The 34th Annual Salute celebrates the benefits that public sector ingenuity and excellence bring to taxpayers and communities throughout Wisconsin. Award categories recognize local governments and school districts for innovative problem-solving, advancing equity, and public-private cooperation, as well as individuals in the public sector for excellence, leaders of the future, and lifetime achievement.
Eligibility for Salute awards generally is for accomplishments or individual performance from August 2025 until August 2026.
The 2026 recipients are:
Innovative Approach to Problem Solving
Intergovernmental Cooperative / Tuition Agreement: A New Home for Hustisford Students
Dodgeland and Hustisford School Districts
Having sustained a fifth consecutive referendum defeat, Hustisford school board members earlier this year took the step of asking the state to dissolve the district. Superintendent Todd Greco and other leaders at neighboring Dodgeland Schools could have chosen to distance themselves. Instead, they chose collaboration. With the help of interim Hustisford Superintendent Todd Bugnacki, they created an innovative intergovernmental tuition agreement to keep students officially enrolled in Hustisford while attending Dodgeland schools full time during the 2026-27 school year. Approximately 160 of Hustisford’s 235 students will remain together at Dodgeland during the 2026-27 school year. While the final outcome for Hustisford will be decided by a state board, the two districts have accomplished something more significant than simply relocating students: they preserved a school community.
La Follette/Gladfelter Award for Innovation in State Government
State Employee Engagement and Retention Office, Department of Administration
Samantha Swanson
As the first director of Wisconsin’s State Employee Engagement and Retention Office (SEERO), Dr. Samantha Swanson established an office dedicated to engaging and retaining the people who deliver public services. Building on existing efforts, Swanson developed SEERO’s model by connecting the dots between research, workforce insights, and practical support to turn engagement and retention priorities into action. The model fosters cross-agency collaboration through a community of practice, supports tailored strategies through an employee engagement, recognition, and retention consulting series, and provides reusable tools to help agencies interpret workforce data and act on employee feedback. Her work demonstrates how enterprise-wide coordination can strengthen agency capacity while preserving flexibility to address distinct workforce needs. Swanson has advanced engagement and retention as a shared, actionable priority supported by tools, expertise, and partnership across the enterprise.
Effort to Advance Equity
Milwaukee Lead Service Line Replacement Program
City of Milwaukee Water Works
Milwaukee Water Works (MWW) restructured its lead service line replacement program around a simple premise: whose pipes get replaced first should be determined by evidence of need, not by who calls first or who can afford to share the cost. These principles guided a December 2023 ordinance revision that created the Milwaukee Prioritization Program. This program prioritizes replacements based on neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, the incidence of elevated blood lead levels among children under six; and lead service line density within a given area. The ordinance also removed the roughly $1,600 cost-share that property owners had paid since 2017, which was one of the primary hurdles to property owners’ participation. Annual lead service line replacements nearly tripled after the redesign: from 1,128 in 2023 to 2,687 in 2024 and 3,329 in 2025. This put Milwaukee on track to replace all remaining lead service lines by or before a 2037 federal deadline.
Intergovernmental cooperation
Implement a Cost-Effective Solution for Improving Drinking Water
Marathon County, village of Athens, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and the Wisconsin Rural Water Association
The Village of Athens recognized a pattern of increasing nitrates in its municipal drinking water. Seeking to avoid buying costly nitrate-reduction technology, the village reached out to the Wisconsin DNR, which engaged Marathon County to create an innovative approach to land use management around its wellheads. This approach identified conventionally farmed agricultural fields near wellheads as a potential source of increasing nitrates. Collaboration among landowners, the village of Athens, Marathon County, the DNR, and the Wisconsin Rural Water Association led to the first-of-its-kind idea of converting conventionally farmed fields into a perennial prairie planting, as this deep-rooted vegetation has been proven to lower groundwater nitrate levels. A year later, water specialists are encouraged by initial decreased nitrate readings from Athens’ municipal wells. Nearby municipalities also are taking note and making Athens a model for groundwater protection.
David G. Meissner Award for Public-Private Cooperation
Prehospital Blood Administration Initiative
Milwaukee County
As a partnership between the Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Management (OEM), the private blood bank Versiti, and the Medical College of Wisconsin, the Prehospital Blood Administration Initiative was created to bring whole blood and blood products directly to paramedics responding to patients in urgent need. Based on historic trauma data, Milwaukee County EMS strategically placed blood coolers at sites throughout the county. The partnership also created a clinical, operational, and logistical framework that enables paramedics to safety administer whole blood in the field. In its 22 months of implementation, this effort delivered outcomes including blood being administered more than 100 times, and an increase from 15% to 78% in the percentage of eligible patients that received blood. Ultimately, this partnership has addressed a critical gap in trauma care while advancing health equity across Milwaukee County.
Jean B. Tyler Leader of the Future Award
Claire Zautke
City of Milwaukee
In his nomination letter, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said “practically no major decision I have made as Mayor has happened without (the) involvement” of his office’s Policy Director, Claire Zautke. In the wake of the state’s passage of the landmark law that enabled Milwaukee to shore up its finances, 2023 Act 12, Zautke played a key role in securing adoption of the new city sales tax that the law authorized. She stepped up again in early 2025, when the federal government froze grant disbursements without warning and placed tens of millions of dollars of Milwaukee funding at risk, by creating a comprehensive accounting of the city’s use of federal grant dollars to help the city navigate the period of uncertainty. She also plays a key role in the crafting of the mayor’s budgets and led a comprehensive redesign of Milwaukee’s public budget outreach process.
James R. Ryan Lifetime Achievement Award
Jon Bales
Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators (WASDA)
After 13 years of leadership, advocacy, and service to Wisconsin’s public school superintendents, Jon Bales stepped down as executive director of WASDA after the 2025-26 school year. His leadership contributed to a notable expansion of WASDA services and programming during this period. Bales built lasting relationships and mentored countless administrators, helping shape the next generation of educational leadership. His collaborative spirit and steady hand will be missed by colleagues, statewide leaders, and friends alike.
James R. Ryan Lifetime Achievement Award
Paul Farrow (Posthumous)
Waukesha County
Paul Farrow left a legacy of public service, most recently as Waukesha County Executive from 2015 until his death in July. Prior to that, he served as a state lawmaker and school board member. He also was proud of establishing a mentoring program in Waukesha County to develop upcoming leaders. Farrow died after a battle with cancer, which he publicly shared to raise awareness – continuing to work and appear publicly during his illness. His appearances included serving as the keynote speaker at the Forum’s 2025 Salute to Local Government. Throughout his time in public service, Farrow demonstrated an ability to bring people together to accomplish a common goal.
Norman N. Gill Award for Individual Excellence
Kenneth Barbeau
City of Milwaukee
From when he joined the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM) in 1999 until his retirement in July, Kenneth Barbeau has held many key roles. The biggest came in 2025, when Barbeau was appointed HACM Interim Secretary-Executive Director during one of the most challenging periods in the agency’s history. Federal officials had classified HACM as a “troubled” agency following a period of serious mismanagement under previous leadership. Upon assuming leadership of the agency, Barbeau led it through a comprehensive turnaround – strengthening financial oversight, improving housing operations, and recentering its mission around service and accountability. At a point in his career when he could have retired, Barbeau instead delivered on a commitment to stay with HACM until all three of its top leadership positions were filled. According to Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, “it is not an exaggeration to say that (Barbeau) saved HACM.”