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Pandemic exacerbates shortage of truck drivers in Wisconsin

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The pandemic has put a new focus on Wisconsin’s shortage of commercial truck drivers. Wisconsin Motor Carriers Association Vice President Dan Johnson said it’s not a new problem.

“This has probably been going on for at least the last ten years, maybe even longer than that.”

Johnson said the trucking workforce is “graying,” with many older drivers retiring, and not enough young people entering the field.

“Over time, we see a steady increase of driver shortage, but at the same time we’ve also seen an increase in the amount of freight that’s being moved across the country,” he explained.

Johnson said Wisconsin trucking firms have improved their compensation packages in order to attract and retain drivers. In addition, a provision of the federal infrastructure package would allow drivers ages 18 to 21 to drive interstate routes

“You can drive from Beloit to Superior, if you’re under the age of 21 . . and you’re fine. But you can’t drive from Beloit to Rockford, Illinois because you’re crossing state lines,” Johnson said.

“It’s not just truck drivers. School bus drivers, motor coach drivers, tow truck drivers. There’s a whole host of driver shortages that go much further than just the trucking industry.”

New bill seeks to move Wisconsin Elections Commission to Wausau

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A Republican lawmaker from Green Bay is looking to move the state elections commission to Wausau.

Representative David Steffen says that the days of keeping offices in Madison for the sake of being in Madison are over. 

“It made sense 173 years ago to have everything together when a person like myself had to get on a pony, put on a powdered wig to walk over, to get over to someone else’s office, to sit by whale-oil light to make a decision but that’s no longer the situation.”

He says Wausau is a central location in the state on two major highways, and rent would be much cheaper than in Madison. 

“Their lease is expiring at the end of the year for office space that cost twice that of almost every other community in the state.”

This is not the first attempt to start moving state agencies out of Madison. There’s been an effort to move the DNR farther north for many years.

Assembly Republicans fail to overturn veto on federal unemployment benefits

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Assembly Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to overturn Governor Evers’ veto of a bill that would have ended federal unemployment benefits.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says it’s unfair that businesses have to compete with the federal government. 

“If you pay people over $17 an hour tax free to stay home and not work there are going to be fewer people working it’s not rocket science.”

Minority leader Gordon Hintz says the numbers that Republicans and business leaders are quoting just don’t make sense. 

“You can look right at the unemployment numbers. They continue to go down.  Fewer people are filing unemployment; they’ve gone down the $300 bump.”

Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is 3 point 9 percent, and is below the national average, and many workers have left the retail and service sectors for other positions during the pandemic. 

Nekoosa lawmaker asks for 50 million dollar loan for restarting idled papermill in Wisconsin Rapids

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A bill authored by Representative Scott Krug of Nekoosa which calls for W E D C to issue a fifty million dollar loan to the co-op looking to buy the idled Verso paper mill will get a hearing Wednesday in Madison.

Krug says the plant was a vital part of business and industry in the Northwoods. 

“I honestly get more emails and phone calls from people in the Northwoods than people from Wisconsin Rapids because that’s how much of an impact this has on the upper 2/3 of the state of Wisconsin.”

Others who have signaled their support for the bill include Republicans Patrick Testin, Pat Snyder, Jim Edming, and John Spiros. 

Krug says he’s proposed the single bill to take politics out of the project, especially after Governor Evers’ comments about possibly vetoing the entire state budget:

“I don’t want Politics on this. I just want a clean bill, a yes or no vote. A day for Wisconsin Rapids to be heard in the Assembly. A day for Wisconsin Rapids to be heard in the Senate. A day for the Wisconsin Rapids area to be heard by the Governor.”

It’s unclear if the governor would sign the bill. 

DWD says employers may have to step up if they want to find and retain workers

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The Department of Workforce Development says employers may have to step up their game if they want to hire and retain employees post pandemic.

DWD Employment Training administrator Michele Carter says the Department has seen a shift in employment away from food service and tourism industries. 

“We see them moving from those, maybe trying to find more secure, steadier work schedules, right? Knowing how much money they’re going to make.”

Carter says employers who offer more competitive wages and job benefits like child care are having a better time retaining their workers, and enticing those who have left the job market back into the workforce. 

Anyone who’s looking to find a better job themselves can always come to find training, says Carter.

“I think as people come to us we can help guide them and match them with some of those employer needs. The needs of the future, not just what we used to do.”

DWD says many people who left the workforce due to the pandemic are unable to get back to work because of a lack of services to assist them, like affordable child care. Republicans are blaming the lack of workers on improved unemployment benefits.

 

Republicans announce bill to end $300 weekly federal unemployment benefit

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Republican leaders in the Wisconsin legislature have drafted a bill to end $300 in weekly federal payments, to people who aren’t working.

State Senator Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said he’s spoken with a number of employers in his district, including one who told him ” we’re no longer competing with other employers, we’re no longer competing with Illinois, we’re no longer competing with Iowa. We’re competing with the couch.'”

Sen. Howard Marklein

“When you pay people more to stay home, they stay home,” Marklein said during a Tuesday press conference at the Capitol.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said, when combined with state UI benefits, the pandemic-related federal payment disincentivizes work.

“On unemployment today, you are making 16 dollars and 75 cents an hour, and not required to look for work. Well, if you can go and work at 14 dollars an hour, how many people are going to make that choice,” Vos said. “People might make the financial decision to stay home, where the government is paying them to sit on their couch, more than somebody would pay them to actually do work.”

Vos said the bill encourages unemployed individuals to return to work amid a statewide worker shortage. It ends Wisconsin’s participation in federal unemployment enhancement programs that provide disincentives to return to work.

He hopes to have a hearing on the bill next week, and a vote by the full Assembly by next month. A statement from Governor Tony Evers’ office indicates the bill would face a likely veto.

“If Republicans are interested in putting this pandemic behind us, they’ll stop playing politics with our economic recovery and pass the governor’s Badger Bounceback agenda so we can invest in making healthcare more affordable, supporting our kids and our public schools, and building infrastructure and creating jobs across our state,” said Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback.

Wisconsin’s unemployment rate in March was 3.8%, although considerably higher in some communities.

Republican governors of more than a dozen states have announced that they will soon cease paying their state’s unemployed residents the federal jobless supplement, curtailing benefits for about 2 million Americans.

WEDC grant hooks up rural Eau Claire County in pilot program with SpaceX Starlink

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Eau Claire County has received a grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, for a pilot program to provide high-speed internet in rural areas.

As the county’s information systems director Dave Hayden explains, the service will be out of this world.

“We’re going to pilot SpaceX Starlink low orbit satellite technology, in an unserved an underserved area of southeastern Eau Claire County, just south of Augusta.”

The pilot project will provide high-speed internet to 50 rural homes and businesses. It’s being supported by a $27,000 grant from WEDC, as well as funding from a group of healthcare providers.

‘We’re moving forward hopefully in the next couple of weeks, notifying the participants that we’ve selected and getting them connected,” said Hayden

Participants will be asked to fill out a weekly survey to gauge service and reliability over the year-long period covered by the grant. SpaceX plans to launch additional satellites, which Hayden says should improve service.

Labor activists urge Senate passage of federal Protecting the Right to Organize Act

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At the Capitol in Madison on Monday, advocates for organized labor urged U.S. Senate passage of a bill that would repeal right-to-work laws in all states.

Stephanie Bloomingdale is President of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. “We are happy that Tammy Baldwin has been a sponsor and a co-sponsor from the very beginning of the Pro Act. But U.S. Senator Ron Johnson has still refused to meet with the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, or anyone else in labor, in terms of talking about the PRO Act,” she said.

“Human rights groups will tell you, we don’t have a right to organize and a right to free association,” said  Robert Kraig, the executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin. “And the reason is, workers have to go through hell in order to try to organize. And that’s why there is so little successful organizing, especially against big powerful employers like Wal-Mart and like Amazon.”

Wisconsin Democrat, Senator Tammy Baldwin, is a co-sponsor of the PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act, which has already passed the House.

Bill Franks chairs the Labor & Industry Committee of the NAACP of Dane County. “As we know, right to work typically means right to work for less. That hasn’t changed. Wisconsin passed a right to work law in 2015, signed by then governor Scott Walker.”

The city will pay Brown $750,000 for attorney’s fees and damages, issue a public apology and commit to updating MPD standard operating procedures with a focus on anti-racism and de-escalation.

The PRO Act has already passed the House, but Senate Democrats will need 60 “yes” votes to avoid a filibuster by Republicans.

Evers vetoes Republican bills to allocate federal pandemic relief money

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As expected, Governor Tony Evers on Thursday vetoed a package of Republican legislation that would have directed how the state would allocate $3.2 billion in federal COVID-19 relief money.

The Democratic governor also announced some $420 million of the federal funding coming to Wisconsin will fund a grant program to assist small businesses

“This money has to get out quickly,” Evers said during a press conference at a Wauwatosa small business. “It’s much more easy and direct if it’s not going through a hundred hands in the legislature, versus one administration that has done this several times already.”

The governor said about 84,000 businesses with annual gross revenues between $10,000 and $7 million could qualify, for awards of $5,000. More information on the Wisconsin Tomorrow program will come, after the U.S. Treasury provides more details about how the money is to be used.

“We have to make sure that we move forward, as soon as that money flows into our treasury, that it’s flowing right out to the businesses of our state.”

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and other Republicans said they were disappointed that Evers vetoed their plans on how to spend the federal stimulus funding.

“It’s not surprising, but it is disappointing the governor vetoed these bills because he still hasn’t put forth a plan of his own on how to help Wisconsin with these relief funds,” Vos said in a joint statement. “I’m glad he announced help for small businesses, but where is the rest of the money? Making vague promises in a press release is not a plan and Wisconsin deserves transparency in this decision making process.”

“The governor just sent a clear message to the people of Wisconsin that they will have little to no say in how their federal tax dollars are spent,” said state Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu. “He has, once again, rejected the opportunity to work with legislators on even a basic spending plan. This is not good government.”

State agencies defend budget priorities at Republican controlled Joint Finance Committee

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Tuesday was the start of the Legislature’s review of Governor Evers’ proposed state budget.

Joint Finance Committee Co-Chair Howard Marklein says that Wisconsin will be receiving a massive influx of aid from the federal government, and that Republicans are keeping an eye on things. 

“The total amount that a federal money that’s come into the state is huge and, in terms of us doing the budget for the next two years, that is something that we’re going to have to consider.” 

Marklein says he’s unhappy with the size of Evers’ budget, and that it will dip into the state’s rainy day general fund balance. 

“That’s unacceptable to me. We cannot reverse the strong trajectory that we had in the past.”

Two days of hearings brought four different agencies to the floor for questions and presentations to the committee.

Republicans grilled State superintendent of schools Caroline Stanford Taylor over whether or not schools would be open this fall, and Stanford Taylor says that’s up to the local school districts. She also said this was not a lost year. 

“But the one thing that I want to make clear to everyone is that there was a continuation of learning, no matter how. Whether it was virtual hybrid or in-person, the learning never stopped.” 

Stanford Taylor says that they do hope that students are back in school this fall, but says that the pandemic has to be under control before many districts will feel safe to make that switch.  “In person is the best avenue for our students because there are some things that you just can’t replicate in terms of relationships and those things, but number one is to make sure that kids are safe.”

The state will be receiving over 2 billion dollars in federal aid for schools in the upcoming budget cycle, and much of that will go to large districts serving underprivileged kids. 

The Department of Workforce Development got the second hearing on Tuesday, and Republicans grilled Secretary Amy Pechacek over the failures of the Unemployment System during the height of the pandemic last year. Pechacek says they’re looking to expand their programming on job training and education to ensure that people will be able to find jobs in a post-pandemic world. 

“In order to keep growing our economy and really invest long term, we want to make sure we’ve got programs in place that are going to help these jobseekers transition so that our employers can also continue to grow.”

Chairman Howard Marklein says business people are competing with unemployment to find workers, and Secretary Pechacek says that’s unlikely. 

“So to think that folks could sustain on $370 [a week], without Healthcare, without benefits… I don’t really think that that’s reality.”

The next hearing came on Wednesday with Department of Natural Resources Secretary Preston Cole.

Cole says the agency is planning to expand funding to remediate and remove an emerging contaminant from Wisconsin’s ecosystem. “These forever chemicals are a public health concern, that build up and move through our soil, seep into our groundwater and carry through the air. PFOS are known to build in our bodies and our fish tissue, and wildlife tissue.”

Republicans, alongside the state’s business lobby, say that the DNR doesn’t have a mandate to regulate PFOS under state law. The DNR is currently in the process of codifying those rules. 

Cole says the state is working to keep up with fish stocking demands, while also keeping Wisconsin’s waters clean.  “It ain’t about the numbers it’s about the habitat they go into. So for us, to make sure that what we put in can survive, the healthier the habitat, the better off we are.”

That question came in response to Republican concerns that more people have been getting fishing licenses during the pandemic as a means to do something safe outdoors. 

The state’s effort to increase broadband connections to rural Wisconsin got a focus on Wednesday at Joint Finance’s budget hearings. Public Service Commission Chairperson Rebecca Cameron Valcq says the Commission doesn’t have the power to regulate how and where broadband lines are installed. 

“They’ve been deregulated now for more than 10 years so we don’t have the ability to say if you’re going down County Highway O you must provide service on both sides of the highway.”

Valcq says one fix to the issue would be to allow for municipalities to apply for those broadband grants themselves, provided they can prove that no other provider is willing to install lines in their area. “It’s not a matter of pushing Private Industry out. It’s a matter of recognizing that there are areas of the state where Private Industry is refusing to go.”

The Budget hearings are now set to go on the road, with several in person hearings and one virtual hearing before the whole budget comes to the legislature for debates and votes.