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CAPiTOL EYE
Work search
The state legislature’s rules panel renews work search requirement for unemployed
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The GOP-controlled Joint Committee
for Review of Administrative Rules along party lines shot down an emergency rule suspending a work search requirement for people seeking unemployment benefits.
Dems slammed the 6-4 vote as adding complications to the Unemployment Insurance process when the state still hasn’t gotten out of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Republicans hailed the vote as an incentive for people to get back to work.
“I don’t see us as doing anything other than basically saying ‘get out there and search for opportunities,’” said Rep. John Spiros, R-Marshfield.
Department of Workforce Secretarydesignee Amy Pechacek told the committee the agency wasn’t ready to go back to implementing work search requirements as most new hires at the agency have yet to go through the proper training on how to navigate those forms.
Under normal circumstances, people seeking unemployment in the state would have to prove to DWD they’ve made at least four work searches per week to receive benefits. Pechacek said the requirement was one of the steepest in the country.
The rule would have expired July 10, which Pechacek said would’ve been enough time to bring new hires up to speed on the procedures. The vote meant the requirement was to return the last full week of May, according to legislative attorneys.
Pechacek said there’s no evidence that a lack of job search requirements has discouraged people from actively seeking a new job.
She pointed to a series of studies over the pandemic, including one conducted by the Trump administration, which she said debunked the notion that people on unemployment aren’t looking for work.
But Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, rejected Pechacek’s assessment. He said he’s heard plenty of anecdotal stories that people don’t want to return to the workforce right now.
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Evers favors police reform bills
Gov. Tony Evers says he may sign a bill that would ban police use of chokeholds even though it includes some exceptions.
Evers said he would rather sign a police chokehold ban bill sans exceptions. However, he said he would consider a bill going through the Legislature that would ban chokehold use except in life-threatening situations and in self-defense because it moves police reform in the right direction.
“But at the end of the day, the best is to ban it completely, but I’ll take a look at it when it comes in,” he said.
And he said he would also consider signing other police reform bills making their way through the Legislature because many of them have strong bipartisan support and work toward more transparency and accountability.
He added the bills look to be a step forward “and I’d consider signing them, but I want to see what comes to my desk,” Evers said.
Evers urges against cutting state jobs
Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan is raising concerns with the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee cochairs over their efforts to cut vacant state jobs, arguing those unfilled positions were meant to help save money at the outset of the pandemic and were never meant to be permanent reductions.
Brennan wrote to the co-chairs the state implemented a hiring freeze a year ago to deal with the uncertainty of the burgeoning pandemic. But the state is now on solid footing financially. In January, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau projected the state would finish the current fiscal year June 30 with a surplus of nearly $1.9 billion, though that is expected to dip with a round of tax cuts the Legislature approved and Gov. Tony Evers signed.
Brennan also said some members of the Legislature “hold less than favorable opinions of state employees” and have accused state workers of not doing their jobs because they were working from home during the pandemic.
“Eliminating positions may be a politically appealing talking point but it simply is not the right thing to do,” Brennan wrote, adding agencies have been waiting until the hiring freeze was lifted to fill many of the vacancies.
Brennan’s letter asks the lawmakers to restore positions cut during the committee’s two previous meetings and to cease future attempts to eliminate jobs impacted by the hiring freeze.
50 chambers statewide urge end of $300 federal unemployment
Fifty chambers of commerce statewide are urging lawmakers to end the $300 federal unemployment benefit, arguing it contributes to the state’s workforce shortage.
This comes on the heels of Wisconsin’s Republican congressional delegation also urging Gov. Tony Evers to end the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation.
Workforce was already the biggest challenge facing Wisconsin businesses prior to the COVID-19 downturn, the chambers wrote. And instead of a bounce back from the pandemic, the state’s economy is being held back by an “acute labor shortage” made worse by the benefits they say incentivize people to stay home.
The chambers, including Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, are asking Evers and the Legislature to instead use American Rescue Plan funds to encourage people to reenter the workforce.
“Wisconsin should join states like Idaho, Iowa, Montana, and South Carolina in ending the $300 per week federal UI supplemental,” the letter reads. “Instead, funds from the American Rescue Plan should be used to incentivize work by offering bonuses, similar to what is being done in the aforementioned states.”
The Greater Wausau Chamber of Commerce and the Mosinee Chamber of Commerce were among the fifty chambers urging for the end of the benefits.
Lobbyist fees to rise
Lobbyists would see their fees increase for the first time in more than 28 years, under a motion approved by the Legislature’s budget committee.
But the $10 increase is a fraction of what the Ethics Commission had requested to fund a deputy administrator position. The hike also wouldn’t kick in until the 2023-24 session, while the commission had asked for an additional surcharge on lobbying fees already paid for the 2021-22 session.
Lobbying principals now pay $375 a year to register and $125 per lobbyist -- fees that were last modified in 1995. The agency requested increases of $55 for each fee to fund a new deputy administrator to help process complaints and answer requests for guidance.
Instead, the committee approved a $10 increase in each fee, generating $79,700, starting in 2023-24. It also voted to provide $147,900 in general-purpose revenue to cover the cost of the new position.
The Association of Wisconsin Lobbyists had opposed the $55 fee increase the commission proposed.
