level of our country.

What a what a great privilege for us.

So I'd love to ask each of you to just sort of quickly respond.

Stephen provided sort of his why, why the State Opportunity Index.

This is seems relevant and timely to you now.

Will, let's start with you and we'll come this direction.

Well, thank you very much for the opportunity.

That's really valid for the opportunity.

I I think that it's important because as we think about like the conditions to create the context in states where students can succeed, we really have to think about the necessary ingredients.

And so I think more than just providing states with a ranking, which I'll be happy to do that in my work.

Um, it provides states with the different activities or that different policy areas that are necessary to really create opportunities for students.

So I think about you know quality coaching affordability, I think about clear outcomes.

Those are things that we could be working on in states to ensure that we're providing students with the necessary conditions so that they can be successful.

Love that focus on the solutions, Will.

Thank you.

Amy, what about you?

Um I think Steven did a magnificent job of reminding us all of this moment that sometimes we're questioning, which is education is the heart to unlocking opportunity and to unlocking the American dream.

And we're at a point, I think a crisis point in this country where over half of Americans for the first time ever don't think there's value in pursuing a higher education and four-year degree in particular.

Um, and there's a moment where it feels like we've lost our way and that there is a lot of questioning of is it worth it?

Why not just go into work?

And I'll give you a statistic from Virginia.

Um of our first year, four-year public students do not persist into second year of study.

Of those 10%, 40% have debt when they leave college of 10,000 or more.

Take that statistic with what we also know in terms of the the underemployed after they get a degree.

And we're at a crisis that people are wandering, and we have told everyone for the last two decades, just go to college.

Everyone just go.

And there's a moment right now in why this state opportunity index is so important.

It's a focusing moment of let's remind ourselves that when people put in the time, energy, money, and the opportunity cost of taking two years, one year, six months, four years, eighteen years, whatever, to get a PhD to get that education, there needs to be a return on investment.

And so I really applaud Strata for reminding all of us that we need to focus.

And in Virginia, when we talk about the purpose of an education, we say it's threefold.

One is to prepare people to be productive members of the economy, which is what this report is about getting a job.

Are you able to actually be more so economically mobile and have greater opportunities in the workplace because you took the time, energy, and money to invest in your education or training.

Second of all, it's to also prepare you to be an engaged and informed member of our democracy, which I would argue is equally important at this crisis moment.

And third of all, it's to ensure that we're preparing people to be responsible neighbors and citizens and members of communities.

And so those are three, in my mind, equal purposes of education, but this report gets really real and provides that roadmap for why and how we need to focus on that first piece of preparing people for economic success.

Thank you so much, Amy.

This is a room of people that stands on common ground on all of those issues.

So thank you.

John.

Well, um, first, thrilled to be here.

Great to see so many old friends in the room.

Uh, would say amen to everything that that Will and Amy said.

But two things I would add, it is very difficult to improve something that you are not actively measuring.

And so I'm very grateful to have uh this sort of baseline data from which we can build.

The second observation I'd make is I think Strata is doing something really important by focusing national attention on state-level policy, what governors can do, what legislatures can do, what system level leaders and trustees can do.

Uh there's, I think, not enough conversation about the strong levers that states have.

And it's nice to have the comparison between states.

You know, for us in New York, we like to be number one, we like to be best.

So whenever we see that we're not, we want to learn what other folks are doing that puts them ahead of us so that we can try to catch up.

Very helpful, John, to hear that perspective from a leader in a state, that that is a helpful thing for you to have those measures and that baseline, and that is the catalyst for change.

Ardeen.

I'm gonna build on the moment, John, that you said, which is you if you're if you can't measure it, you can't fix it.

And Stephen did a phenomenal job talking about the cornerstone of the American dream.

That's the output.

And what this plan does is identifies five inputs.

It's a multimodal problem, it's complex, and it's really easy to become overwhelmed.

But when you have those five inputs, you can take a step back and say, where am I going to focus?

Am I going to look at work-based learning?

And you don't have to fix everything.

We know now that if we put solutions and measure the output, the results of those, that those pillars can in fact improve outcomes.

Awesome.

Thank you so much, Ardean.

So we'll do another round of rapid fire this direction and have you each do a quick response on of the entire state opportunity index.

What surprised you most?

What really stood out to you?