Category: State news

Gov. Jim Doyle was right to propose an increase in spending on a program that helps save and create manufacturing jobs in the state. The Legislature ought to accept the governor’s $3 million funding plan for the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership in the state’s 2005-07 budget.

WMEP is a subsidized consulting service that uses expertise from the state’s technical colleges and universities to help small and mid-size manufacturers become more efficient. For example, the partnership worked with Dane Manufacturing Co. in Dane to increase production, yielding a $242,500 increases in sales and $50,000 in cost savings.

A state employee accused last week of embezzling more than $165,000 from the Department of Commerce was hired even though she went to prison for forgery in another state job five years earlier.

What Wisconsin needs is responsible spending decisions by legislators. With that, there never is a need for TABOR.

Sadly, initial TABOR arguments seem to be mostly a matter of political philosophy. Namely, government as the Great Satan.

Exceeding the minutes on your cell phone plan can increase your bill. That’s why the state is checking its cell phone bill. The state spends about $219,000 a month on cell phones issued to its employees. The University of Wisconsin has about 9-percent of the state’s 10,000 cell phones.

Though the Asian soybean rust fungus has only been found south of the Mason-Dixon, Wisconsin farmers should be ready to battle it anyway. That’s according to Craig Grau and Brian Hudelson, plant pathologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who say the possibility of the fungus entering the Badger State next year is possible.

The University of Wisconsin has a new distinction;� � it will soon be the last Big� Ten university not offering health insurance to employees with domestic partners.

One of the main backers of a so-called taxpayer bill of rights unveiled a strict version of the proposal Tuesday, saying he was prepared for a “brutal” fight with some of his Republican colleagues who favor a softer approach to spending limits.

Two years after promising to slash 10,000 state jobs within eight years to help cut government spending, Gov. Jim Doyle has fallen off the pace he would need to keep to live up to his campaign pledge by hundreds of jobs.

The first report in 25 years examining who pays Wisconsin taxes finds that the state’s tax structure is fair, as long as tax credits protect low-income residents. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and Republican Assembly Speaker John Gard disagreed on how to interpret the study.

Retired state and local public employees could see about a 2 percent increase in their Wisconsin Retirement System pensions next spring, assuming there are no major changes in the stock market before Jan. 1.

Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration wants the University of Wisconsin System to borrow money for nearly $3 million in campus building projects — including two totaling $500,000 at UW-Madison — rather than use cash raised and saved by the individual universities.

“It is unusual to substitute borrowing for cash,” said David Miller, the System’s assistant vice president for capital planning.

NEW BRITAIN, CONN.
A Wisconsin college administrator proudly put on a white Central Connecticut State University baseball cap Friday and accepted the university’s top job.

John W. Miller, 57, chancellor at UW-Whitewater, takes over as Central’s president on July 1.

Wisconsin’s reputation as a “tax hell” is a hoax that’s being used to justify efforts to downsize state and local government, according to a study released today…. The new study weighs in during the debate over the so-called Taxpayers Bill of Rights, or TABOR, which Republicans and the business lobbies have made their top priority in the current session of the Legislature.

Halloween may be said and done, but police and student actions during the riotous weekend are still spurring talk.

Wisconsin taxpayers will soon send Steven Avery $25,000 to begin to compensate him for spending 18 years in prison for a sex assault he didn’t commit, but it was unclear Thursday when – or if – he will get more of the $1 million he seeks. Avery was freed with the help of the UW-Madison Innocence Project.

State Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, the target of talk radio programs in Milwaukee, today resigned as assistant majority leader in the state Senate. Lazich will continue to serve as Senate vice chair of the Joint Finance Committee.

Tough drug laws have pushed disproportionately large numbers of black Americans into the prison system in Wisconsin and around the nation, civil rights advocates told UW-Madison students. They spoke Tuesday night as part of Social Justice Awareness Week, which continues tonight with a panel discussion about abortion, followed by interracial relations night on Thursday.