Penny Bernard Schaber
State Representative
57th Assembly District
__________________
August 20, 2009
Patrick Fuller
Assembly Chief Clerk
17 West Main Street, Suite 401
Madison, WI 53703
Dear Chief Clerk Fuller:
Please remove my name as a co-sponsor of Assembly Bill 271, relating to: professional land surveyors, the practice of professional land surveying, surveying land abutting navigable waters and granting rule-making authority.
If you have any questions about this request, please feel free to call me.
With kindest regards,
Dale W. Schultz
State Senator
17th Senate District
__________________
August 25, 2009
Patrick Fuller
Assembly Chief Clerk
17 West Main Street, Suite 401
Madison, WI 53703
Dear Chief Clerk Fuller:
Please remove myself as a co-author to Assembly Bill 179.
Thank you and if you have any questions, please contact my office.
Sincerely,
Richard J. Spanbauer
State Representative
53rd Assembly District
Referral of Agency Reports
State of Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources
Madison
May 29, 2009
To the Honorable, the Legislature:
In fulfillment of the requirements under s.
299.83 (8)(h), Wisconsin State Statutes, I am transmitting the 2009 Green Tier Biennial Progress Report. Please distribute as appropriate. I am also providing a copy of the Report to the Governor and to the Chief Clerk of the Senate.
Green Tier continues to be a powerful, sustainable force for environmental and economic performance. We are confident that with the reauthorization of the Green Tier Law that a permanent stage has been set for those committed to superior environmental performance. We will be able to not only recognize their work through a program with longevity but also to continuously improve the ways that we grow a green Wisconsin economy. It is indeed heartening to see a range of participants from 3 employees in Wisconsin to several thousand employees worldwide that share a common goal-growing green together. Our report covers both our progress and our opportunities for improvement in an effort to give you a report with both the good things being done and good work yet to be done.
For more information on the Green Tier program or additional copies of this report, please contact Mark McDermid at (608) 267-3125, or visit our web site at
http://greentier.wi.gov. Here is a link to the report:
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/caer/cea/ environmental/reports/2009report.pdf.
Sincerely,
Matthew J. Frank
Secretary
Referred to committee on Natural Resources.
__________________
State of Wisconsin
Department of Health Services
Madison
August 18, 2009
To the Honorable, the Legislature:
In accordance with s.
1.11 (2)(j), Wis. Stats., the Department of Health Services reports that it conducted one Environmental Assessment during the reporting period of July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009.
The Environmental Assessment was done for the project to construct a new Female Treatment Facility at the Wisconsin Resource Center in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It was determined that the construction of this project does not have a significant negative effect on the environment.
Sincerely,
Karen E. Timberlake
Secretary
Referred to committee on Natural Resources.
__________________
Agency Reports
State of Wisconsin
Legislative Audit Bureau
Madison
August 26, 2009
To the Honorable, the Assembly:
As required by
2005 Wisconsin Act 125, we have reviewed the pupil test score data provided to us by the School Choice Demonstration Project, which is a group of privately funded education researchers who are studying the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. The Choice program provides publicly funded private school tuition for low-income children in Milwaukee.
Project researchers are conducting a five-year longitudinal study of Choice and Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) pupils first selected in the 2006-07 school year. The representative sample includes 2,727 Choice pupils who were in the third through ninth grades in fall 2006 and a comparable group of 2,727 MPS pupils who were in the third through ninth grades in fall 2006. The researchers are tracking changes in Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination scores and determining how participation in the Choice program affects changes in academic achievement.
We reviewed the project's data for the 2007-08 school year, which is the second year the researchers arranged for the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination to be administered to Choice pupils. We analyzed and generally confirmed the test score averages and related analyses that they reported in March 2009. However, as we discussed in our September 2008 report, we are unable to review average pupil test scores at individual Choice schools because the project, citing confidentiality concerns, has not provided us with this type of information. As a result, we cannot provide legislators and other policymakers with information about academic performance specific to each of the 120 Choice schools that operated in the 2007-08 school year.
2009 Wisconsin Act 28 made several changes to the testing requirements for Choice schools, and Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination scores for each school will be available to the public after the 2010-11 school year.
We appreciate the courtesy and cooperation extended to us by project researchers as we conducted this review.
Sincerely,
Janice Mueller
State Auditor
