Relating to: consecutive monthly registration of certain vehicles used exclusively to transport calcium chloride liquid.
By
Senators
Breske, Schultz and A. Lasee; cosponsored by Representatives Musser, Hines, Hahn, Lothian, Gronemus, Grothman, Seratti and Albers.
To committee on Transportation and Information Infrastructure.
__________________
The committee on Homeland Security, Veterans and Military Affairs and Government Reform reports and recommends:
Assembly Bill 195
Relating to: tax warrants and liens on property.
Concurrence.
Ayes, 5 - Senators
Brown, Zien, S. Fitzgerald, Wirch and Breske.
Noes, 0 - None.
Assembly Bill 251
Relating to: designating public depositories for the payment of property taxes.
Concurrence.
Ayes, 5 - Senators
Brown, Zien, S. Fitzgerald, Wirch and Breske.
Noes, 0 - None.
Assembly Bill 50
Relating to: sheriff's fees established by the county.
Introduction and adoption of Senate Amendment 1.
Ayes, 5 - Senators
Brown, Zien, S. Fitzgerald, Wirch and Breske.
Noes, 0 - None.
Concurrence as amended.
Ayes, 5 - Senators
Brown, Zien, S. Fitzgerald, Wirch and Breske.
Noes, 0 - None.
Assembly Bill 54
Relating to: the sale of tax delinquent real property.
Concurrence.
Ayes, 5 - Senators
Brown, Zien, S. Fitzgerald, Wirch and Breske.
Noes, 0 - None.
Assembly Bill 70
Relating to: modifying the definition of income under the homestead tax credit.
Concurrence.
Ayes, 5 - Senators
Brown, Zien, S. Fitzgerald, Wirch and Breske.
Noes, 0 - None.
Marotta, Marc,
of Mequon, as Secretary of the Department of Administration, to serve for the term ending at the pleasure of the Governor.
Confirmation.
Ayes, 5 - Senators
Brown, Zien, S. Fitzgerald, Wirch and Breske.
Noes, 0 - None.
Ronald Brown
Chairperson
The committee on Judiciary, Corrections and Privacy reports and recommends:
Assembly Bill 372
Relating to: live birth or the circumstance of being born alive.
Concurrence.
Ayes, 5 - Senators
Zien, S. Fitzgerald, Stepp, George and Carpenter.
Noes, 0 - None.
David Zien
Chairperson
__________________
State of Wisconsin
Department of Administration
October 10, 2003
The Honorable, The Legislature:
This report presents statements of fund condition and operations (budgetary basis) of the State of Wisconsin for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2003. This satisfies the requirements of sec. 16.40(3), Wisconsin Statutes. Displayed are major sources of revenues and major categories of expenditures for the General Fund and other funds compared to the prior year.
The General Fund has an undesignated balance of -$282.2 million as of the end of the fiscal year. This is $1.412 million better than the balance of -$283.6 million projected in
2003 Act 1. The improvement in the balance was the result of lower than expected tax revenues offset by lower than expected spending.
General-purpose revenue taxes were $10.2 billion compared to $10.02 billion in the prior year, an increase of $179.5 million or 1.8 percent. This increase was $23.8 million below the Legislative Fiscal Bureau January 2003 estimate of $10.224 billion. General-purpose revenue expenditures, excluding fund transfers, were $11.033 billion compared to $11.259 billion in the prior year, a decrease of $226.5 million or 2.0 percent.
In fiscal year 2003, the State of Wisconsin continued to devote the major share of state tax collections to assistance to local school districts, municipalities and counties. Local assistance accounted for 58.4 percent of total general purpose revenue spending. Aid payments to individuals and organizations represented 17.4 percent of total general purpose revenue expenditures. The University of Wisconsin accounted for 9.5 percent of total general purpose revenue spending and state operations for all other state agencies accounted for 14.7 percent of the total.
S417
The State of Wisconsin expects to publish its comprehensive annual financial report in December of 2003. The report will be prepared under generally accepted accounting principles.
Sincerely,
Marc J. Marotta
Secretary
William J. Raftery, CPA
State Controller
State of Wisconsin
Department of Administration
September 25, 2003
The Honorable, The Legislature:
This report is transmitted as required by sec. 20.002(11)(f) of the Wisconsin Statutes, (for distribution to the appropriate standing committees under sec. 13.172(3) Stats.), and confirms that the Department of Administration has found it necessary to exercise the "temporary reallocation of balances" authority provided by this section in order to meet payment responsibilities and cover resulting negative balances during the month of August 2003.
On August 1, 2003, the Information Technology Investment Fund cash balance closed at its monthly low of a negative $1.0 thousand. This negative balance continued until August 21, 2003, when the balance closed at zero. The negative balance was due to the difference in the timing of revenues and expenditures.
On August 1, 2003, the General Fund cash balance closed at a negative $664.6 million. The negative balance continued through August 31, 2003, when the fund cash balance closed at a negative $400.5 million. The General Fund closed at an intramonth low of a negative $757.3 million on August 13, 2003.
On August 12, 2003, the Agricultural Chemical Cleanup Fund cash balance closed at its monthly low of a negative $22.0 thousand. This negative balance continued until August 15, 2003, when the balance closed at a positive $10.0 thousand. The negative balance was due to the difference in the timing of revenues and expenditures.
On August 15, 2003, the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Fund cash balance closed at its monthly low of a negative $3.7 million. This negative balance continued until August 19, 2003, when the balance closed at a zero. The negative balance was due to the difference in the timing of revenues and expenditures.
The Information Technology Investment Fund, the General Fund, the Agricultural Chemical Cleanup Fund, and the Tobacco Settlement Fund shortfalls were not in excess of the statutory interfund borrowing limitation and did not exceed the balances of the funds available for interfund borrowing.
The distribution of interest earnings to investment pool participants is based on the average daily balance in the pool and each fund's share. Therefore, the monthly calculation by the State Controller's Office will automatically reflect the use of these temporary reallocations of balance authority, and as a result, the funds requiring the use of the authority will effectively bear the interest cost.
Sincerely,
Marc J. Marotta
Secretary
Referred to the joint committee on Finance.
State of Wisconsin
Department of Justice
October 14, 2003
The Honorable, The Senate:
The Senate Committee on Organization ("Committee") has requested my opinion concerning the application of two recent Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions to requests under the Wisconsin public records statute, Wis. Stat. ss.
19.31-
19.39, for mailing or distribution lists of physical or street addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers compiled and used by individual legislators for official business. Because lists of street addresses and phone numbers must ordinarily be coupled with an individual name in order to be meaningful or useful, I assume that the Committee's questions refer to the individual's name as well.
The Committee poses a series of questions that may fairly be summarized as follows:
1. Wisconsin Stat. s.
19.35(1)(a) provides in relevant part: "Except as otherwise provided by law, any requester has a right to inspect any record." Are legislators' mailing or distribution lists "records" which must be disclosed to the public if requested pursuant to Wis. Stat. s.
19.35(1)(a)?
2. Assuming the record custodian determines that such lists are subject to disclosure, must the persons whose addresses or telephone numbers are contained on the list be provided with the notice required by the Woznicki and Teachers' Ed. Ass'n cases and given an opportunity to challenge the release in court prior to actual release of the record?
Under current law, the first question can only be answered by the courts after applying the common law balancing test articulated in
State ex rel. Youmans v. Owens, 28 Wis. 2d 672,
137 N.W.2d 470,
139 N.W.2d 241 (1965) and succeeding cases. Based on current Wisconsin precedent, however, it is my opinion that the courts would conclude that the records must be disclosed, unless the custodian, applying the balancing test, articulates specific factual circumstances warranting a determination that the public interest in withholding the records outweighs the public interest in releasing them. With regard to the second question, in my opinion the answer is no because neither the Legislature nor the Wisconsin courts have extended the
Woznicki notice procedure beyond the context of employee records.
The Committee's questions arise in the context of recent requests, directed to individual legislators, for copies of e-mail distribution lists compiled by those legislators for the purpose of distributing electronic newsletters to constituents and other private citizens. Accordingly, I limit my discussion and answers to the Committee's questions to the context of legislators' mailing or distribution lists containing addresses or phone numbers of private citizens.
