Establishment of a Wisconsin conservation corps program, extending the time limit for emergency rule procedures, providing an exemption from emergency rule procedures, granting rule-making authority, and making appropriations

Under the bill, DOA provides all staff services to the board and the board has no other staff. The bill directs the board to enter into an agreement with a nonprofit corporation that has demonstrated experience in natural resource conservation and youth training to manage and administer the WCC program. The manager then retains, trains, and supervises work crews to carry out each project. The manager also identifies, reviews, and recommends proposed projects for the approval of the board. The bill requires the board to ensure that projects are equally distributed across technical college districts to the greatest extent possible, and to ensure that at least one project is located in each technical college district in each year.

The bill provides that a project must be designed to carry out a specific goal within a defined period of time and must be focused on the conservation or enjoyment of natural resources and must have a specific, beneficial, physical effect. Projects may include new trail construction, trail rehabilitation, invasive species management, bridge and boardwalk construction, reforestation, timber stand improvement, stream bank stabilization, erosion control, rain garden installation, prairie restoration, historical site preservation, recreation site maintenance, wild land fire hazard reduction and fuels management, lake and stream restoration, boundary marking, fencing, landscaping, carpentry, and data collection for scientific research. The bill permits local governments or nonprofit corporations to submit applications to sponsor projects. A project application must identify the proposed project and provide a detailed plan for working on the project. In addition, the application must contain an enumeration of the number of work crews that will work on the project and a determination that work crew members would be eligible to participate in a youth corps program administered by the National and Community Service Board (NCSB) and other requirements under the WCC program, as well as a plan for training the work crew members, providing transportation to the project work sites, making available educational opportunities for work crew members while they are employed on the projects, for assisting work crew members in making full use of all benefits provided under such a youth corps program, and for visiting a technical college to familiarize the crew members with application and enrollment procedures, programs, and course offerings.

The bill provides that each work crew member on a WCC project must be between the ages of 18 and 25, and at least 50 percent of the work crew members on each project must have no postsecondary education and have a family income of not more than 200 percent of the federal poverty line on the date of their initial employment.

The bill provides that, if the board determines that an application is an appropriate WCC project and that work crew members would be eligible under the program, the board must jointly submit the application with the sponsor to NCSB for funding. If funding is provided by NCSB, the board must also make a grant to the sponsor to assist the sponsor in training the work crews.

The bill also directs NCSB, which utilizes federal and state funding to award grants to persons providing national and community service programs, to first allocate funding for grants to provide work for at least 240 participants in each fiscal year in youth corps programs provided by the WCC Board, to the extent that funding is available to NCSB and NCSB receives valid applications for the grants. Currently, NCSB is directed only to give priority in awarding grants, to the greatest extent practicable, to persons providing youth corps programs.

The bill requires each sponsor of a WCC project to do both of the following: upon completion of the project, erect a permanent plaque at each work site identifying the site as a WCC project; and submit a report to the board identifying the number of work crew members who enrolled at a technical college upon completion of the project and their status on the first anniversary of completion of the project.

The bill exempts services performed by WCC work crews from compliance with requirements for state and local public works projects to adhere to current prevailing wage scales. The bill permits the board to retain its manager and other state agencies to engage a WCC crew on a project without complying with state procurement laws, including requirements for public notice to and competitive solicitation of contractors and limitations on the circumstances when contractual services may be obtained.

Finally, the bill requires the board to submit an annual report to the legislature identifying the projects completed in each year or that are in the process of completion as of the end of that year.