Page 118 is the next section that is not obviously part of the 'collective bargaining' section of this bill, which as I've stated I will come back to after completing the rest of the bill. I am hoping to be able to finish this review before Gov. Walker releases his actual budget and then review the information contained in that budget as well, but I can't make any guarantees of this at this point as I also have some other projects that I have to complete this week. I am also still interested in finding a supporter of this bill to clarify/debate some of the points of this bill, but thus far I have not had much success in getting volunteers for the project.
Section 365 is found at the bottom of page 118. Much of the first portion of this section deals with appointment/election, salaries, and employment status of judicial employees such as Assistant District Attorneys. The salary information basically just outlines that the pay rate for positions such as Assistant District Attorneys will be based on a statewide pay scale and the ability for municipalities to set their own pay scales will be required to be within this pay scale. This makes sense to me, as allowing more affluent communities to pay their attorneys a much higher rte may limit the ability of poorer areas to attract highly qualified applicants. The Director of the Office of State Employment Relations sets and monitors these pay scales, which seems to be the appropriate department for this type of issue.
Page 120 begins a discussion about staffing at a variety of state departments and commissions. Section 9101 (after section 369, not sure why there was such a significant change in the section numbers here) references that any staffing needs at the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission will be evaluated by the Department of Administration. The positions to be eliminated are all determined by the Secretary of Administration, so the departments themselves will not determine which positions it is most appropriate to eliminate, an important thing to keep in mind. It's easiest to summarize the individual department changes by each department, these are not necessarily in the exact order they appear in the bill:
-Department of Administration - This section also authorizes the creation of additional full-time employee (FTE) positions within the Department of Administration, including the creation of 1 FED position and 4 PR positions. I find this odd in a bill that is supposed to be used to limit/decrease state spending. It may be that these positions are required for some project that is not outlined in this bill, but the responsibilities of these positions are not outlines at all in this bill.
-Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection – The two subsections of this section are a bit confusing. It appears that FTE staffing to this department is decreased by 3.0 GPR positions
for general staffing but then INCREASED by 3 GPR positions specifically to be unclassified division administrators. This seems to be decreasing staff while increasing management, which I find odd for a 'budget balancing' bill, but again the responsibilities of the created positions are not outlines so perhaps they are not superfluous. It's also possible that this is simply to re-assign people who would be considered part of a collective bargaining unit into another 'non-union' classification.
-Department of Children and Families – This department will have 1 PR position, 1.85 GPR positions, and 0.15 FED positions eliminated for (apparently) general staff while increasing the 'unclassified division administrators' for this department by the same amount. The same concerns as I outlined for the Department of Agriculture apply here as well. Section 9208 (page 134) also outlines an increase of $37,000,000 for the second fiscal year to support an increase in the earned income tax credit program.
-Department of Corrections – The same theme repeats again. This department is decreased by 3 GPR positions while increasing 'unclassified division administrators' by 3 GPR positions. Adult Correctional Services (section 9211, page 135) would receive a direct increase in funding by $19,537,900 as well as several potential transfers from appropriation accounts.
-Department of Financial Institutions – FTE positions in this department are decreased by 2 PR positions while increased by 2 PR 'unclassified division administrators'.
-Department of Health Services – FTE positions are decreased y 1 FED and 2 GPR positions while being increased by 1 FED and 2 GPR 'unclassified division administrators'. Funding for Community Aids Appropriation (page 137) will be decreased by $3,100,000 in the second fiscal year while the funding for Medical Assistance General Purpose Revenue Appropriation would be increased by $127,000,000 in the second fiscal year. Medical Assistance Administration Appropriation ill be increased by $16,000,000 and Income Maintenance Appropriation will be increased by $2,500,000.
-Office of the Commissioner of Insurance – FTE positions are decreased by 2 PR positions while being increased by 2 PR 'unclassified division administrators'.
-Department of Natural Resources – FTE positions decreased by 3 SEG positions while increasing by 3 SEG positions for division administrators.
-Public Service Commission – Decreased FTEs by 3 PR positions while increasing by 3 PR positions for division administrators.
-Department of Regulation and Licensing – Decreased by 2 PR positions and increased by 2 unclassified division administrator PR positions
-Department of Revenue – Decreased by 3 FTE GPR positions and increased by the same number for 'unclassified division administrators'.
-Department of Employment Relations – Decreased by 1 PR position while increased by 1 PR position for a division administrator. This section also requires that the Department of Employment Relations investigate offering a low-cost insurance option and/or a high-deductible plan with a Health Savings Account (has) option as well as study the feasibility of requiring state employees to receive health coverage through a health benefits exchange. I am not familiar enough with benefit exchanges to complete a review of this requirement at this point, but I'm hoping to come back to that in the future.
-Department of Tourism – Decreased by 1 GPR position while increased by 1 'unclassified division administrator'.
-Department of Transportation – Continuing the theme, this department is decreased by 3 SEG positions while being increased by 3 SEG positions for division administrators.
-University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics Board – The first section of this portion establishes that when this bill takes effect, any employees of the UW Hospital Board are transferred to be employees of the UW Hospital and Clinics Authority. There are not FTE changes explicitly listed for this department.
-Department of Workforce Development – FTE positions are decreased by 2 PR positions and increased by 2 PR positions for 'unclassified division administrators'.
-Wisconsin Quality Home Care Authority – This bill merges the assets, liabilities, and property of this department into the Department of Health Services. There are no FTE changes explicitly listed, so the assumption is that the current staff of this department would remain as they are currently.
-Joint Committee on Finance – Finding for the Federal Program Supplement will be decreased by $37,000,000 and the General Purpose Revenue Funds General Program Supplementation program's funding will be decreased by $4,590,400.
There are several requirements for departments to 'lapse' a specified portion of their budget during the fiscal year, but I didn't think it was necessary to list all of those changes as well as the direct increases/decreases listed in the bill.
Changes to the Employee Trust Fund are more significant so I wanted to designate a large section to these changes after outlining the changes to other departments. These changes are explained starting in section 9115 (at the bottom of page 123). For simplicity in the coming description, think of the state health plan as having 3 tiers of plans available. Tier 1 is the lowest employee premium costs, tier 2 is the middle, and tier 3 is the highest employee premium costs. This section outlines that employees covered under the state employee health plan will have premiums of $84/month for individual ($208 for family) coverage under any of the tier 1 plans, $122 individual/$307 family for the tier 2 plans, and $226/individual and $567/month under tier 3 plans. I assume that these amounts meet the percent contribution that Walker has insisted are necessary for balancing the budget, although I would need to know the dollar amounts that are currently required to state that for certain. Teaching assistants, graduate assistants and employees-in-training in the UW system (as defined in Section 40.02 (25)) are required to pay 50% of these costs. This section also allows for retroactive premium withdrawal from paychecks if 'an employer is unable to modify payroll procedures in sufficient time to collect employees' increased share'. The current date for the increased employee contributions to take affect is listed as March 13, 2011, which does not coincide with the actual fiscal year that would start on July 1. It's unclear why this change would take affect so far in advance of the actual fiscal year, but I assume it is to help cover the budget shortfall that is predicted for the remainder of this fiscal year.
Changes to the Wisconsin Retirement System proposed in this bill include instituting a vesting period for employer contributions to the retirement system on an employees behalf. This period is not explicitly stated, although examples of 1, 5, or 10 years are listed. A vesting period is fairly common in private industry for employer contributions to retirement accounts, although many companies institute the vesting as a percent of contribution per year of employment vs. an all-or-nothing approach. This bill does not state if the vesting would be phased in per employment time or an all-or-nothing vesting, presumably because the charge of this bill is to require the evaluation of the option and therefore doesn't completely outline the option itself. This section would also allow for review of the health insurance credit program (the use of banked sick time to cover premiums in retirement) that I wrote about earlier. There is also a short reference to allowing employees to not make required contributions in (apparent) exchange for limited retirement benefits.
It appears that this bill includes several strategies and ideas to deal with the expected increase in insurance premiums and administration costs in the future. One strategy would allow the use of $28,000,000 in reserves from the Wisconsin Retirement System to be used to reduce employer costs for providing group health insurance to state employees. Although this may help to avoid cuts in the future, I'm always leery of using a surplus from a system that retirees depend on to fund other projects. There have been issues in the past questioning the legality of using Wisconsin Retirement System funds for other budget issues (but I still have to research those past issues further to determine if this would fall under the same concerns). This bill also requires that the Group Insurance Board design health insurance plans for 2012 that reduce premium costs by at least 5%. While this could be a significant cost savings, it is important to point out that one of the surest ways to decrease the cost of an insurance plan is to cut benefits, increase out-of-pocket expenses like deductibles or copays, or both. This could significantly increase the costs to plan members over and above the required increase to premium payments, as well as opening questions of how the benefits to be provided are reviewed.
The changes discussed above basically take us through the remaining portion of the Budget Repair Bill. The final 5 pages outline general changes, reiterate what sections apply to collective bargaining, and define the term of employment of Supreme Court judges in terms of eligibility for the Wisconsin Retirement System. The final section of this bill to be covered is the highly contentious 'collective bargaining' section that takes up the central portion of the bill. By the time I have that section completed, hopefully the actual budget itself will have been released so that I can evaluate that as well in the context of the authorities outlined in this bill.
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