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Governor Previewing His Budget
Governor Evers has begun sharing previews of his budget, rolling out new portions every few days. As part of his budget preview, Governor Evers has shared portions of his PFAS plan. His documents say his budget will include:
- Invest over $145 million to address PFAS contamination across Wisconsin, from private well owners to municipalities and across surface, drinking, and groundwater, including:
- Creating a PFAS Community Grant Program to assist municipal drinking water systems with testing for and eliminating PFAS from drinking water through the Safe Drinking Water Loan Program;
- Helping private well owners sample and test their private wells through a new County PFAS Well Testing Grant Program;
- Researching effective destruction and disposal methods of PFAS and implementing proven strategies to dispose and eliminate PFAS;
- Providing grants to local businesses and communities to help reduce or eliminate their use or release of PFAS into the environment;
- Conducting statewide research, including sampling and testing for PFAS to better understand its prevalence;
- Provide nearly $2 million in emergency resources to help provide safe, bottled water to households and communities impacted by water contamination;
- Protect innocent landowners like farmers who unknowingly spread biosolids containing PFAS on their land from having to foot the bill for the clean up; and
- Increase biosolid sampling, testing, and remediation for PFAS in biosolids and allocate $7 million in new funding to help innocent landowners and farmers remediate PFAS contamination;
- Expand eligibility for the state’s Well Compensation Grant Program to enable more Wisconsinites to participate in the program and make PFAS contaminants eligible so the program can support households replacing or adding a treatment system to their private water well;
- Adopt the Chemical Level Enforcement and Remediation (CLEAR) Act, which will make several changes to Wisconsin’s laws aimed at improving water quality across our state, including but not limited to:
- Exempting Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) rulemaking relating to setting enforceable PFAS standards from the so-called “REINS Act,” which has stalled progress on strengthening Wisconsin’s water standards for years;
- Prohibiting land spreading of biosolids if the PFAS levels exceed levels set by DNR through permitting;
- Prioritizing PFAS-related municipal water infrastructure applications to the Safe Drinking Water Loan Program if PFAS levels exceed health advisory levels issued by DHS; and
- Requiring site-specific clean up planning for entities that handle PFAS chemicals.
A change in this proposal from what Governor Evers proposed last session is the provision to “Protect innocent landowners like farmers who unknowingly spread biosolids containing PFAS on their land from having to foot the bill for the clean up.” However, the Governor makes no comments about immunity or protections for municipalities. The Legislature (likely Sen. Wimberger) has not yet circulated or introduced a PFAS bill.
Upcoming Legislative Session
It is expected the legislature will be in on Tuesday, February 18 for the Governor’s Budget Address and on Wednesday February 19 for a floor session.
Group Health Insurance Reserves
The Department of Employee Trust Funds has a memo on their website regarding the Group Health Insurance Program Reserves. According to the memo, “The GHIP reserve is experiencing negative cash flows. To pay premiums and claims, the GHIP is using cash from the Core Trust Fund, where other benefit programs in addition to the GHIP are invested. This will result in the GHIP being allocated negative earnings for the year.” The memo highlights some contributing factors, including reserves are on an accrual basis instead of a cash basis, pharmacy costs continue to increase, the 2023 buy-down, lack of rate increase in 2024, and a lack of policy on negative cash positions. The memo states that following considerations for future rate setting discussions:
“The Board approved a premium stabilization credit (PSC) of 1.6% of average premiums for the state group and 1.4% for the local group as a part of 2025 rates. This charge was primarily intended to incrementally build the reserve to reach the target range by the end of 2027. The PSC is estimated to result in approximately $17M additional dollars in 2025. This will help to return the program to a positive cash flow position.” In addition, the Board is projected to owe Dean Health Plan which will be paid by the reserve, and increased administrative fee increases for the implementation of the Insurance Administration System (IAS) could factor into rates. The Board will likely address this at their May Board meeting.
Court Filings
Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard) and Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) are circulating a bill they have called “Court Fairness Bill.” Their release states, “Legislation that aims to restore fairness and impartiality in Wisconsin circuit court cases involving various government officials and entities. The proposal would establish a random venue selection opportunity in Wisconsin court cases involving state and federal officials and entities.”
The proposal would apply to cases involving a government party which is defined as:
- The legislature, either house of the legislature, or a committee of the legislature or of either house of the legislature, or any member of the legislature acting in his or her official capacity
- The elections commission or the ethics commission, or any commissioner thereof, acting in his or her official capacity, or
- if acting in his or her official capacity, the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state treasurer, attorney general, or superintendent of public instruction, a secretary or deputy secretary of a department, a commissioner or deputy commissioner of an independent agency, the president or vice president of the United States, or any U.S. senator or representative in Congress from this state.
The proposal provides that if an action is filed in a county with a first- or second-class city and a government party is part of the action, including as an intervenor, any party may request to have a random venue assignment.
In an interview with The Wheeler Report, Rep. Steffen said, “Right now, almost all the cases involving the legislature, executive branch, or legislators, is occurring in this singular circuit, and every one of the other circuits and every one of the other judges in the state of Wisconsin are equally qualified, competent and able to hear those cases and so as an effort to provide additional fairness, which is sometimes a perception issue, this provides that opportunity when issues that involve the state government occur. There should be an opportunity for circuits from the entire state to be part of the potential determination on that issue.” Steffen stated there is a perception, whether it’s real or not, that these cases are not always fair or impartial because they are always in Dane County. He said, “I think as much randomization that can be applied to the system is beneficial.”
If a party decides to appeal a case, they choose which appeals court the case goes to, but Steffen was clear that an appeals court doesn’t address the same subjects as the circuit court, the issues are “procedural, not substantive” and that circuit court judges can make a decision that can be binding until decided by an appellate court or the Supreme Court. When asked why the proposal didn’t just bypass lower courts and require all of these cases to go directly to the WI Supreme Court Steffen said, “We have 69 circuits with some 200 judges who are paid to handle these issues…There may be some judges in some smaller courts who are going to have to brush up a bit on some of these issues, so there will be a higher expectation, but that is a small issue to deal with in comparison with having all of our political and government related decisions being handled by such a small number of people in a single community.”
While it may not seem like this bill directly impacts municipalities in Wisconsin, there are some of these cases in which the League of Wisconsin Municipalities has filed to be an intervenor or are cases the League is watching closely and its impact on Wisconsin municipalities.
LRB-0282 Memo Court Venue (Steffen, David) Venue for actions in which there is a governmental party.
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