Two UWM partnerships have won 2024 Salute to Local Government awards from the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
Honored were the M³ initiative with Milwaukee Public Schools and Milwaukee Area Technical College and FlexRide Milwaukee, a UWM effort with the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and MobiliSE.
The Salute to Local Government awards celebrate the benefits that public sector ingenuity and excellence bring to taxpayers and communities throughout Wisconsin. The awards recognize local governments and school districts for innovative problem-solving, advancing racial equity, and public-private cooperation.
“At a time when partisan campaigns are fighting about the future of our politics, the Salute to Local Government is a reminder of the great things happening in the here and now,” Wisconsin Policy Forum president Jason Stein said. “The salute gives us an opportunity to set aside our differences for a day and give the state’s best public servants the thanks that they don’t always hear.”
M³ won the intergovernmental cooperation award. M³ (pronounced M-Cubed) is a collaboration among Milwaukee’s three urban public education institutions that aims to ensure student success by improving student transition between educational institutions and helping connect learning to careers.
The Wisconsin Policy Forum lauded M³ for helping 700 MPS 12th-graders earn 8,000 college credits at UWM or MATC, saving the students almost $2.6 million in tuition. Another nearly 900 MPS 11th-grade students in 2024 took advantage of M³ Milwaukee Direct Admit, which allows juniors at any MPS high school to apply for free and be accepted into MATC and UWM. Another program, Smart Start, engages MPS students interested in college during the spring and summer before college, then helps them navigate starting at Milwaukee Area Technical College or UW-Milwaukee.
“We know that we can do so much more together than any of our organizations could accomplish individually,” Mone said. “Collaboration, with each other, with businesses and foundations, and with faculty and parents, has resulted in more MPS students pursuing higher education. And we know education improves life outcomes for these students, which has a positive, cascading effect on our communities.”
FlexRide Milwaukee won the innovative approach to problem-solving award. The joint effort among UWM, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and MobiliSE created an on-demand workforce transportation service connecting residents of Milwaukee with job centers in the suburbs. The service helps solve two problems at once: lack of jobs for city residents and lack of workforce for suburban businesses.
The service provides on-demand transportation to access hundreds of job locations that exist beyond the reach of bus service. The FlexRide app works like Uber or Lyft: Users enter their pickup and drop-off locations and are given a location to meet the FlexRide vehicle. They pay by credit or debit card or by purchasing vouchers with cash.
After launch in 2022, ridership grew consistently, providing proof of concept that helped secure a $4.2 million grant from the state, a $1.3 million grant from Milwaukee County and funding from Waukesha County. Thus far, FlexRide Milwaukee has provided more than 90,000 rides to 5,000 Milwaukeeans, accessing 185 job locations.
