Forum announces Salute to Local Government award winners

MILWAUKEE AND MADISON – The Wisconsin Policy Forum is proud to announce the 2025 Salute to Local Government award winners, as we recognize the best of our state’s public-sector agencies and workers. The 33rd Annual Salute will celebrate the benefits that their ingenuity and excellence deliver to taxpayers and communities throughout Wisconsin.

Award categories recognize local governments and school districts for innovative problem-solving, public-private cooperation, and advancing racial equity, as well as individuals in the public sector for demonstrating excellence, leadership at a young age, and lifetime achievement.

An additional award category, in partnership with UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs, recognizes innovative performance in state government. Eligibility for Salute awards is for accomplishments or individual performance from our last nomination deadline until the present.

“The Salute to Local Government brings people together from across Wisconsin to celebrate the good work happening in their communities and try to extend those best practices to others around our state,” Forum President Jason Stein said.

This year’s Salute will be held Nov. 19 at the Italian Community Center in Milwaukee. Click here to learn more about the event and how to participate. This year’s award recipients are:

Innovative Approach to Problem-Solving

City of Milwaukee & Employ Milwaukee
Camp RISE

Camp RISE is a transformative summer program for youth ages 10 to 13 designed to confront Milwaukee’s youth disconnection crisis. Launched by Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, Employ Milwaukee, and Milwaukee Public Schools in 2022, it blends paid career exploration with community enrichment, mental health supports, and workforce readiness in a camp-style setting. A number of Camp RISE graduates have gone on to participate in city summer employment programs, and surveys of campers and parents and guardians report that campers learned employment and social skills, as well as improved their self-esteem.

La Follette/Gladfelter Award for Innovation in State Government

Secretary Dan Hereth, Deputy Secretary Jennifer Garrett, and Assistant Deputy Secretary Niko Ruud
Department of Safety and Professional Services

With its new Digital Wallet Card, Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) made our state the first in the nation to implement digital credentials for licensed professionals across occupations. DSPS administers more than 240 licenses for professions ranging from doctors and nurses to realtors and electricians. With the Digital Wallet Card, license holders can log into their account by phone and download a copy of their credential to their Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. Benefits include license holders now being able to carry proof of licensure on their phone, and citizens being able to easily confirm professionals are properly licensed. DSPS has received positive feedback and has seen increasing downloads since the January launch, and it expects this growth to continue next year. (Note: This award typically comes with a $2,500 cash prize, but the DSPS employees have declined it.)

Effort to Advance Racial Equity

Forest County Potawatomi
Bodwéwadmi Ktëgan Tribal Farm Operations and Public Programs

The Bodwéwadmi Ktëgan, or Forest County Potawatomi Farm, provides a healthy, sustainable source of food for tribal members and the public, while upholding tribal food sovereignty and the cultural identity and understanding of animals. The farm includes maple syrup harvesting, management of a large bison herd, and an aquaponic agricultural production facility. It also offers paid summer internships for youth that provide hands-on farming experience. In operating these and other programs, Bodwéwadmi Ktëgan has countered historic and systemic inequities.

Intergovernmental Cooperation

Ashland and Bayfield Counties
Two-County Consolidated Emergency Dispatch

Facing staffing challenges and the duty to serve two counties with a combined area of more than 2,500 square miles, Ashland and Bayfield counties collaborated to create the Ashland/Bayfield County Emergency Communications Center (ECC). After years of discussion, study, and the approval of both county boards, this joint emergency dispatch center went live in December 2024. It enabled both counties to meet efficiency goals, reduce response times and best utilize staffing. In addition, the counties were able to increase emergency services while maintaining expenditures at pre-consolidation levels. The ECC demonstrates how two counties can work together to improve public safety through thoughtful planning and teamwork.

David G. Meissner Award for Public-Private Cooperation

City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity
Homeownership Partnership

The city of Milwaukee has a longstanding partnership with Habitat for Humanity to help Milwaukeeans achieve homeownership. In recent years, the partners have taken on a number of innovative strategies that have deepened the impact of this effort. These include initiatives to build homes on vacant lots formerly owned by the city, rehabilitate severely distressed properties, help existing homeowners with critical home repairs, and make innovative use of tax increment financing (TIF). These efforts have formed a critical piece of efforts to combat Milwaukee’s housing affordability crisis and its well-documented racial inequities in home ownership.

Jean B. Tyler Leader of the Future

Jeremy Triblett
Milwaukee County

As Prevention Coordinator of Community Access to Recovery Services at Milwaukee County’s Behavioral Health Division, Jeremy Triblett has helped the county’s efforts to counter substance abuse and overdose deaths. Through the Harm Reduction MKE initiative, he led the effort to place vending machines throughout Milwaukee County that give access to life-saving supplies such as Narcan, medication deactivation bags, and gun locks. He also oversaw the Better Ways to Cope (BWTC) initiative, a harm reduction, prevention, treatment, and recovery campaign. Triblett’s colleagues praise his enthusiasm, relationship-building skills, and credit him for significantly increased access to life-saving resources and information.

James R. Ryan Lifetime Achievement

Maureen Murphy
Village of Mount Pleasant

Maureen Murphy recently retired as administrator of the village of Mount Pleasant, after a career in local government spanning 35 years. Murphy was the village of Slinger’s first female administrator and served as county administrator for Door County, where her accomplishments included restructuring employee pay and benefits in the wake of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10. When she arrived at the Village of Mt. Pleasant, it had just landed one of the biggest economic development projects in Wisconsin, the Foxconn project, and staff turnover was high. Under Murphy’s tenure, she worked to address staffing issues while attracting additional development, including the Microsoft Complex. Murphy also was the first female administrator elected as president of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities.

Norman N. Gill Award for Individual Excellence

David Schmiedicke
City of Madison Finance Officer

As finance director of the city of Madison, and a state budget director for two Wisconsin governors prior to that, David Schmiedicke has played a key role in some of the most consequential state and local government budgets in our state over the last two decades. In the process, Schmiedicke has become widely respected at the state and national level for his extraordinary breadth of knowledge about local and state government budgeting and finances. He also has served in various national professional organizations, including on the executive committee of the National Association of State Budget Officers, and currently serves on the Executive Board of the Government Finance Officers Association.

The Forum would like to thank this year’s Salute award judges: Jennifer Abele, Sarah Diedrick-Kasdorf, Darryl Johnson, Kenneth Munson, Michelle Naples, Mark Rohloff, Isaac Rowlett, Ryan Sendelbach, Barb Sramek, and Robert Whitaker.

The 33rd Annual Salute to Local Government is sponsored by Bader Philanthropies, Baker Tilly, Community Care, Inc., the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Ehlers, the Herzfeld Foundation, Kapur & Associates, Herb Kohl Philanthropies, the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, Dave Meissner & family, Northwestern Mutual, Potawatomi Casino Hotel, Quarles, UW-Madison, Veolia, and We Energies.

Our sponsor for this year’s keynote speaker – Waukesha County Executive Paul Farrow – is Mueller Communications, and our media sponsor is Kane Communications.

The Wisconsin Policy Forum is the state’s leading source of nonpartisan, independent research on state and local public policy. As a nonprofit, our research is supported by members including hundreds of corporations, nonprofits, local governments, school districts, and individuals. Visit wispolicyforum.org to learn more.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.