Brian Dake

It appears the Wisconsin Consumer Protection Hotline phone number is being “spoofed.”

The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) has received a number of reports from consumers stating they received a call from the Consumer Protection Hotline today as our 800 number appeared on their caller ID.

The Bureau of Consumer Protection does not make phone calls to consumers using the 800 number. It is there for consumers and businesses to contact the Bureau to report a problem, file a complaint, or ask questions about consumer laws.

If we do call a consumer, the number that appears on a caller ID is our local phone number with a 608 area code. We will not call you “out of the blue” or randomly. We will only call consumers if you left a message for a return call or if you filed a complaint with us. We also identify ourselves and tell you why we are calling.

One consumer reported the message left by the caller was about the WI Do Not Call list. Others indicated there was no message, only that the 800 number appeared on their caller ID. Wisconsin consumers are not the only ones receiving these “spoofed” calls, as reports have come in from people in seven other states at this point.

Should you receive this call, don’t answer or engage the caller – just hang up.

Wisconsin’s longest serving agriculture secretary is about to call it a career. Ben Brancel, who served as the leader of the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection non-consecutively for 10 of the past 20 years, announced at the agency’s monthly board meeting on Thursday that he will retire on August 13.

“It has been my pleasure to serve as Secretary,” Brancel wrote in a letter to the board. “I have given this much thought about when is the right time to retire. I came to the conclusion that there always will be unfinished business to be done, but now is the time to return to my family’s farm full-time in Marquette County as we plan for our first ever production sale. My son and daughter-in-law are now the sixth generation to farm the land. My first job was a farmer, and my last job will be a farmer.”

Brancel, who turns 67 later this month, is a fifth-generation beef producer from Endeavor, where he raises Angus beef cattle on a 290-acre farm with help from his wife, Gail. After serving on the Marquette County board of supervisor and local school board, he was elected to serve in the State Assembly’s 42nd district in 1987. Over the following decade, he would rise through the ranks and become Assembly Speaker until 1997 when then-Governor Tommy Thompson tapped him to run the DATCP after Alan Tracy left for another job.

After being replaced by former Governor Scott McCullum in 2001, Brancel was appointed by the George W. Bush Administration to serve as the director of the Wisconsin Farm Service Agency–a post he held until early 2009. He was then hired to serve as the part-time state relations liaison for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, a position funded from donor resources.

Ben returned to DATCP under Gov. Scott Walker’s appointment in 2011; and has been a hands-on secretary who was instrumental in drafting and implementing major legislative policies ranging from non-point source pollution revisions to updating implements of husbandry standards. He also took a personal role in helping dozens of Wisconsin dairy farmers find new buyers for their milk this past April when several dairy plants were forced to abruptly drop many of their patrons. And he took part in numerous international trade missions with the goal of spurring new business relationships with customers abroad.

In a statement, Gov. Walker called Brancel a leader who served with distinction.

“His leadership and counsel on agriculture and trade issues have been invaluable to me, and I thank him for his service and dedication to the people of Wisconsin,” Walker said. “We wish Ben and his wife, Gail, all the very best as they begin this new and exciting chapter.”

The state Department of Workforce Development is seeking to boost the number of college students with internships at Wisconsin companies with a new website that’s similar to its Jobs Center of Wisconsin.

The website, www.internshipwisconsin.com, and its flagship tool, WisConnect, seeks to match employers with potential interns.

College students with an active .edu email address can create an account, upload their resume and search for opportunities by geography, major and other categories.

Employers who have created a Job Center of Wisconsin profile are able to use the same sign-in information to access the site and internships posted on the Job Center site will also be posted on WisConnect. Employers will be able to search for candidates by key skills, major and location.

The project is a partnership between the department, the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Technical College System and the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

“Employers tell us they want and need more talent, and we must do all we can to point students towards an internship or other professional experience, which can be instrumental in retaining new graduates right here in Wisconsin,” said UW System President Ray Cross.

Lawmakers allocated funding last year to create two Department of Workforce Development positions focused on coordinating efforts to boost internships with higher education institutions.

The department says three-quarters of interns who are offered a full-time position accept it and more than half of those who come on full-time stay for at least five years. The external hire five-year retention rate is 36 percent, the department says.

The budget proposal includes K-12 school proposals that have largely been negotiated with Assembly Republican leaders, including increasing the number of families eligible for a taxpayer-funded voucher to attend a private school, Fitzgerald said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pulled the plug late Monday on the Republican effort to overhaul the U.S. health insurance system and pledged the chamber will now focus on only dismantling the 2010 health care law.

“Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful,” the Kentucky Republican said.

McConnell said the Senate will now take up the House-passed health care bill and amend it with legislation the Senate supported in 2015 to repeal the 2010 health care law “with a two-year delay to provide for a stable transition period to a patient-centered health care system that gives Americans access to quality, affordable care.”

Before McConnell’s announcement on the next steps, President Donald Trump tweeted Monday night that “Republicans should just REPEAL failing ObamaCare now & work on a new Healthcare Plan that will start from a clean slate. Dems will join in!”

Democrats have made it clear they won’t support anything that would repeal the law but indicated they would discuss changes to stabilize the health insurance marketplaces.

“Rather than repeating the same failed, partisan process yet again, Republicans should start from scratch and work with Democrats on a bill that lowers premiums, provides long term stability to the markets and improves our health care system,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer in a statement issued before McConnell announced next steps.

Recently, Gov. Scott Walker  touted the savings of $637 million in unemployment taxes for businesses paying into the state’s unemployment program.

The majority of those savings, $482 million since 2013, are the result of an improving economy and roughly a quarter come from changes made to unemployment tax schedules since 2016. Walker says the state went from having the highest tax to the lowest over the last three years, resulting in $155 million in savings, including an estimated $20 million in the 2018 tax year.

Funding for the unemployment trust fund comes from roughly 140,000 covered employers in the state, meaning the savings from tax schedule changes amounted to about $1,100 per employer over three years and the improving economy savings resulted in $3,440 per employer over five years.

Walker pointed out that the state’s unemployment trust had a $1.4 billion deficit in December 2010 and was one of 30 states to use federal loans to pay benefits during the Great Recession, but now has a $1.3 billion positive fund balance as of June 30.

“With a significantly improved business climate, economic growth and smart UI system reforms, employers are adding jobs and Wisconsin workers are finding good-paying opportunities to support themselves and their families,” Walker said.

After hovering around 4.2 percent for much of 2016, the state’s unemployment rate has steadily fallen over the first five months of the year to 3.1 percent in May. Month-to-month declines in unemployment have picked up since the start of the year, averaging a drop of about 6,100 or 5.3 percent.

Employment, meanwhile, has averaged a 0.5 percent increase from one month to the next this year, a jump of about 14,000.

Walker also touted reforms to the state unemployment program instituted in recent years. Those changes included a rule making a failed or refused drug test count as a failure to accept suitable work, although those who do fail could keep their benefits by enrolling in drug treatment and completing a job skill assessment.

The changes also lowered the wage threshold for suitable work by 5 percentage points and require those with an expectation of reemployment to job search if they were going to be laid off for more than eight to 12 weeks.

A federal appeals court panel has upheld Wisconsin’s right-to-work law.

The law prohibits businesses and unions from reaching agreements that require all workers at a company to pay union dues. Unions maintain the law enables nonunion members to receive free representation. The International Union of Operating Engineers filed a lawsuit last year alleging that amounts to an unconstitutional taking.

U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller upheld the law in September, citing a 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholding Indiana’s nearly identical right-to-work law.

A three-judge panel from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Stadtmueller on Wednesday. The panel noted that the 7th Circuit has upheld Indiana’s law and the union didn’t show a reason to revisit that decision.

Amid a better jobs climate, tougher lending standards and rising home prices, mortgage foreclosure filings in Wisconsin have fallen to their lowest level in at least 17 years.

In the first half of 2017, there were 4,132 foreclosures filed with courts in the state, according to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s Fiscal and Economic Research Center. That is down about 12% from 4,712 during the first six months of last year, and below the 4,740 foreclosure filings recorded in 2001 — as far back as the UW-Whitewater data goes.

The 2017 total is less a third of the number of foreclosure cases seen from January through June in 2009, the year with the worst start in Wisconsin during the foreclosure crisis.

The improved employment environment has made it more likely that borrowers will stay current with monthly house payments, but lenders are more careful now about who gets a mortgage to begin with, said Russell Kashian, a UW-Whitewater economics professor who runs the university’s research center.

“I think prior to the financial crisis the economy was doing very well, but there were a lot people that were on the bubble, that were on the precipice. I don’t think we’re making those loans today,” Kashian said.

Michael Zimmerman, senior vice president for investor relations for Milwaukee-based mortgage insurer MGIC Investment Corp., said that since about 2009, credit scores for mortgage borrowers have been “significantly higher” than before the recession and housing crash. Mortgage insurers cover part of the cost for lenders if a loan isn’t repaid.

Many Illinois lawmakers say that following the state’s 32 percent income tax increase, neighboring states will try and recruit Illinois businesses and taxpayers. But one Illinois lawmaker on the Wisconsin border says recruiting won’t even be necessary.

State Rep. Joe Sosnowski, R-Rockford, said communities in southern Wisconsin don’t need billboards or ad campaigns to lure Illinois taxpayers and businesses over the border.

“Wisconsin doesn’t really have to [recruit], we do a good enough of shooting ourselves in the foot,” Sosnowski said.

Higher taxes, such as last week’s 32 percent state income tax increase, are driving people out of Illinois.

And he’s right. Illinois’ population has declined each of the past three years, and it lost more people than any other state in the U.S. between July 2015 and July 2016, according to the U.S. Census. At the same time, Chicago lost more people last year than any other major U.S. city.

Southern Wisconsin State Rep. Todd Novak said lower taxes and more job opportunities are driving Illinoisans to Wisconsin.

“I am seeing an influx of people who are looking to move into Wisconsin,” Novak said. “Out here we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in Wisconsin. So you can easily find a job, and a pretty good-paying job.”

The unemployment rate in Winnebago County, Illinois, Sosnowski’s district, is 6.4 percent. Lafayette County, Wisconsin, Novak’s district, has a 2.2 percent jobless rate.

Novak says there are 100,000 jobs open in Wisconsin. He says Illinois’ economic refugees are welcome to apply.