News of the Day

A bipartisan legislative committee unanimously approved pay raises Wednesday for state and University of Wisconsin employees, but Republicans shot down Gov. Tony Evers’ request to raise the minimum wage for state workers to $15 an hour.

The Joint Committee on Employment Relations — made up of six Republicans and two Democrats — approved the 2 percent wage increases for the employees in both 2020 and 2021. Those raises have already been approved by the Legislature’s budget committee.

A proposal to give state troopers retroactive 2 percent pay increases and an over 20 percent starting pay increase did not get a vote at the public hearing Wednesday.

Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association President Chad Thompson said higher pay would help recruitment, which is suffering.  “When I was a new trooper back in 1997, I know Vernon County had five troopers, and today they have one, kind of, who is currently deployed with the military,” Thompson said. “So really, Vernon County has no trooper.”

Members of the committee indicated the troopers aren’t totally out of luck. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told them to come back with a base pay increase in the single digits. “I would be open to giving raises that are significantly higher than the rate of inflation, but not 20-plus percent,” Vos said.

School property taxes across Wisconsin are rising by more than $220 million on December 2019 tax bills.

On tax bills sent out this month, Wisconsin’s school districts together are raising property tax levies by 4.5% – the largest year-over-year increase in a decade. The rise reflects changes in the state budget, as well as recent referenda passed by voters in many individual districts to exceed state-imposed revenue limits. In addition, new data show growth in levies for counties (2.2%) and technical colleges (3.1%), suggesting that the 2019-20 gross property tax levies in Wisconsin might see the highest increase since the last recession.

The tax data come from the state Department of Revenue (DOR) and include the levies reported by counties, technical colleges, and school districts, which together account for roughly two-thirds of all property taxes in Wisconsin. Statewide figures are not yet available for municipalities, special districts, and tax increment districts, which make up the remaining share of property taxes.

Yesterday, federal officials announced today that open enrollment for health insurance on HealthCare.gov has been extended through 2 a.m. CST on Wednesday, December 18.

The announcement, which was made Monday morning, comes after some individuals using the federal call center on the final day of open enrollment were asked to leave their names instead of being allowed to enroll. Wisconsinites can call 2-1-1 to get free expert help enrolling or can go to www.HealthCare.gov to enroll online.

“This is great news for folks in Wisconsin,” said Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner Mark Afable. “If you missed the deadline, you now have two extra days to get affordable health insurance for you or your family. You may also still qualify for tax credits that could keep your monthly premiums low. Call 2-1-1 to get free expert help, reach out to an insurance agent in your community, or visit HealthCare.gov to sign up now.”

“There are two more days to enroll in health care on HealthCare.gov,” said Department of Health Secretary-designee Andrea Palm. “There are affordable plans available but make sure to call 2-1-1- to work with a health insurance expert to sign up for high-quality health insurance.”

Gov. Tony Evers’ top aide warned Foxconn Technology Group last month that a scaled-down factory in Wisconsin won’t qualify for tax credits unless the Taiwanese electronics giant renegotiates with the state, letters Evers’ administration released Friday show.

State Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan wrote to Foxconn Industrial Internet Chief Business Officer Richard Vincent on Nov. 4 warning that the new project doesn’t qualify for incentives under the existing contract. Foxconn’s U.S. strategist, Alan Yeung, responded to Brennan’s letter by accusing Evers’ administration of wasting the company’s time with contract arguments.

“Distractions like these leave job creators and job seekers wondering if doing business in our great state is welcomed by Governor Evers’ Administration (sic),” Yeung wrote in a Nov. 18 letter to Brennan.

The letters chronicle discussions between Evers, Brennan, Foxconn executives and leaders of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, the state’s quasi-public job-creation agency, dating back to April.

“We want to work together with you to help make Foxconn’s new project as successful as possible,” Brennan wrote. “The ability to do that requires Foxconn to recognize that there are consequences arising from its unilateral decision to change projects well after the Contract was in place.”

Two Republican state lawmakers have introduced a bill that would legalize medical marijuana, saying it’s time for Wisconsin to join the majority of the country in giving patients the option.

But already, the state Senate’s top Republican said he doesn’t support the bill and leaders in both houses of the Legislature downplayed its chances of passing.

The proposal by state Rep. Mary Felzkowski, R-Irma, and state Sen. Kathy Bernier, R-Chippewa Falls could still add momentum to a cause that has mostly been championed in Wisconsin by Democrats, including Gov. Tony Evers. Their bill would regulate the “cultivation, processing, testing, and dispensing” of medical marijuana in Wisconsin, which could be prescribed by doctors, physicians assistants and certified advanced practice nurses.

“There is no doubt that each and every one of us knows someone that has suffered through an illness and struggled to find a way to make it through each day,” said the lawmakers in a statement. “It is clear that we as a state need to begin having a real discussion about medical marijuana legalization.”

But Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, who has opposed other efforts to legalize medical marijuana, did so again Wednesday.

“I personally oppose this bill and I don’t believe there are the votes in our caucus to pass it,” Fitzgerald said in a brief written statement.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has been more open to supporting medical marijuana, but he also suggested this bill would not pass.

“As someone who supports a limited form of medical marijuana, I appreciate the efforts by Rep. Felzkowski to move the issue forward,” Vos said. “However, it’s clear that our caucus hasn’t reached a consensus.”

House Democrats and the Trump administration have reached an agreement to move forward with the White House’s replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement, top Democrats said Tuesday.

The two sides had worked for more than a year to resolve Democratic concerns about enforcement tools for labor and environmental standards under the new deal, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. House Democrats, President Donald Trump, top Senate Republicans and labor leaders all cited progress toward a deal this week.

The Trump administration needs to submit ratifying legislation to Congress for the House to move forward with approving the agreement. Once the White House submits text — it could do so in the coming days — a 90-day window to approve USMCA starts.

The House could vote to ratify the bill before the end of the year, when a likely impeachment trial in the Senate and the 2020 election will take up more of Washington’s attention. The White House and business groups have pushed for ratification in 2019 in part because the lack of an agreement adds to the uncertainty farmers and other businesses face from the administration’s trade conflicts around the globe.

The Senate will likely take up USMCA ratification after Trump’s impeachment trial in the chamber, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday. He said he does not expect the Senate to start the trial before next year.

Congressional negotiators are scrambling to reach a deal that would allow the House to vote on several spending bills this week, with just 11 days left to avert a shutdown, according to aides close to the talks.

Leaders of both parties are attempting to finish the long-stalled negotiations early this week, with a number of lingering policy items — including tricky immigration-related provisions — still under discussion.

Reaching a deal this week would be a major achievement for a Congress that has sent zero spending bills to the president’s desk, more than two months into the start of the fiscal year.

The House passed a majority of its bills earlier this year, while the Senate passed a package that includes one-third of the bills. But the two sides can’t agree on what version of those bills to send to Trump.

Both chambers are far behind on the appropriations process compared to last year, when the federal government was sent sputtering into a month-long shutdown because of disagreement over Trump’s border wall. Trump eventually agreed to end the standoff, but later circumvented Congress to secure billions of dollars for his border project anyways.

This year, the wall remains a sticking point, but Republican and Democratic leaders say they anticipate other immigration-related provisions, like the number of detention beds in the Department of Homeland Security, to be a bigger issue.

A long-dormant commission charged with planning major road construction opted not to advance any projects after a five-year hiatus that ended Friday.

The TPC typically advances projects from the planning stage to the state Legislature for enumeration. But the Legislature has the power to enumerate projects, too. Just one major highway project has moved forward without TPC approval, an expansion of Interstate 41 between Appleton and DePere that the Legislature approved in the latest biennial budget. WisDOT has yet to begin an environmental review of the project, agency officials said Friday.

The group moved to remove three major highway reconstructions from the planning phase. They include: a 15-mile expansion of U.S. Highway 14 from Janesville to I-43, the reconstruction of U.S. Highway 12 at the Fort Atkinson bypass and a rebuild of Highway 8 from Wisconsin Highway 35 to U.S. Highway 53.

Joe Nestler, administrator of WisDOT’s Division of Transportation Investment Management, said these projects likely would have been removed from the planning phase had TPC met in recent years.

“We had already put that ice internally knowing that wasn’t going to result in a recommendation,” Nestler said. “We would have done this sooner had we met.”

WisDOT, however, will continue to consider a number of other projects, and may consider them at future TPC meetings. Projects that remain in the majors program include an expansion of U.S. Highway 12 between Elkhorn and Whitewater, an overhaul of Interstate 94 between Madison and the Wisconsin Dells and an expansion of I-94 East-West in Milwaukee.

The U.S. spent more than $1 trillion on hospitals in 2018, the largest percentage of all health spending, according to a new government analysis of health spending released Thursday.

The study from the nonpartisan actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) found $1.2 trillion, or 33 percent of health care spending in 2018, was on hospitals. Total health spending reached $3.6 trillion.

Retail prescription drug prices fell slightly last year for the first time in 40 years, but spending on retail drugs grew 2.5 percent, to $335 billion. That amounted to 9 percent of total health spending, the study found.

According to the study, health spending overall climbed 4.6 percent in 2018 to $3.6 trillion, accounting for nearly 18 percent of the U.S. economy. Health care expenditures amounted to $11,172 per person.