News of the Day

Long-term U.S. mortgage rates continued to climb this week as the key 30-year loan rate reached 5% for the first time in more than a decade amid persistent high inflation.

The average 5% rate on the 30-year mortgage was up from 4.72% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday. The average rates in recent months have been showing the fastest pace of increases since 1994. By contrast, a year ago the 30-year rate stood at 3.04%.

The average rate on 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, popular among those refinancing their homes, jumped to 4.17% from 3.91% last week.

With inflation at a four-decade high, rising mortgage rates, elevated home prices and tight supply of homes available for sale, the goal of homeownership has become the most expensive in a generation, Freddie Mac says. And this comes as the spring homebuying season begins.

Home prices are up about 15% over the past year and as much as 30% in some cities. Available homes had been in short supply even before the coronavirus pandemic started just over two years ago.

Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) Secretary Randy Romanski and Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation Secretary and CEO Missy Hughes announced yesterday the creation of the new Wisconsin Agricultural Export Advisory Council (WAXC). This council will help guide the initiatives created through the Wisconsin Initiative for Agricultural Exports (WIAE), a collaborative project between DATCP and WEDC to promote the export of Wisconsin’s agricultural and agribusiness products.

The council includes international trade experts from WEDC and DATCP, state legislators, and agriculture organizations and agribusinesses representing crop, dairy, and meat products. The council will meet at least twice per year, and the first council meeting will take place at 9 a.m. on May 4, 2022 at the WEDC headquarters, 201 West Washington Avenue, Madison, WI 53703. These meetings are open to the public, and are
expected to have virtual attendance options.

Wisconsin agricultural exports reached an all-time high of $3.96 billion in 2021. Through the WIAE, DATCP is working collaboratively with WEDC to build on that momentum by promoting Wisconsin agricultural products in the international marketplace.

In a case representing an important victory for local governments and their taxpayers, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the Kenosha City Assessor’s determination that a vacant city lot the owner intended to develop into residential homes should be assessed as residential rather than agricultural use for property tax purposes. Nudo Holdings, LLC v. Board of Review for the City of Kenosha

The property at issue in Nudo was mostly raw and covered in underbrush, but also included several walnut and pine trees. The landowner challenged the classification of the property as residential, arguing it should be classified as agricultural instead because he collected walnuts intermittently. Agricultural use qualifies for a much lower assessed valuation. The board of review sustained the assessor’s classification as residential, which the circuit court and the court of appeals affirmed. The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the lower court and board of review decisions.

Statement of Jerry Deschane, Executive Director, League of Wisconsin Municipalities, regarding the court’s decision: “Today, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a commonsense interpretation of the agricultural use law that the Legislature enacted decades ago. The purpose of the law was to provide a property tax break for farmers, not developers. The Court’s decision makes clear that agricultural classification and the tax break that goes along with it is only proper if the land is chiefly given over to agricultural use.”

The consumer price index, which measures a wide-ranging basket of goods and services, jumped 8.5% from a year ago on an unadjusted basis, above even the already elevated Dow Jones estimate for 8.4%.

Food rose 1% for the month and 8.8% over the year, as prices for goods such as rice, ground beef, citrus fruits and fresh vegetables all posted gains of more than 2% in March. Energy prices were up 11% and 32%, respectively, as gasoline prices popped 18.3% for the month, boosted by the war in Ukraine and the pressure it is exerting on supply.

One sector that has been a major driver in the inflation burst subsided in March. Used car and truck prices declined 3.8% for the month, though they are still up 35.3% on the year. Also, commodity prices excluding food and energy fell by 0.4%.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is initiating an enforcement program that identifies employers who failed to submit Form 300A data through the agency’s Injury Tracking Application (ITA). Annual electronic submissions are required by establishments with 250 or more employees currently required to keep OSHA injury and illness records, and establishments with 20-249 employees classified in specific industries with historically high rates of occupational injuries and illnesses.

The program matches newly opened inspections against a list of potential non-responders to OSHA’s collection of Form 300A data through the ITA and reports all matches to the appropriate OSHA area office. If the area office determines that the establishment on the list is the same establishment where the inspection was opened, OSHA will issue citations for failure to submit OSHA Form 300A Summary data.

In addition to identifying non-responders at the establishment level, the agency is also reviewing the 2021 submitted data to identify non-responders at a corporate-wide level. This corporate level review is being conducted for the nation’s largest employers.

OSHA developed the program in response to recommendations from the Government Accountability Office to improve reporting of summary injury and illness data.  The initiative will begin in early April.

The agency is also posting ITA data as part of its electronic recordkeeping requirements for certain employers. By mid-March, 289,849 establishments had submitted their OSHA Form 300A information.

Today the United States Postal Service filed notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) of price changes to take effect July 10, 2022. The new prices, if approved, include a two-cent increase in the price of a First-Class Mail Forever stamp from 58 cents to 60 cents.

The proposed prices, approved by the Governors of the U.S. Postal Service, would raise First-Class Mail prices approximately 6.5 percent. The proposed Mailing Services price changes include:

Product                                                        Current Prices                Planned Prices

Letters (1 oz.)                                                  58 cents                         60 cents
Letters (metered 1 oz.)                                   53 cents                         57 cents
Letters additional ounce(s)                              20 cents                        24 cents
Domestic Postcards                                       40 cents                        44 cents
International Letter (1 oz.)                              $1.30 cents                  $1.40 cents

The PRC will review the prices before they are scheduled to take effect. The complete Postal Service price filing with prices for all products can be found on the PRC site under the Daily Listings section at prc.gov/dockets/daily.

The Department of Safety and Professional Services is announcing a two-week blackout period for initial license applications for 72 license types (the list of affected licenses is available HERE – https://dsps.wi.gov/Pages/LicensE.aspx). This black-out is part of the transition to LicensE, the department’s new self-guided, online platform that is replacing paper-based applications for occupational licenses.

The department will accept no new initial applications for the 72 license types from 12 p.m. on April 29 through 11:59 p.m. on May 15. The black-out period is a critical step to ensuring the successful launch of this new system. Applications received after 12 p.m. on April 29 will not be processed. Paper applications postmarked after this date will be returned to applicants. Current applications awaiting decisions will be evaluated in the order they were received.

LicensE will launch on May 16, and all initial applicants for the 72 license types will be able to use the new platform. Other licenses (initial applications and renewals) will transition to LicensE in subsequent phases.

Renewals are not included in the blackout, and any license types in active renewal during the blackout window can renew during their entire renewal period. Temporary licenses related to the pandemic are also not included in the blackout.

Today – Tuesday, April 5 – is the date of the nonpartisan Spring Election. The Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

State offices to be elected are:

• Court of Appeals Judge in Districts II, III and IV; and
• Circuit Court Judge in Barron, Crawford, Dane, Eau Claire, Fond du Lac, Iowa, Kewaunee, Lincoln, Marathon, Milwaukee, Monroe, Oconto, Outagamie, Pierce, Portage, Racine, Rusk, St. Croix, Sauk, Vilas, Walworth, Waushara, and Winnebago counties.

In communities throughout Wisconsin, there will also elections for county supervisors, city mayors and alderpersons, village presidents and trustees, town chairs and board members and school boards.

To find your polling place and what is on your ballot, visit the Wisconsin Election Commission voter assistance website – My VoteWisconsin – https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/.

The U.S. economy expanded at an annual rate of 6.9% in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to the final estimate of gross domestic product released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Wednesday.

While the report is a look in the rearview mirror, it puts a rubber stamp on what was an extraordinary recovery from the economic shocks brought about by the coronavirus. Earlier estimates had put the quarterly gain at 7%. Much of the growth was driven by businesses restocking inventories.