Home > Unemployment Insurance >
Legal Resources > Plain Language Summary of the 2003 UI Law
Plain Language Summary of the 2003 UI Law
A complete Plain Language Summary of
Wisconsin Act 197 (PDF format).
PDF Viewer Available for Free Download
Effective April 25, 2004, unless otherwise stated within the legislation.
- Restore the partial successorship provision in effect prior to 2001
Wisconsin Act 35. This requires the Department to allow transfers of part of
a business’ reserve fund balance if a part of a business is sold.
- Require claimants who are required to conduct a work search each week
(usually claimants who have been laid off indefinitely) to perform two work
search activities each week.
- Waive the work search requirement for claimants on temporary layoffs who
are returning to work with their employers. Give employers the opportunity
to question whether claimants are returning to work.
- Authorize the department to use Reed Act funds to pay bank fees when doing
so will enhance the interest earned on the moneys that remain in the
Unemployment Trust Fund.
- Revise the definition of "employee" in the UI law to remove the
sunset provision and make permanent the 7-of-10 factor test.
- Develop new law for the tax treatment of limited liability companies (LLCs)
and clarify the treatment of LLC members for benefit eligibility.
- Amend the UI overpayment warrant and levy statutes to provide
collection and levy authority for "imposter" overpayments. These
cases typically involve overpayments to individuals who fraudulently use the
identity of others to collect benefits.
- Change the approved training provision to clarify the treatment of
individuals who are in approved training under the UI law. These changes are
primarily technical and being made to make clarify our current practices.
Also change the law to treat training programs approved by any DWD division
as "approved training" for UI purposes.
- Create the necessary law changes to allow the Department to spend certain
specified amounts of Reed Act, interest and penalty and administrative fee
moneys for the ENABLES project.
- Change the UI law on recovering benefit payments from future UI benefits
to eliminate potential legal problems with the Bankruptcy Courts.
- Exempt wages from levy in non-fraud benefit overpayment cases by using the
legal standard that is used in many other social programs in Wisconsin.
- Amend the UI law to allow the department to pay lien satisfaction fees
monthly instead of per item.
- Change the UI law to provide that a levy to collect an overpayment or tax
liability can remain in effect until the debt is paid.
- Amend the late appeal provision to permit Administrative Law Judges to
resolve late appeals without always first holding hearings on the late
appeal issue.
- Change the "reasonable assurance" provision that disqualifies
educational employees between academic terms to conform with federal law.
(This is a conformity change being required by US Department of Labor.)
- Modify the definition of "child" in the UI law to include
stepchildren under the age of 18.
- Modify the "pension" offset provision to conform with federal
law requirements for eliminating the social security offset against UI
benefits.
- Repeal the requirement to develop administrative rules relating to
repeated absenteeism and tardiness and the definition of
"establishment" under the labor dispute provision.
wisconsin.gov
home state
agencies subject
directory
