FRI AM News: WisBusiness: the Podcast with Chris Mambu Rasch, Building Advantage; State recovered $32.8M in UI overpayments in 2023

June 14, 2024

— This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Chris Mambu Rasch, executive director of Building Advantage.

The organization is a joint labor management council for the union commercial construction industry, which works to advance union interests and help them compete for work. Rasch discusses the group’s work in southeastern Wisconsin along with the latest developments in the industry.

“Making sure we have a ready, able, diverse, qualified workforce to be able to enter the union building trades industry, so we do marketing to youth and individuals to enter the trades, we help with career fairs,” he said.

Building Advantage also helps resolve conflicts outside of contract negotiations and bargaining, conducts policy and advocacy work that “levels the playing field” for union construction at both the state and federal level, Rasch said. And it plays a role in financing projects with union funding sources, such as union pension funds.

“We have a number of projects actually in Milwaukee where that’s happening … I want to grow that, so we’re looking to start our own fund to help developers with their capital stack, in terms of trying to provide some equity,” he said. “We just actually got our first $10 million committed to that, and so I’m looking to grow that fund to $100 million over the next three years or so.”

Rasch also weighs in on the recent pledge by Wisconsin’s major utilities to use union labor for clean energy projects, as well as the billions in federal infrastructure funding coming down the pipeline.

“It’s a huge impact,” he said. “This is really a new day for construction … We’re really at the forefront of all of this work.”

Listen to the podcast and see the full list of WisBusiness.com podcasts.

— The state last year recovered $32.8 million in unemployment insurance overpayments as part of an effort to crack down on fraud, the Department of Workforce Development says.

DWD Secretary Amy Pechacek informed members of the agency’s Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council that more than 30 “program integrity” efforts have been launched over the past five years, according to the agency’s release.

“The work does not end there,” she said in a statement. “The department’s strong collection program also recovers a considerable portion of overpayments when they do occur.”

The release notes Wisconsin has kept known fraud overpayments to less than 2% of total UI benefits since 2020. Last year’s fraud prevention efforts led to at least 2,300 identity theft investigations, more than 700 worker misclassification investigations and more than 1,900 tax audits.

In her message to the advisory council, Pechacek notes 0.46% of the $337.6 million UI payments last year were known fraud overpayments. In 2022, that percentage was 0.72% out of $344.5 million in UI payments. For 2021, those figures are 1.1% and $2.5 billion, respectively. And for 2020, they were 0.77% and $4.8 billion.

See the release and the report to the advisory council.

— The village of Pleasant Prairie is getting a $885,000 grant for a rail installation project, state officials announced.

The Transportation Economic Assistance funds are meant to help corrugated packaging company WestRock open a new manufacturing facility, which is expected to create 177 jobs in the area.

The grant will support the construction of a new rail spur and more tracks to connect the company’s 190-acre industrial facility to the Union Pacific Railroad mainline, according to the release from Gov. Tony Evers.

It notes the new connection will enable the transport of raw materials including paper rolls “more efficiently while being environmentally responsible,” as one rail car can carry the same amount of material as up to six trucks.

“Southeast Wisconsin is growing and quickly, and this investment will help support this continued growth, create jobs, and build the infrastructure needed now and into the future,” Evers said in a statement.

See the release.

— The USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program is providing more than $27 million to help 15 companies in the state to add solar arrays, biogas installations and more.

The agency yesterday announced the REAP funding, which White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden said “will invest directly in Wisconsin farmers and small business owners, helping them lower their energy costs.”

Individual grants range from about $23,000 for Marion-based Zaddy LLC, which is installing a small solar array, to $1 million for the Abel Project LLC, which will build and operate a dairy manure anaerobic digester in Fond du Lac County. This installation will capture bio-methane and convert it to renewable natural gas, which will go into a pipeline for local utilities.

See the list of awards.

— Renew Wisconsin’s Solar for Good program has announced $175,000 in cash awards and solar panel donations for 13 nonprofits in the state.

The funding will help develop more than 800 kilowatts of solar energy in the state and more than $2 million in renewable energy investments, according to a release from the Madison-based organization. The new solar capacity is equal to the power requirements for about 160 homes.

Recipients include religious organizations, environmental groups, a food pantry, housing providers and others.

See the full list of recipients and project details in the release.

— Two Wisconsin biohealth companies are each getting up to $75,000 through a state matching grant fund, the Center for Technology Commercialization announced.

The CTC recently released the list of companies getting funding through the SBIR Advance program, which supports companies working on projects in the federal Small Business Innovation Research or Small Business Technology Transfer programs.

Among the Phase 1 recipients, two are developing health-related applications.

Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics is a Wauwatosa company developing and commercializing cell-based technologies to target central nervous system diseases. And Intuitive Biosciences, based in Madison, is creating an at-home diagnostics platform with applications in cancer and infectious diseases.

The latest round of grants includes $700,000 in total funding, going to other companies working in energy, wireless devices and computing, aerospace and other fields.

“We have a diverse group of companies that have received funding from the NSF, the NIH, the Air Force, the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), and the Department of Energy,” SBIR Advance Program Manager Rob Baranowski said in a statement.

See the release below, and see more at Madison Startups.

Top headlines from the Health Care Report…

— The Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment has issued a call for applications for $50,000 seed grants, funding new approaches to health challenges in the state.

For more of the most relevant health care news, reports on groundbreaking research in Wisconsin, links to top stories and more, sign up today for the free daily Health Care Report from WisPolitics and WisBusiness.com.

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