Highlights from the Common Council and the School Board: January 14th, 2023 Edition

Common council debates canceling medical debt, schools described by board member as "hallway Hunger Games," and is LSD the answer to intra-school board conflict?

I. Debt Jubilee

My understanding of debt collection is that some company sends you a bill and you don’t pay it. They send you more bills, and you don’t pay them either. They send you some scary sounding letters, and you ignore those too.

Eventually the original business asks if anyone else wants in on this, and they sell the debt for a discount to someone who thinks they’ll have better luck collecting it. If the business is owed, say, $1,000, and the person buying the right to collect that debt is 100% sure they can get it, then they should be willing to pay $1,000 minus the cost of a stamp and a bill and minus a little more for profit to make the effort worthwhile. If they’re less than 100% sure they can collect that debt—maybe they think the debtor’s home address is inaccurate or his cell phone has been disconnected—they might only be willing to pay $500 or $100 for it. If they’re really not sure—maybe the debt is 7 years outstanding and the person was 80 and could very well be dead by now—they might only be willing to pay $10 for it. And they hope that on average, they can squeeze more from the debtors than they paid for the debt.

Or maybe they run a charity called RIP Medical Debt and don’t care about any of these considerations at all.

On January 10th, Ald. Andrew Meindl, Milwaukee County Supervisor Shawn Rolland, and representatives from RIP Medical Debt—a nonprofit charity established in 2014 that has already “acquired and abolished $7.4 billion in medical debt for over 4.3 million families”—requested that the Financial Affairs committee donate approximately $5,000 to the organization who will use it to buy the outstanding medical debt of lower-income¹ Wauwatosans from local hospitals and medical providers and cancel it for them. Ald. Meindl said:

Seventeen percent of households, and a quarter of households of color in Milwaukee county, are in medical debt collections. Far above the national average. Medical illness and the associated debt in many cases is not some personal failing of the individual. Medical debt straps families and prevents dollars from circulating in our communities and small businesses.

There were lots of other claims, like that medical debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy. And that bad credit (from unpaid debt) prevents people from taking out more debt (like mortgages). And that medical debt is associated with worse health and therefore we should get rid of the medical debt so people are healthier.

This last one struck me as a strange claim—like saying lung cancer is associated with smoking so if we cure lung cancer people will stop buying cigarettes. I realize there is a channel whereby more debt makes you stressed and more likely to get sick or something, but this does not seem like it should be the main explanation for why medical debt and poor health seem to go together.

Nevertheless, it seems like a good program and most members of the Financial Affairs committee agreed. However, Ald. Arney wanted to make sure that it was very clear that this debt relief was not coming from the city and that people should not call City Hall to ask why their medical debt wasn’t being canceled. Mayor McBride said that while he’s supportive of the effort and of a token donation by the city to get the program off the ground, he “would strongly disagree with it if it were viewed in any way shape or form as a City of Wauwatosa program.” I mean, we get enough calls already:

Today for example—I get these things every once in a while—’My mail isn’t getting delivered, and I know you’re not the postal service, but you’ve got to do something to help me with my mail.’ We don’t want those kinds of issues.

Ald. Moldenhauer also thought it was a good program, but didn’t think this fell within the city’s strategic plan, didn’t like the non-profit’s 15% fee, thought the city should just do what it’s always done and continue contributing money to the Lutheran Manor Foundation who already help residents pay their medical bills², and also shouldn’t somebody else be dealing with this problem?

When I look at this one slide, and I see U.S. medical debt is 195 billion dollars. I mean, frankly—I’m not to get into a separate discussion—but our federal government spent money hand over first. They could really make an impact on medical debt with some of their expenditures.

Ald. Phillips said that all non-profits have overhead and administrative expenses and that 15% isn’t unusual. Ald. Meindl said it’s even common to see 30%. He started to say something else but I guess we’ll never get to know what it was.

[Ald. Meindl]: I don’t know how that works in other organizations, but what we’ve been provided, that falls within—

[Ald. Moldenhauer, cutting him off]: It’s a fee. I mean, okay? You have expenses and expenses need to be taken care of. It’s a fee. Let’s not—please.

All told, Ald. Moldenhauer was the lone dissenter, and the Financial Affairs committee recommended a payment of $5,081 to RIP Medical Debt for medical debt relief of Wauwatosa residents and authorized the city’s communication department to promote the program by a vote of 5-1.

II. Hallway Hunger Games

One way to think about policing is not that the police are there to enforce the law or make arrests but that their real role is to handle the situation. Police work in an apprehensive and uncertain environment. They do not merely enforce laws but uphold norms, maintain order, and defuse situations. They are asked to deal with a wide range of circumstance that they cannot entirely predict and for which there are not and cannot be universally prescribed procedures. As a result they require, and historically have been given, wide discretion in their response. And in any particular interaction there is likely to be some disagreement about whether that response was fair, equitable, or just.

Given these inevitable disagreements, some would choose to reduce this discretion. To place more constraints on the officer through increasingly explicit policies and procedures and subject them to more frequent review and oversight. But this has many drawbacks, one prominent one being that people often prefer discretion, especially when they feel it might benefit them or the people they care about. They want less slavish adherence to process and more understanding, less emphasis on arrest quotas and other objective metrics and more “positive interactions” and improved “community relations.”

These inclinations to either—what James Q. Wilson calls in his 1968 book Varieties of Police Behavior—“bureaucratize” or “professionalize” reflect opposing values that are in constant tension. Despite being published over 50 years ago, I’m not sure these tensions have subsided.

On January 9th, during a discussion in which board member Mike Meier described “credible whistleblower reports” of administrators being encouraged not to expel students and a school environment that he described as “hallway Hunger Games with students running around, people prepared to film things, and other students being attacked,” the school board was also presented with a nearly-final draft of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Wauwatosa Police Department and the Wauwatosa School District outlining the roles, training, structure, and funding of School Resource Officers (SROs). I wrote about this previously when it was discussed by the policy committee in November.

On the one hand, board member Jessica Willis, Police Chief James MacGillis, and Director of Pupil and Family Support Luke Pinion stressed the “qualitative” rather than “quantitative” nature of evaluation, noting that they wanted to encourage “proactive work” like “building relationships” and “positive interactions with students.” Chief MacGillis said:

How do you measure success, right? Is it by a number of arrests? I don't think so. Is it by number of citations? I don't think so. Is it positive interactions? It's more that qualitative piece that takes a lot more time and analysis.

On the other hand, board member Jenny Hoag really, really dislikes the fact that the MOU says, in the event an SRO needs to question a student, that parents will not be notified until after that questioning has concluded:

I don't think that's student-centered, and I recognize though that we're going to kind of butt up against what's most important, or the kind of the lens that we each see this program.

So in light of that I'm wondering if there's an opportunity here for maybe some negotiation or some fine-tuning of language because right now it just says we will interview a student and then we'll contact the parent after the interview's over. I wonder if we would be able to put an age minimum where a parent would be notified beforehand.

I'm thinking about our elementary age students who—a nine-year-old isn't going to understand things like due process rights and that what you say could be used against you, things like that. […] The the trauma that a young student could feel in a room being questioned by a police officer, I think that could be very scary.

Chief MacGillis said it would be difficult to codify because age only loosely predicts how well an individual kid will understand something. Any given 18 year old might be less aware than any given 12 year old.

“As much as I'd like to meet in the middle on this, it has to be left in the discretion and the determination of the officer. Can that juvenile process [what’s going on]? Did they understand? If they don't and we've got to stop, we've got to think about […] that next step.”

Board member Leigh Anne Fraley asked if instead of an age requirement there could be a requirement to have an administrator sit in on the interview, to which Chief MacGillis replied, “It’s up to the officer’s discretion” because if they’re “interviewing that person for the purpose of a criminal investigation, they shouldn't be there. Now they’re going to be subject to testimony. It could sway the investigation.”

As a last ditch effort, Ms. Hoag then suggests that maybe the language in the MOU could be “softened” to note that it is up to the discretion of the officer.

To which Chief MacGillis responds noncommittally that “we can go back to the drawing board a little bit and re-evaluate to see what that language looks like.”

The final MOU will be placed on the agenda for the board’s approval on January 23rd.

III. Maybe you just need to free your mind

I previously wrote about efforts by the school board as well as outside interest groups to make board meetings shorter and more efficient. Some of these suggestions involved shortening or limiting opportunities for public comment. At a recent in-service meeting where a facilitator led a few team building exercises, board member Sharon Muehlfeld said she didn’t believe excessive public comment was really the problem. Nevertheless, the board did reiterate its policy that in general, a given proposal would first be presented to the board for discussion and without public comment. The same item would re-appear at the next board meeting and public comment would be allowed prior to the board’s vote. At one point, Superintendent Demond Means says that this policy has been in place at least since he’s been hired. “There has been no change to how you’ve proceeded as a board.”

Board member Mike Meier took issue with this characterization of board procedure (video here):

[Mr. Mike Meier]: Can I make a statement? She [Board member Leigh Anne Fraley] got to, so I ought to be able to as well, right? Can I speak?

[Board President Eric Jessup-Anger]: Are you okay, Mr. Meier?

[Mr. Meier]: Yeah, I'm fine. *[raises voice]* Are you okay?

[Mr. Jessup-Anger]: I just wanted to check in.

[Mr. Meier]: Yeah, so your attitude I don't appreciate Dr. Jessup-Anger. The idea that this is an old thing that we've done to not accept public comments on every item at every meeting is misinformation at best. For 16 years on this board, prior to a couple of years ago, we accepted public comments on every item, always. Including first readings. So to say that this is an old process and we're not changing anything—well, from the past year and a half that's true—but to say that this is an old process and it's been going on for 20 years is not true.

So the thing with this school board is that this culture in this room is really good at giving the public half-truths. So, no, Dr. Jessup-Anger, I am not okay with that. Thank you.

[Mr. Jessup-Anger]: So, I want to reiterate this process has been in place for I'm not sure how long but there has been no recent change to that, certainly during this term of the board. [Continues on to say that members of the public are also able to email the board with their questions and concerns.]

[Board member Jenny Hoag]: I'm really offended Mr. Meier that you would suggest that what happens here is half truths. I think that violates our bylaws as far as being respectable and professional in this room, and I for one have had enough of your disrespectful disruptive behavior.

[Mr. Meier]: Well, Dr. Hoag—

[Mr. Jessup-Anger]: I did not recognize you.

[Mr. Meier, ignoring him]: It’s true that it is a half truth, and if you're bothered by that then maybe you should fix it.

In reality, Mr. Means never said anything about the policy being in place for 20 years. What he said was “it's my understanding that your process—even prior to my arrival in the Wauwatosa school district—is that the first reading of any presentation is a presentation only and there are no public comments.” And I think it was relatively clear, based on the context of the discussion, that he meant that this wasn’t a new change that was just now being proposed and implemented.

Mr. Meier has been around a while and, according to him, he’s been burned more than a few times. He also clearly feels that there are concerning trends in the board’s behavior that he needs to push back against. But it also doesn’t mean that everything they do is evidence of that fact.

One theory about human judgment describes experience as a combination of the raw sensory stimulus itself and a certain amount of context or expectation supplied by the brain. We have some expectation about what we are going to see or experience, and this colors (sometimes literally) how we will perceive it. Usually, however, if our expectations are at odds with our actual experiences, those expectations will adjust. You might expect to dislike parties after a particularly bad experience, but after going to many that you enjoy, you begin to anticipate enjoying them more in the future.

However, sometimes experiences are so negative and our relationships become so acrimonious, that this becomes impossible. It’s not that disconfirming evidence running counter to our expectations is ignored, and it’s not that people are irrational or willfully blind. It’s that prior expectations are so strong that almost anything that happens is actually interpreted as support for that expectation. My favorite blogging psychiatrist uses this idea to explain the “bitch eating crackers syndrome”:

The idea is - you're in an abusive or otherwise terrible relationship. Your partner has given you ample reason to hate them. But now you don't just hate them when they abuse you. Now even something as seemingly innocent as seeing them eating crackers makes you actively angry. In theory, an interaction with your partner where they just eat crackers and don't bother you in any way ought to produce some habituation, be a tiny piece of evidence that they're not always that bad. In reality, it will just make you hate them worse. At this point, your prior on them being bad is so high that every single interaction, regardless of how it goes, will make you hate them more. Your prior that they're bad has become trapped. And it colors every aspect of your interaction with them, so that even interactions which out-of-context are perfectly innocuous feel nightmarish from the inside.

Logically, this seems like a difficult thing to extricate yourself from. If all experiences are interpreted as evidence in support of your already formed conclusions, what hope is there that you’ll ever change your mind? He suggests maybe the same types of therapies used for PTSD or overcoming debilitating phobias. He also suggests psychedelics might be useful, because one explanation for the hallucinations people experience while taking them is that they are caused by a reduction in the relative weight of prior experiences, and so maybe taking them would allow the brain to get out of its trap and update on all the evidence it’s been receiving.

I don’t know. If the facilitated team building sessions don’t help everyone get along, maybe an LSD retreat is the answer. They could all do it together.

1. Although not exclusively low-income. One requirement, among others, for relief is that the person make less than 400% of the federal poverty level, or about $100,000 for a family of four.

2. 1/14/23: An individual emailed the following clarification to Ald. Moldenhauer’s statement: “The city of Wauwatosa does not provide funding to the Luther Manor Foundation for resident support. Luther Manor (not the foundation) is often a recipient of Community Development Block Grants. These grants are Federal monies that local municipalities distribute and administer. Luther Manor uses these grants for capital improvements in the health care center (skilled nursing), which serves a number of low income people.  The Luther Manor Foundation raises private money to support residents in financial need.”