AB 910

This bill creates a Wisconsin conservation corps (WCC) program that seeks to

protect, enhance, and provide access to Wisconsin's natural heritage and encourage

and enable young people to learn the value of work in a natural setting by providing

employment training and career pathways. The bill also creates a WCC Board,

which is the policy-making body of the WCC and is attached to the Department of

Administration (DOA). The WCC Board consists of the secretary of natural

resources or his or her designee; the executive secretary of the Board of

Commissioners of Public Lands; two representatives to the assembly, appointed as

are members of assembly standing committees; two senators, appointed as are

members of senate standing committees; one member of a nongovernmental

organization that has expertise in conservation matters or that represents

employees who work in conservation activities, for a three-year term; and two

members of the faculty employed by a technical college district board, appointed by

the state Technical College System Board, for three-year terms.

The bill provides funding for the WCC program from the conservation fund, the

state normal school fund (a state trust fund that derives revenue from federal land

grants), and from program fees that the board may assess to sponsors of projects.

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