News of the Day

State Supreme Court Rules Counties Can Issue Public Health Orders and Enforce Them without Permission from Local Elected Officials

Local health officials have the authority to issue public health orders and issue fines to enforce them without permission from local elected officials, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

The ruling stemmed from a case that was brought by two families of young athletes and a Dane County dance studio that was accused of being overcapacity in December 2020. At the time, there was a prohibition on indoor gatherings of any size following a fall surge in COVID-19 cases that year. They filed a lawsuit against Dane County, the local health department and Dane County’s health director Janel Heinrich that challenged the health order.

Dane County ruled against the plaintiffs, who petitioned to bypass the court of appeals. The Wisconsin Supreme Court granted their request and agreed to hear the case.

“Heinrich responded to the appearance of the communicable COVID-19 disease in her territory by issuing a series of orders from May 2020 until March 2022 that implemented measures to prevent, suppress, and control the disease’s spread,” Justice Jill Karofsky wrote for the majority. “She did so pursuant to her authority under state law.”

Karofsky went on to say that the law allows local health officers to “promptly take all measures necessary” to respond to communicable diseases like COVID-19.

 

State Supreme Court Rules Unmanned Absentee Drop Boxes Illegal

Earlier today, a split Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled unmanned drop boxes are illegal and voters must deliver their absentee ballots by mail or in-person to their clerks.

The 4-3 ruling found the Wisconsin Elections Commission gave inappropriate advice to local clerks that they could use the drop boxes as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across Wisconsin and the nation.

“WEC’s staff may have been trying to make voting as easy as possible during the pandemic, but whatever their motivations, WEC must follow Wisconsin statutes. Good intentions never override the law,” Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote for the majority.

Bradley was joined in the majority by fellow conservatives Brian Hagedorn, Pat Roggensack and Annette Ziegler.

Writing for the minority, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley wrote drop boxes are a “simple and perfectly legal solution to making voting easier, particularly in the midst of a global pandemic.”

Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules Former Head of Wisconsin Natural Resources Board Can Stay on the Board

Dr. Fred Prehn, the former head of the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board, can continue to serve on the policy-making board now that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled it’s legal for him to remain.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul sued to remove Prehn from the NRB in August. The board’s former chair has refused to step down from the policy-making body after his six-year term expired in May last year. Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker appointed Prehn in 2015.

“(T)he expiration of Prehn’s term on the DNR Board does not create a vacancy. Prehn lawfully retains his position on the DNR Board as a holdover,” wrote Chief Justice Annette Ziegler for the majority. “Therefore, the Governor cannot make a provisional appointment to replace Prehn.”

The court found a vacancy is only created when a person dies, resigns, or is removed for cause.

Prehn’s decision to stay on the board has blocked Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ appointee Sandy Nass from taking a seat. Evers appointed Nass and Sharon Adams to the board in April of last year to fill vacancies left by members whose terms expired, including Prehn.

Prehn could remain on the board for years if Republican lawmakers refuse to confirm Evers’ appointee. The state Senate adjourned its latest session earlier this year without confirming Nass.

Pilot Program Allowing 18-year-old Long-Haul Truck Drivers Could Boost Industry

A Wisconsin trucking CEO said a new program permitting 18-year-olds to travel across state lines may help boost his company’s apprenticeship opportunities.

A provision in the bipartisan infrastructure law that passed in late 2021 allows 18-year-olds to become interstate truckers. Formerly, truckers needed to be 21 years old to do that work.

Green Bay-based Schneider trucking has long struggled to hire as many drivers as demand would support. Speaking on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “The Morning Show” on Thursday, Schneider CEO Mark Rourke said the new program will help.

“We don’t have a great apprenticeship program to take somebody right out of high school and build their skills,” Rourke said. “It’s a positive development.”

The pilot program became law in January, but there are plenty of questions remaining about the program’s rollout, especially around safety concerns. Rourke said it remains to be seen how insurance companies price insurance on younger truck drivers. High insurance premiums could continue to keep recent high school graduates off the road for interstate travel.

More broadly, the trucking industry has long pushed for a federal law to lower the age for potential drivers. In 2019, a congressional report found that young commercial drivers are more likely to be involved in crashes than older ones. Trucking industry lobbyists noted that 18-year-olds are already allowed to drive tractor-trailer trucks; they just can’t cross state lines, making them ineligible for long-haul jobs.

The federal pilot apprenticeship program requires 400 hours of additional safety training.

Wisconsin Public Service Commission Awards $125 million in Broadband Expansion Grants

Last Thursday, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC or Commission) awarded funding from the state’s Broadband Expansion Grant Program. The Commission awarded $124,967,392 for 71 projects that will expand broadband internet to more than 82,912 residential and 4,566 business locations currently unserved or underserved. The projects receiving awards will impact 45 counties. The grant awards will leverage $185,780,074 of matching funds from recipients.

The broadband expansion grants invest in construction projects for internet service in areas of the state that are challenging to connect due to population density or geography. Since 2014, 434 grants have been awarded through the grant program from state and federal funding to projects impacting 71 counties.

A list of the 2022 grant recipients can be found here.

A map of 2022 grant recipients can be found here.

David vs. Goliath on Soaring Health Costs

Self-insured employers have been fighting the good fight against runaway health costs for their companies and for their workers for decades, without much help from state and national politicians. But a ray of sunshine has emerged: the courts.

A cause-driven law firm, Fairmark Law, has filed a federal class-action law suit in Wisconsin on behalf of self-insured employers and their employees against one of the state’s biggest hospital conglomerates, Advocate Aurora Health. The firm is charging monopolization and price gouging. The David versus Goliath suit was filed in the name of a small company, Uriel Pharmacy based in East Troy, Wisconsin.

The Medical Industrial Complex (MIC) of big hospital corporations and giant health care insurers has increased its rates close to 8% per year over the last two decades. That gouging has had the cumulative effect of raising the cost of care for a family of four to $22,000 to $30,000, depending on which consultant is keeping score.

In contrast, the most astutely managed company health plans have limited inflation to 2% to 3% per year. Total costs for a family can run $12,000 to $14,000 per year. That’s still expensive, but not outrageously so. (Note: The pure medical side of American health can be exemplary.)

That massive cost discrepancy is at the heart of the Fairmark case against Advocate Aurora.

Fairmark looks at the courts as one way to overcome anti-competitive contracting and imbalance of power between smaller payers and the Medical Industrial Complex.

Its Wisconsin case will be buttressed by a recent Rand Corp. analysis that ranks the state 4th highest in the country in comparison to Medicare payments. Our hospitals charge private companies three times what they pay Medicare.

Advocate Aurora Health has a monster merger in the works with Atrium Health of North Carolina. It’s hard to see any operating synergies between those two distant operations. But the combination would gain leverage for higher prices with the nation’s largest health insurers.

 

New Elections Commission Chair Hopes to Restore Faith in Wisconsin Elections

The recently-selected chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission said Monday he hopes to help restore voter’s faith in the state’s elections.

Republican attorney Don Millis was appointed to the WEC on June 8 by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Two days later, the six-member board selected him as its new chair.

In an appearance on WPR’s “The Morning Show,” Millis said he wants to “return to a time in which people could rely on or have faith in the election process.” He said “safeguards” such as voter ID and a statewide voter registration did not prevent challenges to the results of the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.

“I think there’s less faith in the confidence that elections, election results reflect the true vote than at any time in our history,” Millis said.

Millis laid out his ideas for using federal funding to increase audits of voting machines following elections. He said his goal would be an audit of 10 percent of voting machines statewide after each general election.

“That’s a process in which you rerun the ballots and then you hand count the ballots to see what the error rate (is),” Millis said.

In 2018 and 2020, those random audits covered about 5 percent of voting equipment across the state. Neither audit found issues or anomalies with the machines checked.

“There’s a couple reasons for (auditing),” Millis said. “One is to make sure that the machines are running properly. The other is educational, because despite the best efforts of our clerks, often people will not make marks the way they should.”

Midwest Energy Grid Operator Alerts about Possible Summer Blackouts

An energy grid operator for the first time is warning power companies in Wisconsin of the possibility of rolling blackouts this summer.

Midwest Independent System Operator power grid issued the alert to the state’s electricity providers.

MISO’S notice is a regional alert and WPS spokesman Matt Cullen said steps would be taken in the event of an emergency, but it’s unlikely to happen in the Badger State.

“It’s never come to the point where MISO has ordered us to reduce the amount of electricity that we are delivering,” Cullen said.

Wisconsin Public Service has more than 450,000 electric customers and more than 333,000 natural gas customers in 27 counties in eastern, northeastern northern, and central Wisconsin, and a small portion of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Midcontinent Independent System Operator is an independent, not-for-profit organization that delivers electric power across 15 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Manitoba.

Federal Reserve Bank Raises Interest Rate by 75-basis Points in Historic Move to Fight Inflation

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate by 75-basis points for the first time in nearly three decades as policymakers intensify their fight to cool red-hot inflation, a move that threatens to slow U.S. economic growth and exacerbate financial pressure on Americans.

The 75-basis point hike, the first since 1994, underscores just how serious Fed officials are tackling the inflation crisis after a string of alarming economic reports. The move puts the key benchmark federal funds rate at a range between 1.50% to 1.75%, the highest since the pandemic began two years ago.

Officials also laid out an aggressive path of rate increases for the remainder of the year. New economic projections released after the two-day meeting showed policymakers expect interest rates to hit 3.4% by the end of 2022, which would be the highest level since 2008.

“Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher energy prices and broader price pressures,” the Fed said in its post-meeting statement.

U.S. Producer Prices Soar 10.8% in May

U.S. producer prices surged 10.8% in May from a year earlier, underscoring the ongoing threat to the economy from inflation that shows no sign of slowing.

Tuesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the producer price index — which measures inflation before it reaches consumers — rose at slightly slower pace last month than in April, when it jumped 10.9% from a year earlier, and is down from an 11.5% yearly gain in March.

On a monthly basis, producer prices climbed 0.8% in May from April, above the previous month, when they increased 0.4%.

Energy prices, led by gas, rose 5% just in May from April. Another big driver of the price gains last month was a sharp 2.9% increase in the cost of truck freight hauling, a sign that supply chain problems still aren’t fully resolved. Food costs were unchanged.

The Federal Reserve is expected to hike its short-term interest rate by three-quarters of a point on Wednesday, the largest increase since 1994, as it ramps up its efforts to rein in higher prices.

The producer price data captures inflation at an earlier stage of production and can sometimes signal where consumer prices are headed. It also feeds into the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, the personal consumption expenditures price index.