News of the Day

Wisconsin schools now have uniform instructions for when and how to shut down in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak as part of new guidelines from the state health department to help districts manage infections during the school year.

The document — which is not a mandate — builds on the limited guidance Wisconsin schools have received from the state since the threat of the coronavirus pandemic became elevated in the spring, leading public health officials in March to shut down all public and private K-12 schools.

Here’s what closures could look like in your child’s classroom, school or district:

School administrators could shut down a classroom or cohort if …

• Classrooms need to be cleaned and no additional rooms are available for students
• Contact tracing is being done, especially when multiple cases are being traced at once
• Other mitigation strategies were tried and were unsuccessful at stopping spread between classmates
• A teacher is absent and no substitute teacher is available
• More students in the class or cohort are absent than present

School administrators could shut down a school if …

• The number of staff absences are impeding instruction or the ability to provide lunch or other vital activities
• More student cohorts are absent than present
• Schoolwide disinfecting needs to be conducted
• Other mitigation strategies were unsuccessful at halting an outbreak

District administrators could shut down a school district if …

• The local, county, state or federal government recommends closure
• The number of staff absences in the district are impeding vital district functions
• Contact tracing is occurring for cases in multiple schools (for example, in response to an outbreak traced to a multi-school sporting event)
• Other mitigation strategies were unsuccessful at halting an outbreak

Yesterday, the Governor’s Task Force on Student Debt announced the release of its final report on student debt prepared at the request of Governor Tony Evers.

The report outlines eight recommendations for how Wisconsin can provide relief, education, and protection to its student debtholders now and in the future. They are:

1) create a Borrower Bill of Rights and Student Loan Ombudsman;

2) enhance proprietary school regulations and reinstate the Educational Approval Board;

3) improve financial literacy education;

4) increase need-based, targeted aid for postsecondary education and create a statewide promise program;

5) strengthen student loan counseling;

6) consider targeted loan forgiveness programs;

7) promote refinancing opportunities with other states; and

8) create a state student debt relief tax credit.

These recommendations are the result of expansive dialogue between experts from government, industry, academia, and student loan borrowers.

The Governor’s Task Force on Student Debt was created by Executive Order #67 to address the growing student debt crisis in Wisconsin. The 32-member task force included borrowers, industry leaders, legislators, financial aid experts, and lenders to share a broad spectrum of ideas and experiences to inform the work of the task force.

Wisconsin’s existing home sales hit a new record for the month of July, which increased prices by double digits, according to the most recent monthly analysis of the state housing market by the Wisconsin REALTORS^® Association (WRA).

Sales of existing homes rose 7.6% in July relative to that same month in 2019, and the median price rose to $226,400, which is 10.4% higher than July 2019. On a year-to-date basis, sales are now only slightly lower than this time last year, with sales in the first seven months of 2020 just 1.9% below the same period of 2019, and prices are up 8.4% to $213,000.

“July was a remarkably robust month for home sales, given what we’ve been through the past four months,” said WRA Chairman Steve Beers. A total of 9,649 homes were sold in July, the most homes sold during a July since the WRA re-benchmarked its data-collection methods in 2005. The previous record was July 2019, when 8,969 home sales closed.

Over the last 12 months, home sales were up 18.6% in the North region, and they rose 11.1% and 11.7% in the Central and West regions, respectively. “This makes sense because rural areas have higher inventory levels,” said Beers. Statewide, rural counties had 6.4 months of available supply in July, compared to just 3.4 months of supply in the metropolitan counties.

“We had record home sales because we had record-low mortgage rates,” said WRA President & CEO Michael Theo. This was the fourth straight month where the 30-year fixed mortgage rate dipped into record-low territory, falling to 3.02% in July. By comparison, mortgage rates were at 3.77% just a year ago, so they have fallen three quarters of a percent.

On Friday, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue released its annual Equalized Values Report. The report shows Wisconsin’s total statewide equalized property value as of January 1, 2020, was $613 billion, a 6 percent increase over the prior year; growth occurred in all property classifications. Equalized values are based on data from January 1, 2019 to January 1, 2020.

Report highlights:
• Change in Equalized Value = $32.2 Billion, a 6 percent increase from 2019
o $22.9 Billion due to market value increases (4 percent)
o $9.6 Billion due to new construction (2 percent)

Equalized Values are calculated annually and used to ensure statewide fairness and equity in property tax distribution. The Equalized Value represents an estimate of a taxation district’s total taxable value and provides for the fair apportionment of school district and county levies to each municipality. Changes in Equalized Value do not necessarily translate into a change in property taxes.

Americans kept shopping in July with retail sales rising 1.2 percent from June, reflecting a rare bright spot in the battered economy.

The jump in sales reported on Friday by the Commerce Department, though smaller than the increases in the previous two months, showed that the bounce back in spending to pre-pandemic levels was not a fluke. Sales are now back at the level they were in February. It was instead a sign that consumerism, buoyed by government support, remains resilient even as many other facets of American life are increasingly bleak.

“It shows there is a willingness and a desire to spend,” said Michelle Meyer, chief U.S. economist at Bank of America. “There is no doubt the recovery in consumer spending has been robust.”

Retail sales in June rose 8.4 percent. That followed a May jump, 18.2 percent, which was the largest monthly surge on record. But that had followed two months of record declines.

The number of new applications for unemployment benefits last week was 963,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday, as jobless claims for the first time dropped below a million after 20 consecutive weeks of being above that figure.

Economists had projected that claims would total 1.1 million.

The total number of people claiming jobless benefits in all programs for the week ending July 25 was 28.3 million, a decrease of over 3 million from the previous week. For comparison, there were 1.7 million people claiming benefits for all programs in the same week in 2019.

After jobless claims skyrocketed in March, with 6.9 million filing for benefits for the week ending March 28, the number of workers claiming unemployment benefits dropped precipitously through the end of May but had yet to fall below a million until this week.

The cost of many goods and services such as gas, autos, clothing and airfare rose in July and rebounded from pandemic lows, but inflation is still barely visible in the wake of a coronavirus-induced recession that sapped demand throughout the economy.

The consumer price index rose 0.6% for the second month in a row, the government said Wednesday. Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a 0.3% advance.

Small business confidence ticked up in the third quarter of the year, to 53 from a record low of 49 in Q2, according to the CNBC|SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey. Even with the rebound, the confidence reading is the second-lowest score in the survey’s history and eight points off where confidence stood to start the year.

Just 36% of businesses say that current operating conditions are “good” in this quarter’s survey, which is a major improvement from last quarter’s 18%. But nearly one-fourth say conditions are bad — three times the number who said conditions were poor to kick off the year.

The survey was conducted from July 20-27 among more than 2,000 small business owners nationwide.

“I think that small business owners see that economics are opening and we are not going to be moving backwards,” said Karen Kerrigan, president and CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, a Main Street advocacy group. “They see a light at the end of the tunnel.”

President Donald Trump signed several executive orders Saturday, including an order to provide an extra $400 in weekly unemployment aid to those whose $600 weekly benefits expired in July as well as eviction protections and student loan relief.

A fourth executive order would defer payroll tax payments for people who earn less than $100,000. It would take effect retroactively and continue through December.

The executive order to provide $400 in weekly benefits requires that 25% of that funding be paid by states, many of whom are struggling with unexpected drops in revenue and have pleaded with Congress to receive additional aid.

Trump has sought a payroll tax deferral for more than a year with little support from Congress, but the other three issues were the subject of tense partisan negotiations in recent weeks as some parts of this spring’s CARES Act expired.

Ultimately Congressional leaders failed to reach a deal by their Friday deadline.

The President acknowledged Saturday that the orders would prompt lawsuits. The Constitution grants the power to raise revenue and appropriate funds exclusively to Congress.

The US economy added jobs for a third straight month in July as the nation attempts to reopen and claw back from the devastating coronavirus recession.

American businesses added 1.8 million nonfarm payrolls during the month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That exceeded the 1.5 million payroll additions expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

The US unemployment rate came in at 10.2%, the BLS said, lower than the 10.6% expected by economists. It was also down from 11.1% in May. April’s 14.7% reading was the highest since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Employment ticked up across most industries and sectors, according to the Friday report. The biggest gain was in leisure and hospitality, which rose 529,000 in July, accounting for one third of the gain in payrolls during the month.

Retail trade, professional and business services, health care, social assistance, manufacturing, and transportation jobs also gained in July. Construction jobs were little changed from a month earlier, and mining was the only sector to shed jobs in the period.

People on temporary layoff decreased by 1.3 million in July, and is now 9.2 million, roughly half the April level. Permanent job losses were little changed from the previous month, standing at 2.9 million in July. The level of permanent job losses is important to watch as the coronavirus pandemic recession continues — those who are not on temporary layoff have a harder time finding new employment.