Northern Wisconsin Leaders Lobby Lawmakers During Superior Days

Around 150 people will lobby lawmakers and state agencies on issues important to northern Wisconsin for this year’s Superior Days at the state Capitol in Madison. The state’s Medicaid reimbursement rates and 911 network upgrades are a couple issues northern leaders want to see addressed.

Wisconsin’s Medicaid reimbursement rates are too low to pay for mental health and substance abuse services, said Betsy Byler, outpatient and youth treatment supervisor for the nonprofit Human Development Center in Douglas County. She said Wisconsin’s Medicaid reimbursement rates haven’t gone up in the last two decades.

“The cost of business in the last 20 years has increased. We’ve had to, in order to hire staff, in order to provide services, we have to provide them on a level with Minnesota that has a 40 percent higher reimbursement rate,” Byler said.

Byler said she takes a $13,000 loss for each therapist she hires because she has to offer wages competitive with Minnesota in order to attract and retain staff. The Human Development Center employs six therapists with a caseload of up to 90 clients. She said they see around 300 children each year.

Without a rate increase, she said she believes no providers will be willing to locate in northern Wisconsin. City and county officials have been advocating for a drug treatment center in Superior. Byler said Minnesota agencies providing services across the bridge in Duluth, Minnesota, have refused to accept clients who have medical assistance because of the lower reimbursement rates.

Emergency management officials are also advocating during Superior Days on Tuesday and Wednesday for the state to support technological upgrades to Wisconsin’s 911 centers. Douglas County Emergency Management Director Keith Kesler would like lawmakers to pass a bill creating a statewide fee that would fund a technology upgrade for the emergency services network.

“People expect that they should be able to text message the 911 centers and send photos, and it can’t happen. It just don’t,” Kesler said. “The technology is not there to deliver that information to us. We have the equipment sitting in the back room ready to receive it, but we can’t get it here.”

Kesler said they can’t receive texts or videos because the state’s 911 centers operate on an outdated copper wire network. He said each county or community negotiates contracts with phone companies on 911 service. Northern Wisconsin officials are proposing one statewide contract to provide high speed data for emergency services.

Kesler said the 75 cent fee for police and fire on phone bills goes to the general fund and does not support upgrades of 911 centers as it was originally proposed. He added that fewer people have landline phones to pay for 911 service. Cell phone users are not currently charged a fee to provide the service, which means counties pay for the cost to provide wireless 911 service.

Kesler said AT&T was set to significantly increase the cost to provide 911 service in the county to recover costs from fewer landline users. Douglas County is switching to CenturyLink to provide 911 service.

Superior Days is Tuesday, Feb. 21 and Feb. 22.