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Assembly Bill Aims To Change The Way Wisconsin's Technical Colleges Are Funded & Governed

Dave Reid, Flickr

If passed, the ramifications of a proposed bill that would change how we pay for and govern the state’s area technical schools.

Lawmakers introduce many bills in the course of a legislative session. Some go on to become laws, but many don’t make it out of committee.

Assembly Bill 177, introduced in April 2013, was one such piece of proposed legislation. Had it passed, it would have drastically changed the governance of the state’s technical schools, and how they were funded.

It did not get out of committee then, but the fight to get it reintroduced in the next legislative session has begun.

Milwaukee Magazine’s Clair Hanan speaks with Bonnie North about the arguments for and against the legislation, the future of technical colleges and her article on the bill, Swap Meet.

"The technical schools are opposed to this bill in its entirety," Hanan says. "They think they know what their region needs best, they can work with local businesses to establish programs that those businesses need."

However, "...the governance issue is what seems glossed over, it definitely plays second fiddle to the funding," she says. "On the side of the supporters of the bill, there aren't really concrete suggestions that go much deeper than centralize the governance."

Bonnie North
Bonnie joined WUWM in March 2006 as the Arts Producer of the locally produced weekday magazine program Lake Effect.
Audrey is a WUWM host and producer for Lake Effect.