News of the Day

Democratic state lawmakers argue it’s time to give local governments more control over how businesses treat their employees.

The package of bills, deemed the “Local Wage Act,” would repeal a state law that prevents local governments from setting their own minimum wage and would allow them to enact their own family and medical leave standards.

Wisconsin’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour was last increased in 2009, when Democrats were in charge of state government. State Senator Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) says Republicans have done nothing to address the issue for the past eight years, while the state has fallen behind. “It is time to give back the right of communities, local control, to set their own standards for how they value work and the people who do it,” he says.

The proposals are unlikely to see much movement under the current Republican-controlled Legislature.

According to data issued by the Department of Health Services, more than 25,000 FoodShare members who participated in the FoodShare Employment and Training (FSET) program have secured employment, as of December 2017.

As part of Governor Scott Walker’s Wisconsin Works for Everyone reform, the FSET program helps Wisconsin citizens move from government dependence to true independence through the dignity that comes from work.

Under this program, able-bodied adults in the FoodShare program who do not have children in the home must meet a work requirement. FoodShare members can meet the work requirement by doing any of the following for at least 80 hours per month: working, participating in the FSET program or another eligible worker training program, or a combination of both working and participating in a work program.

Data shows that:

• Since FSET implemented statewide on April 1, 2015, there have been 25,071 FSET participants who have gained employment.
• On average, FSET participants worked an average of 35 hours per week and earned $12.68 per hour – well above the state minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

In his 2018 State of the State address, Governor Walker proposed expanding the work requirement statewide for able-bodied adults in the FoodShare program, “For those who are able, we will enable them to find meaningful work. We want to help people pursue careers to support themselves and their families.”

He bragged about the achievements of his administration so far and proposed ambitious legislative initiatives ahead. He hailed ordinary Americans who had done extraordinary things and called for new sense of national unity.

In other words, the most unconventional president in modern times, governing at a time of historic turbulence, delivered a conventional State of the Union that with some policy tweaks could have been given by any number of his recent predecessors.

In his speech, Trump adopted the language his White House predecessors have favored. The last five presidents, from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, had declared that the state of the union was “strong.” So did Trump. “The state of our union is strong because our people are strong,” he said.

He took credit for the nation’s good economy, saying his administration had rolled back regulations, “ended the war on American energy” and “turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals.” He said the $1.5 trillion tax bill he signed in December, the only major legislation enacted last year, had brought “tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.”

He called for bipartisan action on his administration’s immigration plan, which would offer a path to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers, build a wall along the nation’s southern border, and curb some legal immigration. “A down-the-middle compromise,” he called it.

Trump also urged Democrats to join him in approving a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan, including changes in environmental and other regulations to streamline the approval process for road, bridge and sewage projects. “America is a nation of builders,” he said. “We built the Empire State Building in just one year. Isn’t it a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?”

While the vast majority of consumers will file their taxes and receive any refunds due without incident, an unlucky few will learn during the process that returns have already been filed in their names by scammers.

If you run into problems when you file, you may be a victim of tax identity theft. The following are indications that someone may have misused your identity to file a fraudulent return:

• multiple returns were filed under your Social Security number,
• you receive a letter or refund check regarding a return you did not file, or
• you owe additional taxes or are facing collection actions for a year you did not file a return.

The risk of tax identity theft is very real in Wisconsin. In recent years, tax identity theft has been a key element of identity theft complaints received by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP).

“The best way to protect yourself from the risk of tax identity theft is to keep your financial and
personally identifiable information (such as your Social Security number, driver’s license number, bank account numbers, etc.) under lock and key throughout the year,” said Michelle Reinen, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Before you file, you can check whether a 2017 Wisconsin income tax return has been filed in your
name by visiting the Wisconsin Department of Revenue website (https://revenue.wi.gov; click on the “Online Services” link at the top of the homepage).

If you believe that you may be the victim of tax identity theft, report the suspected fraud by phone to the IRS (1-800-829-0433) and the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (1-608-266-2486).(NOTE: The IRS advises taxpayers to continue paying their taxes and filing their returns even if they suspect that they may be victims of identity theft.)

DATCP’s Consumer Protection Bureau offers a Tax ID Theft packet online (https://datcp.wi.gov) to assist consumers with next steps to protect against additional harm, and callers to the agency’s Consumer Protection Hotline (1-800-422-7128) can inquire about ways to further protect their identities.

According to estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Survey of Occupational injuries and Illnesses (SOII), there were 82,700 total injuries and illnesses reported by Wisconsin employers in 2016, an increase from the 78,800 total injuries and illnesses reported for 2015. The rate of injury and illness rose from 3.6 in 2015 to 3.8 cases per 100 equivalent full-time workers.

SOII is the largest work injury data survey conducted nationwide. The Wisconsin BLS program collects data annually from a representative sample of 6,000 establishments, with a 97% survey response rate.

Summary Key Findings:

• Private industry incident rate increased from 3.6 to 3.7. State and local government total incident rate decreased from 4.2 to 4.1.

• Manufacturing, professional and business services, and state and local government sectors show declines in rates from the prior year, while all other industries remained constant or showed increased rates.

• The number of cases increased across summary case types from 2015 to 2016 with the exception of job transfer or restriction cases: cases with days away, job transfer, or restriction (DART) increased from 39,600 to 41,800; cases with days away from work (DAFW) from 21,800 to 24,300; other recordable cases (ORC) from 39,200 to 40,800. Cases with job transfer or restriction (DJTR) only fell slightly from 17,800 to 17,500.

• Public sector sub-industries with the highest injury rates include: Local government Heavy and civil engineering construction (11.3), Local government Utilities (7.7), and Local government Transit and ground passenger transportation (6.9).

• Private sector sub-industries with the highest injury rates include: Leather and allied product
manufacturing (11.8), Couriers and messengers (7.4), and Construction of buildings (7.0).

Wisconsin’s school funding system is doing better than other states. That’s according to a recently released Wisconsin Policy Forum report  that ranks the state 16th in adequate spending and ninth in fair distribution, based on data from 2014.

The “School finance: Here vs. Elsewhere,” report from the public policy think tank comes out more than a month after the first meeting of a bipartisan legislative commission to examine school funding. Wisconsin schools get funding from a combination of state, federal, and local aid.

The Blue Ribbon Commission on School Funding will gather information and draft a plan to update the state’s school funding system. The commission hopes to complete the plan by the next state budget in 2019.

Wisconsin Policy Forum research director Dale Knapp said it’s important for the Legislature to take a step back and examine the state’s funding model prior to changes.

“There may be flaws in our system,” Knapp said. “There may be things that we need to fix, but essentially, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Compared to everyone else, our system looks pretty good.”

The report also calls for simplifying the current school funding system. Knapp said when voters go to the polls they’re making decisions about school funding, and it needs to be more understandable.

Rep. Joel Kitchens, R-Sturgeon Bay, co-chairs the legislative commission. He agreed simplifying the funding system should be a priority.

“Especially when you have school districts going to referendums, it’s pretty difficult for, you know, citizens to understand whether they need more money when the formula is so complex,” Kitchens said. “I really think that there are very few people in the state that completely understand the funding formula.”