Brian Dake

Seventy-seven percent of Wisconsin small business owners are supportive of a retirement savings program that would help employees save for retirement at their jobs, according to a new poll released by AARP today. Nearly half of small business owners expressed concern about their employees having enough money saved for retirement.

“Wisconsinites are working as hard as ever, but many do not have a way to save for retirement out of their regular paycheck,” said Lisa Lamkins, Advocacy Director at AARP Wisconsin. “The results of this survey show that small business owners agree legislators should support a Wisconsin retirement savings option to help make businesses in the Badger state more competitive and to give more Wisconsin residents an easy way to save for their retirement.”
Among the survey’s other key findings:

• 70 percent of small business owners think that more should be done to encourage Wisconsin residents to save for retirement.

• 80 percent agree that retirement savings options help small businesses attract employees and stay competitive.

• 85 percent of respondents agree Wisconsin lawmakers should support a Wisconsin retirement savings option.

For more findings from the AARP poll, visit www.aarp.org/WIsmallbizsavings.

With the 2020 U.S. census only a few months away, government officials are rallying together to encourage Wisconsinites to fill out the proper paperwork. The deadline to respond to the U.S. Census Bureau’s survey is April 1.

Gov. Tony Evers joined Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Rep. David Crowley, D-Milwaukee, and U.S. Census Bureau regional director Marilyn Sanders on Monday at Journey House in Milwaukee to begin working on counting as many Milwaukee households as possible.

“At the end of the day the census is not just a head count,” Evers said. “It’s about visibility, voice and values.”

According to Evers, in 2010, Wisconsin had one of the highest census participation rates in the country. During Monday’s press conference, Evers signed an executive order creating Wisconsin’s Complete Count Committee to help make sure every Wisconsin resident is counted next year.

The Wisconsin Complete Count Committee will work to educate residents on the importance of the census and help reach hard-to-count communities such as low-income residents, people with disabilities, communities of color, communities with children under age 5, as well as reaching out to the department of corrections and parole officers.

The committee will also recommend and coordinate specific roles for state agencies to ensure an accurate and complete count in the 2020 census. The committee with also coordinate efforts and resources through the U.S. Census Bureau and other local complete count committees.

An accurate count of residents ensures continued federal support and fair elections in the future. Census data also impacts how much federal funding states get for education, Medicare, food stamps and transportation.

Property-tax rates have decreased in Wisconsin for a fifth straight year in 2019 following strong growth in property values coupled with modest increases in local property-tax levies.

These findings come from the Wisconsin Policy Forum’s new 2019 Property Values and Taxes Data Tool. This system provides data for all of Wisconsin’s 72 counties and 1,852 cities, villages and towns, most of it culled from the state Department of Revenue. It’s the latest in a series of databases from the Forum meant to provide Wisconsinites with facts about their state’s economy, schools and local governments.

The state saw its equalized property values grow by 5.7% in 2019. Meanwhile, gross property-tax levies for the 2019 tax year increased by 1.7% statewide. Because the growth in values exceeded the growth in levies, the statewide gross property-tax rate declined by 2.7% from $20.94 per $1,000 of value to $20.38.

In the seven counties in southeast Wisconsin — Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Walworth, Waukesha and Washington — the region’s equalized property values increased by 5.6%, the largest annual increase in the past decade. Property-tax-levy collections increased by 0.9% for southeast Wisconsin, which was similar to the rate of growth seen in each of the past two years. As a result, the region’s tax rate declined for the fifth straight year, by 3.6%, reaching its lowest level since 2010.

Property values in Dane County increased by 7.6% in 2019, while the aggregate property-tax levy in the county increased by 2.7%. As a result, the aggregate property-tax rate there decreased by 3.9%.

Wisconsin Republicans are pursuing changes in state law to ban labeling food as meat, milk or dairy if they don’t contain those products.

A state Senate committee held a hearing Thursday on the proposals that bill sponsors argue is needed to protect Wisconsin’s agriculture and dairy industries from what they argue is misleading food labeling. Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has pursued similar legislation at the federal level.

One bill would ban labeling a beverage as milk unless it comes from cows, goats and certain other animals. Another would prohibit selling a product as cream, yogurt or cheese unless it included dairy.

Those would only take effect if 10 other Midwest states approve similar bans by 2031.

A third would ban labeling or selling a product as meat, bacon or similar term unless it included the flesh of an animal. Eleven other states already have such a ban.

Governor Tony Evers announced 20 appointments to serve on the Task Force
on Retirement Security. The task force was created through Executive Order #45 and is tasked with addressing the growing crisis of retirement security in the state of Wisconsin. State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski will serve as the chair of the task force.

“After years of hard work, Wisconsinites deserve the opportunity to have financial security when it comes time to retire,” Treasurer Godlewski said. “Our work will be informed by the stories I’ve heard traveling around the state on the barriers people face when saving for retirement. I look forward to leading this task force in developing pragmatic solutions that will not only help hardworking Wisconsinites, but also our economy.”

Members of the Governor’s Task Force on Retirement Security will include:

• Wisconsin State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, Chair

• Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm

• Department of Workforce Development Designee Pam McGillivray

• Office of the Governor, Kara Pennoyer, Deputy Chief of Staff

• State Senators Janis Ringhand & Kathy Bernier

• State Representative Evan Goyke & Cindi Duchow

• Michael Williamson, State of Wisconsin Investment Board

• Sara Chandler, State of Wisconsin Investment Board

• Michael Lauer, Service Employees International Union

• J. Michael Collins, UW-Madison Center for Financial Security

• Jennifer Wickman, Cooperative Network

• Lisa Lamkins, AARP Wisconsin

• Ron “Duff” Martin, Wisconsin Education Association Council

• Maiyoua Thao, City of Appleton Alderperson

• Guadalupe “Wally” Rendon, Educators Credit Union

• Brenda Gebhardt, Gebhardt Financial

• Dr. Eve Hall, Milwaukee Urban League

• Jim Blank, United Northeast Educations

The first meeting of the Governor’s Task Force on Retirement Security is scheduled for October 25.

Wisconsin workers without employer-funded family medical leave would be able to buy in to a state-run insurance program under a proposal reintroduced Tuesday by Democratic state lawmakers.

Under the plan, participating employees would pay income-based premiums to support the program and be eligible to receive paid leave under certain circumstances, including to care for a newborn child, adopted child or sick family member.  Premiums would be deducted from employees’ paychecks. There would be no cost to their employers.

The proposal would also expand the state’s current family medical leave law to allow individuals to take leave for more family members, including grandparents and siblings.

The measure, sponsored in the Assembly by Rep. Sondy Pope, D-Cross Plains, has been introduced twice previously. It has never received support from Republican lawmakers, who currently control both the state Assembly and Senate.

Opponents to similar plans in other states have expressed concerns with administrative costs for the state, as well as the effect of employee leave on businesses.

This month, President Donald Trump’s administration issued rules allowing Wisconsin and other states to test those who seek unemployment compensation if the only jobs they can do are in fields that routinely perform drug tests.

The state Department of Workforce Development oversees unemployment insurance in Wisconsin and will be responsible for the drug testing program.

Department spokesman Ben Jedd said Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration is waiting for more guidance from the federal Department of Labor before requiring drug tests.

Specifically, the Evers administration wants details on which types of applicants should have to undergo drug testing, he said.

Whether drug testing would be required for a narrow set of applicants, such as pilots, or a broad range of typical workers is unclear. Jedd offered no timeline for making that determination or starting the program.

Under the state’s plan, those who failed a drug test would have a chance to get state-funded drug rehabilitation. If they participated in rehab, they would receive their unemployment benefits. If they did not, they would lose their benefits. The state has budgeted $250,000 a year for drug testing and providing rehab.

A beginning teacher’s salary in Wisconsin averaged $38,181 for the 2017-2018 school year, the 25th highest rank among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to data analyzed by the National Education Association (NEA).

Nationwide, the average starting teacher’s salary last year stood at $39,249, the NEA reported. In inflation-adjusted dollars, starting teachers’ pay has dipped 2.9 percent over the past decade, according to the analysis.

In addition, more than six out of every 10 school districts nationwide offer starting teacher salaries that are under $40,000, the NEA said. And first-year teachers in 300 public school districts receive annual pay of below $30,000, according to the study.