The University of Wisconsin System freshwater collaborative. (FE)

What it would have done

Summary by the Legislative Reference Bureau, the Legislature's nonpartisan drafting office. It's their wording, not ours.

This bill requires the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System to fund a freshwater collaborative among no more than six UW institutions that has the following purposes: 1) studying the challenge of agriculture water management, including a focus on nutrient runoff, farm policy impacts, and other issues and 2) studying the challenge of water quality and safety, including a focus on treatment, contamination, and other issues. The bill requires the freshwater collaborative to do all of the following to accomplish those purposes: 1) devise new watercentric training programs focused on undergraduates; 2) provide an opportunity for students to participate in a work-study internship program in a state office that coordinates state water policy; 3) provide scholarships and student support to retain and attract new talent; 4) amplify marketing and recruiting relating to Wisconsin's role in freshwater science; 5) enhance workforce development programming; 6) recruit new faculty and staff for training programs, research, and innovation; 7) act as a liaison to the Blue Accounting initiative of the commission created by the Great Lakes basin compact; 8) create a user-friendly dashboard for the public to easily access municipal water quality reports, private well data, and surface water quality information that must be compiled from information from the Public Service Commission, the Department of Health Services, the Department of Natural Resources, campuses of the UW System, the Division of Extension of UW-Madison, and other credible organizations; and 9) divide the state into areas to better understand each area's diverse and localized water quality issues and prepare a report on each area's unique water quality challenges, each area's known levels of specific contaminants, and the overall success of state and federal water quality programs in each area.

The bill requires the Board of Regents to establish metrics for determining the success of the freshwater collaborative and submit those metrics to the Joint Committee on Finance. The Board of Regents may expend the moneys appropriated under the bill if JCF does not schedule a meeting to review the metrics. However, if JCF schedules a meeting, the moneys may be expended only after JCF approves or modifies the metrics.

Who's behind it

2 senators are its authors⁠. All 2 are Republicans.

5 more lawmakers signed on in support⁠.

What it would cost

State agencies filed a cost estimate. Each opens as a PDF from the Legislature.

• Fiscal Estimate From UWS