News of the Day

As part of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I, the FCC auctioned off $9.2 billion over 10 years to provide broadband access across the United States.

You can see areas included in phase 1 on this map.

A number of bids for North Central Wisconsin went to Charter (Spectrum) and LTD Broadband.

Brittany Beyer, chair of the state’s broadband access task force, explained communities would benefit from acting now to prepare for service providers.

Beyer said, “if there are any roadblocks, there’s potential that Charter and LTD will be like ‘okay, we’ll put you to the back of the list because you’re hard to deal with.'”

Phase 1 and 2 of RDOF could take over ten years to complete. If you are a community leader looking for more details, you can reach out to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin.

Last Friday, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued stronger worker safety guidance to help employers and workers implement a coronavirus prevention program and better identify risks which could lead to exposure and contraction.

“Protecting Workers: Guidance on Mitigating and Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 in the Workplace” provides updated guidance and recommendations, and outlines existing safety and health standards. OSHA is providing the recommendations to assist employers in providing a safe and healthful workplace.

The guidance details key measures for limiting coronavirus’s spread, including ensuring infected or potentially infected people are not in the workplace, implementing and following physical distancing protocols and using surgical masks or cloth face coverings. It also provides guidance on use of personal protective equipment, improving ventilation, good hygiene and routine cleaning.

This guidance is not a standard or regulation, and it creates no new legal obligations. It contains recommendations as well as descriptions of existing mandatory safety and health standards. The recommendations are advisory in nature, informational in content and are intended to assist employers in recognizing and abating hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm as part of their obligation to provide a safe and healthful workplace.

On Friday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) posted updated FAQs about recent legislation that extended and amended tax relief to certain small- and mid-sized employers under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).

The FAQs are available at COVID-19-Related Tax Credits for Required Paid Leave Provided by Small and Midsize Businesses FAQs.

The updates to the FAQs cover how the COVID-related Tax Relief Act of 2020, enacted December 27, 2020, extends the availability of the tax credits created by the FFCRA to eligible employers for paid sick and family leave provided through March 31, 2021, as well as other amendments to the credits.

The paid sick and family leave credits, which previously were available only until the end of 2020, have been extended for periods of leave taken through March 31, 2021.

In addition, an eligible employer can receive the paid sick leave credit for employees who are unable to work due to caring for someone with coronavirus or caring for a child because the child’s school or place of care is closed, or the paid childcare provider is unavailable due to the coronavirus. Eligible employers may claim the credit for paid sick leave provided to an employee for up to two weeks (up to 80 hours) at 2/3 the employee’s regular rate of pay, or up to $200 per day and $2,000 in total.

Employers are also entitled to a paid family leave credit for paid family leave provided to an employee equal to 2/3 of the employee’s regular pay, up to $200 per day and $10,000 in total. Up to 10 weeks of qualifying leave can be counted towards the family leave credit.

Eligible employers are entitled to immediately receive a credit in the full amount of the paid sick leave and family leave plus related health plan expenses and the employer’s share of Medicare tax on the leave provided through March 31, 2021. The refundable credit is applied against certain employment taxes on wages paid to all employees.

Eligible employers may claim the credits on their federal employment tax returns (e.g., Form 941, Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return), but they can benefit more quickly from the credits by reducing their federal employment tax deposits. If there are insufficient federal employment taxes to cover the amount of the credits, an eligible employer may request an advance payment of the credits from the IRS by submitting a Form 7200, Advance Payment of Employer Credits Due to COVID-19.

The U.S. economy grew at a 4% annual rate in the final three months of 2020 and shrank last year by the largest amount in 74 years.

For 2020 as a whole, a year when the coronavirus inflicted the worst economic freeze since the end of World War II, the economy contracted 3.5%.

Thursday’s report from the government estimated that the nation’s gross domestic product — its total output of goods and services — slowed sharply in the October-December quarter from a record 33.4% surge in the July-September quarter. That gain had followed a record-shattering 31.4% annual plunge in the April-June quarter, when the economy sank into a free-fall.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday ordering the Department of Labor to issue guidance that clarifies “workers have a federally guaranteed right to refuse employment that will jeopardize their health and if they do so, they will still qualify for unemployment insurance.”

Generally, you can’t refuse what’s considered “suitable work,” whether it’s a new job offer or a call to return to a reopened workplace, and still receive unemployment insurance. In more traditional times, suitable work is thought of as a job that matches your skill set and pays a similar rate as your old one.

Under the Trump administration, states, local governments and employers were often left to determine what constituted as a safe work environment free of risks to workers’ health and safety during the Covid pandemic. Recent moves from the Biden White House aim to formalize a national standard.

As with existing protocol, new federal guidance will still require workers to demonstrate how their work environment places their health in jeopardy, that they’ve done something to raise the issue with their employer to enforce an improved standard, and that their employer has chosen to not act on recommended health and safety guidance, such as that from the CDC, local or state regulations — and soon, federal guidance on workplace health and safety.

For example, you can’t just walk into your work facility, see that no one’s wearing a mask, walk off the job and later file for unemployment. However, if you approach your boss about enforcing universal mask-wearing to minimize the spread of the virus, and they decline to do so, you may have just cause for refusing unsafe work that places your health in jeopardy and qualifying for unemployment benefits while you look for a new job.

The outlook for Wisconsin’s next state budget grew brighter Tuesday with a closely watched report projecting the state would begin the next budget cycle with a balance of nearly $1.9 billion.

The estimate from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau also projected state tax revenues between now and the end of the next budget would be $1.2 billion higher than the Evers administration predicted just two months ago.

While the numbers are estimates and could change based on fluctuations in the global economy among other factors, they were undeniably strong, especially given the mass layoffs and economic pain that marked the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also set the stage for the budget Gov. Tony Evers is scheduled to release in February, beginning a process of give-and-take with Republicans who run the state Legislature.

“Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and government-mandated shutdowns, the state of Wisconsin is currently in a strong fiscal position,” said state Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, and state Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, the GOP co-chairs of the Legislature’s budget committee. “We generated more revenue than projected at this time last year, even during a pandemic.”

The increase in revenue has been high enough that the state will be required by law to make another deposit in its “budget stabilization fund,” typically referred to as Wisconsin’s “rainy day fund.” That $232 million deposit would bring the overall fund to nearly $994 million. The balance in the rainy day fund is on top of the state’s projected general fund balance.

The latest single-housing permit numbers show that new home construction is up ten percent at the end of 2020 compared to the end of 2019.

The data, compiled by information required to be submitted by municipalities to the Department of Safety and Professional Services, shows 12,291 new home permits were issued across the state in 2020 compared to 11,207 in 2019.

Quarter four is down slightly compared to quarter three, with 3,392 permits issued in quarter four of 2020 and 3,825 permits issued in quarter three.

“We are thrilled with the yearly increase in building permits,” said Wisconsin Builders Association (WBA) Executive Director Brad Boycks. “Our industry is one that was not shut down in the early part of the year. The ability to continue building homes for people across the state was a significant factor in this great increase, and further helps the other industries impacted by homebuilding.”

Other encouraging numbers, released by the Department of Administration, includes the numbers of plats and lots approved through December of 2020; 204 and 5,447, respectively. In 2019, there were 152 plats and 4,593 lots approved.

Without action from state lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, many small businesses in Wisconsin may have to pay unexpected state taxes on loans taken out under the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

The news comes less than a month after Congress created a legislative fix to the same issue on the federal level, ensuring that businesses would not have to pay additional federal taxes on their PPP loans. Those changes came in the latest round of coronavirus relief that was signed into law in late December.

But in a notice posted on its website Friday, the state Department of Revenue clarified that Wisconsin law adheres to prior PPP restrictions, meaning small businesses will not be able to deduct those expenses from their state taxes.

That means small businesses, many of which are under immense financial strain amid the COVID-19 economic downturn, could have to pay state taxes on their PPP loans unless the state Legislature and Evers intervene.

Terry Hoover, a partner at the Appleton offices of the accounting and consulting firm Wipfli, said the cost to businesses will vary depending on the size of their PPP loan and how the business is organized. For a sole proprietor, for example, Hoover estimates businesses could face an extra $6,000 to $8,000 for every $100,000 worth of expenses a business isn’t able to deduct.

If no legislative action is taken by April 15, many businesses will be required to begin paying state taxes on their PPP loans, according to Hoover. But he added that some businesses have already been affected by the confusion, including at least seven businesses at Wipfli alone.

“So now they wake up to find on Friday morning that they actually have underpaid their Wisconsin taxes, and so have to amend those returns and pay in more, plus interest at 12 percent,” Hoover said. “Or they can wait and hope for the best that the Legislature acts to retroactively (bring Wisconsin into alignment with federal law) to avoid having to do that.”

Wisconsin’s top health official is joining the Biden administration, according to Governor Tony Evers.

Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm will be nominated to be Deputy Secretary of the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, Gov. Evers’ office confirmed Monday morning.

The governor’s office says Palm will leave her post at Wisconsin DHS on January 20, 2021.

Gov. Evers says Karen Timberlake will take over the top spot at Wisconsin DHS. Timberlake was DHS secretary under former Gov. Jim Doyle during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic response.

“Karen Timberlake brings a wealth of experience and knowledge in public health, healthcare, and healthcare systems that will be critical as we continue distributing vaccines quickly in our fight against this virus,” said. Gov. Evers “Our response to this pandemic and our vaccine distribution program will continue under the leadership of Karen and given her expertise and familiarity with the Department, I have no doubts she will be able to hit the ground running.”

Timberlake will officially start at the DHS on January 25, 2021

Department of Workforce Development (DWD) Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek today announced that DWD started issuing Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) payments made available through the Continued Assistance for Unemployed Workers Act, or CAUWA.

The CAUWA extends many of the provisions included in the previously passed Coronavirus, Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act of 2020, including FPUC, while also containing numerous new programming requirements.

“DWD staff have worked diligently to rapidly code, test and implement the FPUC extension, which provides an additional $300 per week in benefits to claimants who are receiving at least $1 in benefits from another program, and are otherwise eligible,” DWD Secretary-designee Pechacek said.

For more information on the FPUC program, and other UI programs please visit DWD’s website.