An unexpected shutdown perk

Federal AmeriCorps workers, who have been helping out in Ozaukee County parks  in recent weeks, can check out anytime they like, the saying goes, but they can never leave, at least not until the middle of December, thanks to the federal government shutdown.

The workers arrived in late September and were scheduled to have moved on to another project by now, but with the shutdown “there’s no way to transfer them,” Ozaukee County Planning and Parks Director told county supervisors on the Natural Resources Committee last week.

That’s quite the turnaround from this past spring when the Trump administration froze federal spending, putting on hold many of Struck’s department projects.

But now he has the AmeriCorps team of about a dozen people here for another six weeks, he said Tuesday.

“I just got a call yesterday from AmeriCorps’ national office,” Struck said in an email. “Our AmeriCorps team will remain placed with us for the duration of their term which ends on Dec. 14.  So, they will continue to work with us over the next month on various projects.”

Struck told supervisors he was scrambling to find work for them, especially inside work for when the winter weather turns and if the ground freezes.

“We think we have a plan. We’re pleased and it’s working out great. They’ll work on projects we’ve had trouble getting to. We’re frantically working to keep them busy,” he said.

That includes putting up snow fencing in the parks, constructing a split rail fence at Oakland Green Park in Port Washington, planting trees at Covered Bridge Park in Cedarburg and other locations and developing a wetlands at Virmond Park in Mequon.

“They’re able to complete some work we didn’t think we could get to until spring,” Struck said.

The team is being housed at the H.H. Peters Youth Camp on the grounds of Hawthorne Hills County Park in the Town of Fredonia.

“Our costs will go up a little because we’ll have to continue housing and feeding them,” Struck said.

The federal funding freeze in spring prevented AmeriCorps from sending workers to the county, but that freeze was lifted in June when a judge blocked the Trump administration from defunding AmeriCorps, which provides services across Wisconsin.

The Ozaukee County Planning and Parks Department has routinely used volunteers from AmeriCorps in past years to remove invasive plant species, plant trees and perform a myriad of other tasks.

AmeriCorps workers were scheduled to plant tens of thousands of trees at Clay Bluffs Cedar Gorge Nature Preserve in the City of Port Washington, but those plans were put on hold in April when the administration paused funding to allow the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to look at reducing the size of government programs.

Pausing the funding put in doubt the time table for the work, potentially delaying development of the preserve for another year, Struck said at the time.

Since April, however, Struck was able to use volunteers and county staff to try and keep up with the tree-planting schedule. He also used workers from WisCorps, a state-based version of AmeriCorps that also had its federal funding cut by DOGE.

But WisCorps also charges a fee from its customers, including Ozaukee County, allowing it to continue to send out workers, although in smaller numbers and to fewer jobs.

It just so happens that as AmeriCorps workers’ stay is lengthened, two WisCorps teams will arrive, giving the county three teams to work in the parks.

The WisCorps teams, which each number about five people, will be housed in the Hawthorne Hills multipurpose building.

AmeriCorps was created in the mid-1990s under the Clinton administration and focuses on disaster relief, aid to veterans, environmental services and education.