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Promoting language accessibility and social connections with Spanish-speaking residents

Ada Inman — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 21:11:05 +0000

This project aims to improve access to resources and build stronger connections within Waupaca’s Latino community by addressing language barriers and building social connections. Since 2000, almost 100,000 Latino immigrants have made Wisconsin their home. Waupaca County has experienced significant growth in its Latino population, contributing to the community’s diversity and vitality. Despite this growth, [...]

Strengthening city services for a growing Spanish-speaking population in Waupaca

Ada Inman — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 21:07:34 +0000

As Waupaca’s demographic landscape shifts, the city faces greater challenges in providing equitable access to essential services for its Spanish-speaking and multilingual communities. As of the 2023-2024 school year, there are a total of 70 immigrant students, which accounts for a sharp increase from the only 4 immigrants three years prior. The increase in these families highlights the need for improved communication, resource coordination, and culturally responsive initiatives to better serve the engagement of the community-at-large.

Currently, language barriers hinder many residents from fully utilizing city services, schools, and community resources. These disparities can be witnessed in domains such as healthcare, education, and overall economic development. This policy brief builds upon the insights gathered from key stakeholders, including
school district officials, local business owners, and community members, to identify the strengths, challenges, and areas for improvement across the community of Waupaca. The initial drive of this project was to specifically explore opportunities to improve English-Spanish partnership, but through interviews and exploration of a School District grant, it revealed that there was a variety of national origins from the new community members. This requires an individualistic approach to broadly improve overall communication and engagement efforts, while simultaneously targeting key community leadership to garner trust within the City of Waupaca.

Key considerations that shaped these proposals include funding limitations, adjustments to existing workflows, and the spectrum of meaningful interactions and engagement among new community members.

Contact: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu

Exploring creation of an IT services consortium for shared IT management services

Ada Inman — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 19:38:29 +0000

This financial analysis will examine the feasibility of creating a shared IT consortium among municipalities in and around Dane County. We are aiming to explore opportunities for collaboration that will reduce IT costs, increase efficiency, and improve service quality for local governments. Local municipalities want to modernize their IT infrastructure while working under tight budgets and limited resources. This project investigates whether a consortium can provide
a solution to these high costs and deficient IT services.

Our analysis found that many municipalities operate with inconsistent IT capabilities and varying levels of support. There is a large overlap in services and software used across communities, which opens up opportunities to consolidate. A shared IT service provider would allow municipalities to benefit from reduced costs through economies of scale, enhanced cybersecurity from a stronger provider, and 24/7 assistance with IT issues. Our recommendation is a phased rollout of a shared IT consortium, beginning with a shared service desk and IT support to allow municipalities to benefit from fast assistance and to build
trust early on. We recommend that municipalities collaborate to share software and infrastructure they are comfortable with in order to reduce costs. We also recommend setting up a unified governance structure to create accountability and fairness for all municipalities involved.

This report will include insights from stakeholder interviews and assessments, feasibility of shared service implementation, and case studies from successful consortiums. It will also outline a governance model, provider recommendation, and a cost-sharing model. Finally, we will evaluate political risks and funding opportunities for the consortium. All of this will be outlined in a rollout roadmap structuring immediate, short-term, and long-term implementation phases, culminating in our clear recommendation: the municipalities should move forward with forming a shared IT consortium.

Contact: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu

This report was completed by Badger Consulting, a student-run group on campus.

Developing an AI policy for Iowa County employees

Ada Inman — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 16:00:50 +0000

As the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes more widespread across all sectors, including local government, Iowa County sought to develop policy guidance for its employees. This report includes a Generative AI Use Policy and a User Guide to empower county employees to utilize Generative AI in ways that safeguard data privacy, security, and accuracy. [...]

Researching barriers to shared services among Wisconsin counties

Ada Inman — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 21:48:31 +0000

There are a variety of legal barriers and ambiguities impacting Wisconsin counties’ ability to share services. This report explores common barriers to shared services identified by Wisconsin county officials and experts, recommends solutions, and highlights examples of successful collaboration happening throughout the state. Contact: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu [...]

Exploring highway equipment shared services in Iowa County

Ada Inman — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 21:46:03 +0000

Badger Consulting students conducted a financial analysis to assess the best options for Iowa County to share highway equipment and services with other nearby county governments. The recommendations provided are informed by the financial analysis as well as robust stakeholder engagement with surrounding counties. Contact: UniverCity Alliance [...]

Exploring sustainability best practices for the Village of DeForest

Ada Inman — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 21:35:41 +0000

Two UniverCity Alliance Scholars developed and distributed a community survey to gain feedback from residents on their priorities for environmental sustainability. This input informed the final report, which recommends actions and potential funding sources to support environemntal sustainability initiatives related to energy, waste, wetland protection, and flood and climate resilience. Contact: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu [...]

Balboa Park Master Plan Analysis Florida Canyon, Zoo Parking Lot, Arizona Landfill, Morley Field, and Inspiration Point

Ada Inman — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 21:14:22 +0000

The primary goals of this project were to review and assess the implementation of the 1989 Balboa Park Master Plan and provide recommendations for future plan updates. In the first chapter of this report, we discuss previous planning efforts, including the 1989 Balboa Park Master Plan, City of San Diego General Plan, and the 2021 Parks Master Plan. The remaining chapters are split into three Balboa Park sub-areas: Zoo Parking Lot and Florida Canyon, Inspiration Point, and Morley Field and Arizona Landfill. Each of these chapters starts with a discussion of existing conditions for the corresponding sub-area by assessing if related policies from the 1989 Balboa Park Master Plan were implemented. Generally, we found that many of the more ambitious plans, including a trolley through Balboa Park and pedestrian bridges, have yet to be implemented. Next, each sub-area chapter details the design and implementation of a pilot survey in order to better understand community input on Balboa Park. While these surveys had very small sample sizes, they provided preliminary results on improvements that park users would like to see, mostly in the categories of transportation and recreation. Lastly, each chapter provides recommendations for the future of their sub-area. These recommendations are listed in the form of elements, goals, objectives, and policies, following the organization of the General Plan Guidelines from the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. Themes throughout these recommendations echo the ideals of the 1989 Balboa Park Master Plan, including providing a more connected transportation system for pedestrians and cyclists and improving recreation options. Lastly, the report concludes with a discussion of suggested next steps for a full update of the sub-area plans.

Encouraging youth involvement in local government

Ada Inman — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 19:15:18 +0000

To better understand how to engage youth in local government, this report considers potential barriers, opportunities, and models for youth participation in local governance. UniverCity Contact Info: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu [...]

Becoming a more pedestrian-friendy city: Wausau, Wisconsin

Ada Inman — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 17:48:04 +0000

The goal of this study is to assess how pedestrian-friendly Wausau’s current infrastructure is and identify areas where improvements can be made to
increase accessibility and safety. By identifying where accessibility gaps exist, the City of Wausau can better plan for future pedestrian infrastructure
projects.

To identify sidewalk accessibility gaps and problem intersections and crosswalks within Wausau, a survey was conducted to collect community
input on where pedestrian accessibility gaps currently exist in Wausau and identify potential intersections and areas of interest.

UniverCity Contact Info: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu