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| Milwaukee night river |
There was much trepidation 16 months ago when Gov.
Tommy Thompson searched for someone to take on one of state government's
toughest jobs.
The official would be charged with enacting Wisconsin
Works, also known as W-2, Thompson's nationally watched project to replace
traditional welfare.
At the same time, that person would be charged with
running an agency Thompson created by combining the industry and labor
department with its welfare agency.
When he made his choice, the trepidation grew. To fill
the post, he looked outside his cabinet and outside Madison.
He chose Linda Stewart, a 49-year-old former banking
executive from Milwaukee -- and a relative newcomer to state government -- to
head the 2,600-employee Department of Workforce Development.
Stewart has been on the hot seat ever since.
Supporters say Stewart is succeeding in a nearly impossible job -- and she says
she's enjoying herself despite the enormity of her task and some withering
criticism.
"I'm holding up pretty well,'' she said with a smile
as she sat alone fielding questions in her top-floor, corner office overlooking
Lake Mendota. "I'm an optimist by nature.''
Her agency's most publicized task has been
implementing W-2, which is designed to bring 50,000 welfare people -- most of
them women -- into the work force.
But it also has other jobs, including a
"school-to-work'' program, migrant labor programs, workers compensation,
minimum wage enforcement, and unemployment insurance.
"
When I first started, W-2 was taking up most of my
time,'' said Stewart.
Stewart said she attended hundreds of hours of
meetings in Madison to get the agency up and running and spent hours traveling
the state to help sell W-2 to both county social workers as well as those
expected to enroll in it.
In the process, she has been the target of some
vicious verbal attacks:
*
"You're throwing us out into the streets and letting
our children starve,'' an angry young woman shouted at her during a W-2 hearing
in Milwaukee in February.
*
"Hang on to your babies!'' Rep. Johnnie
Morris-Tatum, a Milwaukee Democrat, shouted in front of the Capitol last fall,
implying to protesters that W-2 is designed to separate mothers from their
children.
She's been criticized by social workers, community
leaders and others for not taking charge of her agency.
Ken Germanson, a spokesman for Community Advocates,
which works with some of the poorest of the poor in north Milwaukee, said
Stewart is a kind, humane woman and a good saleswoman for W-2.
"But she is not publicly willing to acknowledge
shortcomings we see every day, except in a very general sense,'' Germanson said.
"You could talk to 10 agencies and get 10 different answers about this
program.''
"She is a problem solver who really wants things to
work,'' said Rep. Rebecca Young, D-Madison. But those who have been working on
W-2 since before she arrived are
"more ideologically rigid.''
Stewart handles the scrutiny calmly.
"I don't take the criticism personally. I'm a product
of the Milwaukee community. Even when people make negative comments about the
program and about me, I know people want things in Milwaukee to be better,''
Stewart said.
"They know I'm trying to do a good job.''
Milwaukee roots
Stewart lives in Milwaukee, commuting to Madison from
her Sherman Park home where she lives with her husband, a high school assistant
principal. She was a community activist in Milwaukee before she took the job,
and she's still active there -- and even has a small office in Milwaukee.
"When I first took this job, I spent every weekend
for six months involved in some kind of forum or discussion in Milwaukee about W-2,''
she said.
"Even people who give me a hard time come up to me afterwards and
tell me they know I'm trying to do a good job.''
"Linda is a can-do person. She's smart and she's a
team player,'' said Sen. Carol Roessler, R-Oshkosh, the Senate author of W-2.
Stewart is a self-described
"workaholic'' with a
master's degree in adult and continuing education, and a Ph.D in educational
administration. When she moved to Milwaukee nearly three decades ago, she
worked her way up from management trainee to assistant vice president of
Firstar -- and later became a corporate vice president at First Bank.
Most recently, she was deputy state director of the
state's technical college system and interim director of the Milwaukee Area
Technical College.
Along the way she served on dozens of boards and
councils, including the Private Industry Council, the Governor's Statewide
Apprenticeship Advisory Council and the Governor's Minority Business
Development Council.
She said she brings to her task a belief that a job is
the precise medicine that Wisconsin's poor require -- especially Wisconsin's
black, inner-city poor.
"I grew up in the south, in Atlanta, where work and
education was something everybody grew up knowing you had to have to be
successful,'' she said.
"To me it was appalling to see the number of people
dependent on welfare as there were in Milwaukee. One of the things that
affected me most was that by having (welfare) be a way of life for such a large
percentage of the Milwaukee population, African Americans were disenfranchising
themselves. The children that didn't have pride in their families, didn't have
role models, didn't have any way out of poverty.''
W-2 is slowly reversing the effects of longtime
welfare dependency, she said.
"I already see the benefits of people going to work
and having more resources for their kids,'' Stewart said.
"We have people who
are hard to serve, but that's true no matter what. We have to focus on the
thousands who have made the transition.''
For example, she said, a woman receiving the old
welfare check and food stamps earned $9,500 a year. A woman working for $6 an
hour receives $18,000 in the form of wages, food stamps and a tax credit for
the working poor.
"And that's just the beginning,'' she said.
"The
average starting wage is now $6.75, and we've already got people in first and
second promotions. I don't see any other way to get people out of poverty in
Wisconsin.''
A long way to go
Nevertheless, as critics predicted, most of the
problems with W-2 persist in Stewart's back yard.
While many women in rural Wisconsin and in cities with
vibrant economies quickly found jobs under W-2, welfare recipients in Milwaukee
struggled.
Today, 75 percent of the remaining W-2 participants
receiving cash assistance are in Milwaukee County. The majority are black.
That has prompted criticism as community leaders try
to find jobs for W-2 women in the county. Eighty percent don't have a high
school diploma. Many have drug or alcohol problems. Some lack transportation to
get to and from work.
And in other communities, the challenge is to help new
workers stay in the work force and lift themselves out of poverty.
Stewart said she and the governor will be announcing
changes in W-2 to improve education and child-care benefits under the welfare
program.
Milwaukee is better off with Linda Stewart on the job,
said Henry Clay, chief operating officer of one of the six agencies running W-2
in Milwaukee.
"She's the most accessible, caring secretary I have ever seen.
She listens, she cares passionately. We may not always agree, but Milwaukee
will always get a fair hearing.''
Thompson also is adamant in defense of Stewart.
"I spend more time traveling around the state with
Linda Stewart than any other cabinet secretary,'' the governor said.
"She's
doing an excellent job. I listen to her and take her advice very seriously.''
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