The governor has mismanaged our Unemployment Insurance program since day 1 of the first lock-down. The nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) released a report showing the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) is still fumbling its responsibility to comply with federal regulations and run a competent appeals process. The LAB found the department "did not comply with federal regulations to issue appeal decisions in a timely manner from June 2020 through May 2021."
The LAB found that only 17.5% of DWD’s appeal decisions made in May 2021 were made within 45 days of receiving the requests.The federal government requires at least 80% of unemployment appeals decisions be made within 45 days of receiving the appeal. The administration continues to avoid taking responsibility for this failure. Rather than lead, the governor continues to blame his ineptitude with claims of DWD computer systems being outdated. The failure to comply with federal regulations has nothing to do with the software, but everything to do with who's making the decisions. Here is a nice summary of the report: Another Audit Finds Evers' Handling of UI a Disaster.
Both Illinois and Minnesota issued timely appeals decisions in over 70% of cases. Wisconsin DWD’s 17.5% compliance is an embarrassment. Governor Evers shut our state down and then failed to help the people he kept from earning a living. The time for excuses is over, the governor needs to make sure his DWD is doing its job.
Republican members of the state's congressional delegation asked Governor Evers and his administration for an accounting of how federal dollars were being used for the Unemployment Insurance program. The request was sent back in May, but they have yet to receive a response. Last week, they issued a new request for the administration to provide details on how the unprecedented amount of federal funding being sent to Wisconsin is helping the state's unemployed.
Cleaning Up Voter Rolls
The Wisconsin Elections Commission(WEC) has just completed it's statutorily required review of voter lists that resulted in 205,000 registrations being deactivated. The Commission is required by law every two years to conduct voter record maintenance to identify individuals who have not voted in the previous four years and to deactivate them unless they wish to remain registered.
Many of these people have moved or passed away and in order to make sure our roles are up to date, it is important the WEC completes this task.
If you were removed from the voter rolls, you can become eligible to cast ballots again by re-registering. Voters can check their registration status through the MyVote Wisconsin website at myvote.wi.gov or by contacting their municipal clerk.
