Little Gems in Doylie's Budget

I'll just post 'em. You decide. Belling was kind enough to post the link which is from the Legislative Reference Bureau.

This bill establishes an assessment to be paid to DATCP by businesses that
slaughter certain kinds of animals. The assessment per animal is one cent for
poultry, ten cents for calves, and 14 cents for older cattle and for swine. The bill
appropriates the revenue from the assessment for meat safety inspections and
animal health programs

Looks like a fee, works like a tax.


Currently, DATCP awards grants for land and water resource management
projects and for the construction of animal waste management systems. This bill
increases the general obligation bonding authority for the grants by $7,000,000.

Looks like more debt-financing.


This bill consolidates the development zones, enterprise development zones,
agricultural development zones, technology zones, and airport development zones
(five development zone programs) into a program that provides tax benefits to
persons who enter into a contract with Commerce to undertake eligible activities
anywhere in the state. Eligible activities under the bill include all of the following:
1. Projects that result in the creation and maintenance of jobs paying wages
and providing benefits at a level approved by Commerce

Looks like "some businesses are more equal than others."


Under current law, Commerce may award grants for the redevelopment of
“brownfields,” which include facilities or sites that are idle or underused because of
environmental contamination. Commerce may award a brownfields redevelopment
grant only if certain persons responsible for the contamination of the project site are
financially unable to pay the costs to remediate or redevelop the site. Commerce
must consider four criteria when awarding brownfields redevelopment grants and
must accord different values to the criteria.

This bill eliminates the requirement that the person who caused the
environmental contamination be financially unable to pay the costs to redevelop the
site.

Looks like a Friend of Jimbo has a chunk of land that could be profitable, if only...


Current law establishes the maximum fees that Commerce may charge for certain services it provides including administering examinations and issuing licenses. This bill eliminates the
mandatory caps on the amounts that Commerce may charge for these services and instead provides that the fees must as closely as possible equal the cost of providing the services

You'll pay more for a trades-license.


This bill increases from $750 to $1,000 the securities registration and notice
filing fee paid to DFI and, for investment companies such as mutual funds, increases
the minimum and maximum annual sales fee from a minimum of $150 and a
maximum of $1,500 to a minimum of $500 and a maximum of $10,000.
This bill increases from $30 to $60 the license fee paid to DFI for securities
agents and investment adviser representatives. The bill also increases from $30 to
$60 the broker−dealer and investment adviser branch office filing fee.
Under current law, Commerce awards grants to eligible applicants for the
purchase of devices that provide heat, air conditioning, or electricity to a diesel truck
when the main drive engine of the truck is not operating. Currently, the program
sunsets at the end of fiscal year 2010−11. This bill eliminates this grant program

Pay more, pay more, pay more. And if you're a truck driver? Suffer, Suckah!

Here's something that Belling mentioned on his show:


This bill eliminates the provision regarding persons acting in concert, the
provision that the negligence of the person seeking recovery is compared to each
person who was negligent separately, the provision that the liability of a person who
is less than 51 percent negligent is limited to that person’s percentage of the total
negligence, and the provision that the liability of a person whose causal negligence
is 51 percent or more is jointly and severally liable. Instead, the bill allows an injured
person to recover damages if that person’s negligence is not greater than the
combined negligence of all of the persons against whom recovery is sought. The bill
also provides that any person whose causal negligence is equal to or greater than the
causal negligence of the person seeking recovery is jointly and severally liable for the
damages awarded to the person seeking recovery

The PI-lawyer Retirement and Chenequa-Housing Bill.


This bill defines a “surviving domestic partner” as a person who was the
domestic partner, as defined in the bill, of the decedent at the time of the decedent’s
death. The bill provides the following inheritance rights for a surviving domestic
partner, which are equivalent to the rights of a surviving spouse:
1. The surviving domestic partner of a decedent who dies intestate is entitled
to inherit all of the decedent’s estate unless the decedent had children that were not
also the children of the surviving domestic partner, in which case the surviving
domestic partner receives half of the intestate estate.
2. A surviving domestic partner may petition the court for the full property
interest the decedent had in a home, subject to payment to the estate under a
governing instrument or under intestacy.
3. If a decedent executed his or her will before the registration of the domestic
partnership, the surviving domestic partner is entitled to what the share would be
if the decedent died intestate...

...blahblahblah. You'll hear a LOT more about "domestic partnerships" in the near future.


This bill directs DPI to use the federal funds received by the state pursuant to
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to make state aid payments
to schools in June 2009 and in the 2009−10 and 2010−11 fiscal years. The bill lapses
to the general fund $291,000,000 in state school aids in the 2008−09 fiscal year

The switcheroo. He'll call that "saving money." The laugh is on you if you believe that.


Under current law, a private school participating in the MPCP must achieve
accreditation by an accrediting organization or association by December 31 of the
third school year following the first school year in which it participates in the MPCP.
This bill requires the private school to attain accreditation by August 1 of the school
year in which the school first participates in the MPCP.

Currently, teachers at private schools participating in the MPCP are required
to have graduated from high school or to have been granted a declaration of
equivalency of high school graduation. Beginning in the 2010−11 school year, this
bill directs each private school participating in the MPCP to ensure that every
teacher and administrator at the private school has at least a bachelor’s degree from
an accredited institution of higher education.

Under current law, a school board must schedule at least 1,050 hours of direct
pupil instruction in grades one to six and at least 1,137 hours of direct pupil
instruction in grades seven to twelve. This bill requires private schools participating
in the MPCP to comply with these requirements.

(As though a college degree actually confers competence in "teaching" and/or "subject-matter.")

But it most certainly will increase the costs of MPCP schools--and jacking that "accreditation date" requirement forward will make things much more...intense.


Current law requires each private school participating in the MPCP to
administer a nationally normed standardized test in reading, mathematics, and
science to pupils attending the school under the program in the fourth, eighth, and
tenth grades. This bill requires each private school participating in the MPCP to
administer the examinations adopted or approved by DPI

Screw the national standards! Wis. DPI has much more better ones!

The bill also requires MPCP schools to give every applicant-student a long, long, list of policies, procedures, and names/addresses. It's a device which will be maliciously misused by parties which are interested in destroying the MPCP school--trust me (or look on P. 23 of the PDF).


Generally, current law allows a UW System student who has been a bona fide
Wisconsin resident for the 12 months preceding the beginning of a semester or
session for which the student registers to pay resident, as opposed to nonresident,
tuition.

This bill allows an alien who is not a legal permanent resident of the United
States to pay resident, as opposed to nonresident, tuition if he or she: 1) graduated
from a Wisconsin high school or received a declaration of equivalency of high school
graduation from Wisconsin; 2) was continuously present in Wisconsin for at least
three years following the first day of attending a Wisconsin high school or
immediately preceding receipt of a declaration of equivalency of high school
graduation; and 3) enrolls in a UW System institution and provides the institution
with an affidavit stating that he or she has filed or will file an application for
permanent residency with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as soon as the
person is eligible to do so. The bill also provides that such persons are to be
considered residents of this state for purposes of admission to and payment of fees
at a technical college.

In other words, ILLEGAL ALIENS will be eligible for in-state tuition schedules. Thank you, actual Wisconsin residents who pay the taxes!!


This bill eliminates the QEO exception from the compulsory, final, and binding arbitration process

You'll pay for those 14 words. A lot. Why? See below:


...under current law, the arbitrator must give greater weight to economic
conditions in the jurisdiction of the employer and the greatest weight to any state law
or directive that places expenditure or revenue limitations on an employer. This bill
eliminates the requirement for the arbitrator to give any weight to economic
conditions in the jurisdiction of the employer or to any state law or directive that
places expenditure or revenue limitations on an employer if the decision involves a
collective bargaining unit comprised of school district employees

IOW, it doesn't make any difference that GM closed its plant and Janesville is a nuclear disaster zone as a result. Teachers WILL be given raises.

How much in raises??


Finally, the bill eliminates a 3.8 percent cap imposed on salary and fringe
benefit annual cost increases for all nonrepresented professional school district
employees

...as much as the WEAC negotiator can get. Usually, that's really, really, close to the highest salaries paid in the State (currently Madison, IIRC.)

And UW-system compensation is also in the 10-ring:


Under current law, faculty and academic staff of the UW System do not have
collective bargaining rights under the State Employment Labor Relations Act
(SELRA). This bill provides all UW System academic staff and all faculty, including
specifically faculty who are supervisors or managers, with the right to collectively
bargain over wages, hours, and conditions of employment

And we will pay more for building State monuments:


This bill requires all laborers, workers, mechanics, and truck drivers employed
on a publicly funded private construction project to be paid not less than the
prevailing wage rate and to be paid overtime pay for all hours worked in excess of the
prevailing hours of labor. The bill defines a “publicly funded private construction
project” as a construction project that receives any grant, cooperative agreement,
loan, contract, or any other financial assistance from a local governmental unit.
The bill also sets the threshold for applicability of the prevailing wage law at
an estimated cost of project completion of $2,000, regardless of whether the project
is a single−trade project or a multiple−trade project, and eliminates the authority of
DWD to adjust that threshold.

Payback to the Carpenters, Plumbers/Steamfitters, and Bricklayers.

More of the same here:


This bill
requires a contractor, subcontractor, or agent performing work on a project that is
subject to the prevailing wage law to submit, on a weekly basis, a certified record of
that information for the preceding week to the local governmental unit, state agency,
or private owner or developer authorizing the work

...which records WILL "accidentally" fall into the hands of union organizers...


Currently, the recycling tipping fee is $4 per ton of solid waste, other than
certain kinds of high−volume industrial waste. This bill increases the recycling
tipping fee to $5 per ton

That's a TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT INCREASE.


Currently, the state imposes a monthly, per−bed assessment on nursing homes
that may not exceed $75. This bill increases the maximum amount of the assessment
to $150 in fiscal year 2009−10 and $170 in each fiscal year thereafter

...assuring that more nursing homes will go out of business, or will be forced to reduce their amenities, activities,--you know, the stuff that makes Granny a happy person.


Under this bill, a health insurer that provides coverage for dependents must
cover any child of an insured if the child is unmarried, is under 27 years old, does not
have other health care coverage, and is not employed full time by an employer that
offers health care coverage to its employees. The coverage requirement applies to
both individual and group health insurance policies and plans, including those
offered by the state, and to self−insured health plans of counties, cities, villages,
towns, school districts, and the state.

The cost of health insurance just went up again!!


This bill increases the minimum limits required under a policy that is
acceptable proof of financial responsibility to $100,000 for bodily injury to or death
of one person, $300,000 for bodily injury to or death of more than one person, and
$25,000 for property damage. This bill increases the required level of uninsured motorist coverage to $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident, and increases the level of required medical payments coverage to $10,000

Some people will pay a LOT more for auto insurance--but most responsible adults will not. Another payback to the PI lawyers.


This bill requires a law enforcement agency to collect the following information
concerning motor vehicle stops made in any county having a population of 125,000
or more (populous county) on or after January 1, 2011: 1) the name, address, gender,
and race of the vehicle operator; 2) the reason for the stop; 3) the make and year of
the vehicle; 4) the date, time, and location of the stop; 5) whether a law enforcement
officer conducted a search of the vehicle, operator, or any passenger and, if so,
whether the search was with consent or by other means; 6) the name, address,
gender, and race of any person searched; and 7) the name and badge number of the
officer making the stop.

The information that is collected is not subject to inspection or copying as a
public record, but must be submitted to DOJ. DOJ must then compile and analyze
it, along with any other relevant information, to determine, both for each law
enforcement agency and as an aggregated total for all law enforcement agencies in
populous counties, whether the number of stops and searches involving vehicles
operated or occupied by members of a racial minority are disproportionate compared
to the number of stops and searches involving vehicles operated or occupied solely
by persons who are not members of a racial minority

Pure crapola, make-work, and pandering.


Under current law, DOJ charges firearms dealers an $8 fee to conduct a
firearms restrictions record search, which includes a criminal history search and a
search to determine if the prospective buyer is prohibited from purchasing a firearm
by state law. Forty−eight hours after requesting the search, the dealer may complete
the sale, unless DOJ has informed the dealer that the purchase is prohibited.
This bill increases the fee to $30

That would be a THREE HUNDRED SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT INCREASE. Buy your guns now, folks!!


This bill provides that domestic partners must be treated in the same manner
as spouses with respect to all pension benefits provided to public employees who are
covered under the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) and all other benefits
provided to state employees

The "Shack-Up With Taxpayer Paid Benefits!!" provision.


This bill makes various changes in state building construction procedures to
grant DOA, the Building Commission, and other state agencies increased authority
to award state building construction contracts notwithstanding current statutory
requirements and without obtaining certain approvals required under current law

IOW, "Please bribe me. I have a lot of money to spend and damn few restrictions on how I spend it". This is the General Contractors' Payback Provision.


This bill provides requirements for forming a legal relationship of domestic
partnership

Which is obviously CLOSELY RELATED to budget stuff, no?


This bill authorizes a law enforcement officer to stop or inspect a vehicle solely
to determine compliance with seat belt use requirements, subject to any
constitutional requirement that the officer have probable cause to believe that a
violation has occurred
The bill also increases from $10 to $25 the penalty for
violating this state’s laws requiring the use of seat belts

Sheer revenue-production.


This bill allows state and local law enforcement agencies to use photo radar
speed detection to identify speed limit violations in highway work zones (work zone
speed violations). The bill also allows DOT and local authorities to use traffic control
photographic systems to identify motor vehicles that fail to stop at red traffic signals
at intersections (red light violations).

These "red light" systems have failed miserably in most places they've been used. So Jimbo will jump right in and add to the list of failures.

That's hardly all. I skipped a few areas in which you might have interest, and the summary is only 80 pages long.

Have at it!!

ALSO SEE Sykes' handy-dandy-chart. Read it and weep.