Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce Building
501 E. Washington Ave.
Madison, WI
Management: James Buchen, Bob Oyler, Daniel Petersen and Ed Lump
Labor: Phillip Neuenfeldt, Dennis Penkalski, Robert Lyons and Red Platz
Chair: Greg Frigo
Department staff present: Hal Bergan, Bob Whitaker, Dan LaRocque, Lutfi Shahrani, Ben Peirce, Carla Breber, Gretchen Mrozinski, Dick Tillema, Tom Smith, Tom McHugh, Terese Wojick and Rick Holzbauer
Others present: John Metcalf, Bob Anderson and Bill Smith
Frigo opened the meeting by announcing the promotion of Gretchen Mrozinski to the Senior Administrative Law Judge (managing attorney) of the Madison Hearing Office effective June 20, 2005. He also noted his gratitude to Tom Smith, Dick Tillema, Terese Wojick (BOLA) and Carla Breber (Benefits) for keeping the business of the Council running while he performs his duties as an Administrative Law Judge.
The Minutes of the last Council meeting (June 2, 2005) were reviewed and approved.
D05-33, Changes to employer fault definition: Bergan urges the Council to approve this proposal to eliminate the hardship large overpayments cause claimants in this situation and the expense in staff time and money to collect overpayments caused by employers not responding to the Division’s request for information at the initial adjudication level. This is an important issue and Bergan wanted to recast the view of this proposal. Concerns about small employers being able to respond promptly, the “48 hour” policy the Division uses at the initial investigation stage, language change to §108.04(13)(c) regarding subsequent redeterminations or appeal tribunal decisions were expressed and discussion ensued. Buchen asked that a sunset be put into this proposal and the Council would be willing to discuss this proposal again. The division will do this.
D05-35, Collective bad debt liability assessment for non-profit, reimbursable employers: This proposal was previously presented to the Council and Tom McHugh was on hand to answer any questions the Council now had. McHugh presented updated figures. The anticipated write-offs for 2005 are less than $50,000 and for 2006 are @ $300,000. For 2004, $389,095 was written off. Based on the 2004 write-offs, the smallest assessment would be $2.00 and the largest assessment would be $22,061. Discussion ensued about the possibility of employers being able to pay the assessment over a 2 year time period if the assessment exceeded a certain benchmark figure, starting the assessment with employers who would be assessed at least $50, using a cumulative write-off figure from year to year per employer to make these assessments. Buchen asked for a revision of this proposal to reflect these changes to be presented at the next meeting.
D05-63, Admission of COED Reports without certification by an expert: Smith presents this new law change proposal. It is a request that department COED reports be admissible as prima facie evidence in UI hearings without the need for certification by an expert. The reports are created by adjudicators, hearing office staff and Administrative Law Judges, not a certified expert. The expertise is the COED system itself. The parties to a hearing would be given an explanation of the COED system and the COED reports prior to admission as evidence, an opportunity to review and object to the report, including the accuracy of the information used in creating the report and the report would set forth all of the information used in creating the report, including the identity of the department employee who created the report. Council unanimously approved this law change proposal.
DWD 129, Benefit Claiming Procedures: a rule change proposal to allow a claimant 14 days after the week being claimed to file his/her initial application for benefits and to clarify that all claims can automatically be backdated up to two weeks. This change would eliminate the confusion between the time frames to file an initial application for UI benefits (7days) and the filing of a weekly claim certification (14 days). Management wants to discuss this further. Council not ready to vote on this proposal.
Management presented six law change proposals:
Labor presented nine law change proposals:
Members of both sides of the Council presented each proposal with the rationale behind each such proposal. At the completion of these presentations, Council set the meeting dates for the next two meetings (June 30 and July 29); voted to go into closed caucus for the purpose of discussing UI law change proposals and not reconvene in public session until the next meeting on June 30, 2005.
Meeting adjourned.
Updated March 25, 2013