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Farmer lawmaker proposes using federal stimulus for bigger Wisconsin broadband expansion

A Wisconsin lawmaker says part of the federal stimulus money coming to the state could nearly finish broadband expansion for rural areas.

Republican State Representative Tony Kurtz says, “Now is the time. We have a golden opportunity. Let’s do this.”

Kurtz says Wisconsin is going to receive 3.2 billion dollars from the federal government as part of the coronavirus stimulus package, and 500-million should go into the broadband grant program managed by the Public Service Commission. “If you think about it, the program already exists. It’s successful. People like it. You can put 500-million-dollars in it. Companies would have to match that, of course, and then to you, it brings that investment into a billion dollars into broadband.”

Kurtz tells Brownfield Governor Tony Evers will have sole discretion over the use of the federal dollars unless something changes and using federal dollars for broadband makes state dollars available for other needs. “If we are smart about this, let’s use the federal money for our broadband expansions. Let’s use our state money and shore up our local roads.”

Kurtz, who is also a farmer near Wonewoc, Wisconsin says modern technology on farm equipment cannot consistently connect to the Internet, and he has personal experience with what poor connectivity means for education during the pandemic. “I struggle to get five megabytes, so my daughter came back from UW to do school at our house and she ended up having to go back to her apartment in Madison because we just didn’t have the Internet that she could do her virtual learning on.”

Governor Evers has declared this the year of broadband and has proposed 200-million for expanding service in the state’s biennial budget.  Kurtz says his bill more than doubles that and will be introduced in the Assembly and sent to a committee this week.