Category: State news

Many of the 264,600 public employees in the state retirement system would not be able to retire as soon as they can now if a bill proposed to the state Legislature is enacted.

AB361, proposed by Rep. Gene Hahn, R-Cambria, would increase the minimum age at which people in the Wisconsin Retirement System could qualify for a state pension from 55 to 59. The bill would not change the retirement age of 50 for protected occupations such as law enforcement and firefighters, nor would it affect those who have already retired.

Dear Editor: The time is long overdue for state employees who have same-gender partners to receive treatment and benefits equal to their married counterparts.

When thousands of state employees gathered outside the Capitol in Madison last week, the signs read, “Wisconsin Works – Because We Do.” The message was as heartfelt as it was true.

….This state’s public employees display their respect for Wisconsin every day.
Unfortunately, the state’s top elected officials fail, on a regular basis, to show even the barest measure of respect for the workers.

The killing of a woman who was married, jailed and strangled in a matter of hours presents a new test for the Wisconsin Innocence Project, which has freed two men from prison but has never taken a wrongful conviction case to trial.

Mentions the West Campus Cogeneration Facility, a joint venture between Madison Gas & Electric Co. and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will boost power supply in Madison and provide steam and chilled water to heat and cool campus buildings.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. About 2,000 state employees and fellow union supporters from all over Wisconsin gathered at the State Capitol on Thursday to ask for just that, and for a respectable income, too.

Their consistent message was that their work is important, and that quality of life in the state will suffer if the governor and his department heads continue to cut state jobs and replace employees with outside contractors.

Thirteen years ago, when welder Jeffrey Kleine was training for his job as a Wisconsin correctional officer, somebody said, “Remember, you won’t make a difference.”

Kleine’s now a sergeant in the canteen at Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution. “I do make a difference. I know I make a difference. I know that some of these guys when they do leave are better for running into me along the way. . . . Some people are made for being correctional officers and others aren’t,” Kleine said at a rally Thursday for state employees whose 2003-05 labor contract is almost two years past due.

University of Wisconsin- Madison students and members of the Teaching Assistants� Association joined together with state workers at the Capitol Thursday afternoon to rally for the betterment of high education, fairer wages and increased health care.

Union leaders turned out to demand Wisconsin’s leadership make the “right choices” for it public service employees. More than a thousand state workers voiced their concerns as the joint legislative finance committee considers the governor’s budget.

Gov. poses pay increase for state employees

Madison

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle called Tuesday for state employees with unsettled labor contracts for 2003-’05 to return to the bargaining table to work out their differences with the state.

The expansion of UW-Madison’s medical facilities, the elimination of older pipelines and the possible introduction of heating and cooling plants are some of the initiatives to revamp campus, according to the directors of the Public Utilities Board. The board came together Wednesday in the Red Gym to chart the future of campus utilities under the Campus Master Plan.

A UW-Madison graduate student is part of a group of six lesbian couples seeking domestic partner benefits in a lawsuit filed against the state of Wisconsin Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

We are writing to ask every member of the university community to attend a rally today to protest the massive funding cuts to the University of Wisconsin System which have hurt all of us, employees and students of the university alike. Campus unionists and undergraduates will gather together at 11 a.m. in front of Bascom Hall and will then march up State Street to the Capitol, joining thousands of undergrads and state workers at an 11:30 rally.

The Wisconsin American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Wednesday against several state agencies, including the University of Wisconsin, on behalf of six lesbian couples.

Six lesbians who work for state government filed a lawsuit Wednesday to try to force Wisconsin officials to provide them and their partners the same health insurance and family leave benefits as married state workers.

For five days after her partner was hospitalized in Tennessee for injuries she received in a car crash, Eloise McPike had to wait for her employer, the state Department of Corrections, to approve her vacation request to go care for her.

Michelle Collins has found a lump in her breast, but because she doesn’t qualify for benefits under her partner’s state government health insurance, she hasn’t seen a specialist. She’s worried about the cost of a biopsy. Besides, she’s found lumps before that didn’t turn out to be cancerous.

The two are among six same- sex couples who sued the state Wednesday, alleging government unfairly discriminates against its gay and lesbian employees by refusing to provide their partners with health insurance and family leave benefits.

Ingrid Ankerson and Megan Sapnar have joined five other couples in a fight against a Wisconsin policy for state employees that does not provide full health benefits to domestic partners.

If I broke a bone or I needed an ambulance those are the sorts of things that I have to pay out of pocket,” explains Ankerson.

She works for a start up company without coverage, while her partner, Sapnar, is a teaching assistant with full benefits at the University of Wisconsin.

UW Provost Peter Spear says, “we’ve tried to recruit outstanding world class faculty who did not want to come here because we do not offer domestic partners benefits.”(Video.)

State workers boast of their quality public service. Governor Jim Doyle boasts of better, more cost effective government. But, in the meantime, the two sides have yet to iron out a new contract for 24, 000 state workers. Some of them will rally tomorrow at the Capitol. (Video.)

The Doyle administration is offering 5 percent raises to state employees over the 2005-07 budget period, a big step up from 1 percent during the current biennium.

The proposal is aimed first at non-union employees, including University of Wisconsin faculty and academic staff, but it is also an opening position for union negotiations. Union representatives weren’t impressed Tuesday, noting that 11 of 19 contracts are not yet settled for 2003-05, and that Gov. Jim Doyle continues to cut a mammoth number of state jobs.

With some Waukesha County officials warming to the idea of selling the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha campus to the state, a legislator said Monday that he is hatching a strategy to make it happen.

World-famous environmentalist John Muir never forgot the day he got his first lesson in the study of nature on the steps of his University of Wisconsin dormitory. Almost 50 years later, Muir wrote a letter to thank his old college friend, Wisconsin judge Milton Griswold, for “that wonderful botanical lesson you gave me on the steps of our dormitory, which has never been forgotten and which has influenced all my after life.”

The note is part of a rare collection of Muir’s letters published online for the first time by the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Now it’s time for the Legislature to start getting serious about the state budget, and thousands of state workers are anxious to see the results.

The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee begins acting this week on the state’s 2005-2007 budget. The major decisions are more than a month away, but a major rally is planned for Thursday by the Wisconsin State Employees Union, which represents the majority of the 23,000 unionized workers who have not received a pay increase for the 2003-2005 biennium.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker says he would consider cutting state-funded medical care for the poor, elderly and disabled in order to reduce state taxes if he’s elected governor next year.

During a stop Friday in Madison on his “Taxes and Truth” campaign tour, Walker told reporters that all of the biggest state programs – including Medicaid, the University of Wisconsin System, state aids to local governments, and the state prison system – could be subject to cuts.

Wisconsin college graduates who want to stay in the state face fewer job openings and lower average pay than surrounding states, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Census Bureau surveys.

It’s shorter, easier to understand, and this time it’s co-sponsored by the state Assembly’s top two leaders and the state Senate president.But the centerpiece of a proposed constitutional amendment to limit state and local spending – which sponsors call a taxpayer bill of rights, or TABOR – has not changed: It would require approval from state or local voters to exceed spending limits set by the amendment, to raise taxes or to approve long-term debt.

State Rep. Frank Lasee, R-Bellevue, planned to reintroduce today his amendment to the state constitution that would severely limit government spending – and likely ignite a new round of bickering in the State Capitol.

University of Wisconsin System leaders said Wednesday they plan to continue awarding race-specific grants designed to help keep minority students in college, despite a federal civil rights complaint submitted March 10 against the program.

The Lawton Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant was created by the state Legislature in 1986. That means lawmakers woulfd have to act to stop it, System President Kevin Reilly said.

A retired economics professor has filed a complaint with federal officials about a University of Wisconsin System financial aid program for minority students, but system officials insisted the program is defensible because it complies with state law.

The co-chairs of the Legislature’s budget committee said Tuesday they planned to strip 21 policy items from the governor’s budget proposal….The committee left two provisions in the budget – for now – that were identified as policy items by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Under current law, the University of Wisconsin System can remit part of the tuition bill paid by non-residents and then allow those students to pay the in-state rate to attend school. The system is currently limited in how much tuition it can remit to these students, but the governor proposed eliminating that ceiling.

The second provision would allow illegal immigrants who graduate from a Wisconsin high school to attend the system at in-state tuition rates. Currently those students have to pay out-of-state tuition.

Telecommunications executives and government officials on Tuesday criticized a contract for a $116 million statewide communications system called BadgerNet 2, recently awarded to a group of companies headed by SBC. The group, called the Wisconsin BadgerNet Access Alliance, has a five-year deal with the state to provide data and video networking to link state, local government and educational institutions. The alliance includes Verizon; Norlight, a division of Journal Communications Inc. (which publishes the Journal Sentinel); and CenturyTel. The new network will replace the 10-year-old BadgerNet system that now makes it possible for students in remote locations to take televised classes not available in their areas.

The Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities announced March 28 that two prominent public libraries and four research programs at universities throughout the country were awarded $1.9 million to digitize the nation�s newspapers.