COVID Relief Package

Earlier this week, Assembly leadership unveiled a comprehensive legislative package to address the COVID-19 pandemic in Wisconsin.

While I do have some reservations about the legislation – especially as it pertains to schools – I believe there are several items in there that will go a long way toward helping our residents and businesses react to and recover from the virus.

Some of those provisions include:

• Creating a $100 million fund to respond to the public health emergency
• Establishing limited liability for schools, businesses and local governments
• Doubling the number of local public health staff working on the COVID-19 response
• Setting up a grant program for the hospitality industry
• Allowing health service providers from other states to practice in Wisconsin
• Under specific conditions, permitting an essential family member/caregiver to visit a loved one in a nursing home 
• Requiring the Department of Workforce Development to eliminate the backlog of unemployment insurance claims
• Continuing the prohibition of co-payments for all COVID-19 tests
• Granting the Legislature oversight on developing a vaccine distribution plan

The Assembly’s legislative package also contains several items that have been proposed by the governor, including increased testing and contact tracing, improved access to prescriptions, additional grants for small businesses and extending property tax deadlines.

If you would like to review an analysis of the legislation that was prepared by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, please click here.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, incoming Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu and Gov. Tony Evers recently participated in a conference call to discuss the state’s COVID-19 response. I am hopeful that those talks will continue and we will be able to find some common ground.

It is the Assembly's goal to pass a compromise plan by the end of the year. So far, Senate leadership has indicated that they do not intend to meet in December.

COVID Progress

Besides the eventual rollout of a vaccine, it’s been a long time since we’ve gotten any encouraging news in Wisconsin regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the beginning of September, our state had been experiencing significant increases in positive tests, hospitalizations and deaths attributed to the coronavirus. However, we are now starting to see some progress. Whether this is a temporary reprieve or a long-term trend remains to be seen.

According to the state Department of Health Services, the seven-day average for confirmed COVID-19 cases was at its highest at 6,563 on Nov. 18. The seven-day average is now at 4,102, a drop of nearly 38 percent. Nationally, we are seeing the highest number of cases to date.

Statewide hospitalizations are beginning to decline as well. Data from the Wisconsin Hospital Association shows that we had 2,277 patients being treated in hospitals for COVID-19 on Nov. 17, the highest amount ever recorded.

As of today, there are 1,660 patients hospitalized in Wisconsin for the coronavirus. That is a decrease of 617, or 27 percent.

The Door County Medical Center has also created its own dashboard that tracks COVID-19 activity in the county and the entire state. You can access that dashboard here. I believe this data is much more straightforward than what is being provided by DHS.

As you can see, the number of active cases in our area is also going down.

However, this does not mean that we are even close to being out of the woods. Some are predicting that we will soon experience another surge due to people getting together for the holiday season. Given that the median incubation period for the disease is four to five days, we should know very soon whether Thanksgiving gatherings have caused a spike.

As I have said many times before, we will not be able to get the virus under control until we have wide distribution of a vaccine, which is expected to occur by the second quarter of 2021.

In the meantime, the best way we can limit the spread of COVID-19 is to follow the CDC’s guidelines, which include wearing a mask in public, washing your hands regularly, practicing social distancing and staying home if you feel ill.

State Finances 

Although we are still about a month away from the start of the new legislative session, state agencies are already submitting their budget proposals for the upcoming biennium.

While the COVID-19 pandemic is certainly going to make putting together a spending plan more difficult, our economy and budget have fared much better during the public health emergency than we had feared. We recently received a very positive report from the Department of Administration on our state’s finances.

According to the DOA, Wisconsin is projected to have a fund balance of $1.22 billion at the end of the 2019-2021 biennium. State revenues are also anticipated to grow by an additional $1.35 billion in the 2021-23 biennium.

Be that as it may, a review by the League of Wisconsin Municipalities shows that state agency budget requests are exceeding expected state revenues by $2.3 billion. That is neither realistic nor financially sustainable.

However, please know that this is typical during most budget cycles. State agencies tend to shoot high with their budget proposals, but they are rarely funded in their entireties. That is where the real discussions and negotiations begin.

Gov. Evers is planning to introduce his 2021-23 budget proposal in late January or early February. The Legislature will also be developing its own state budget throughout the winter and spring. We will then compromise on a final budget that will hopefully be enacted by the end of June.