Emergency rules now in effect
Under s. 227.24, Stats., state agencies may promulgate rules without complying with the usual rule-making procedures. Using this special procedure to issue emergency rules, an agency must find that either the preservation of the public peace, health, safety or welfare necessitates its action in bypassing normal rule-making procedures.
Emergency rules are published in the official state newspaper, which is currently the Wisconsin State Journal. Emergency rules are in effect for 150 days and can be extended up to an additional 120 days with no single extension to exceed 60 days.
Occasionally the Legislature grants emergency rule authority to an agency with a longer effective period than 150 days or allows an agency to adopt an emergency rule without requiring a finding of emergency.
Extension of the effective period of an emergency rule is granted at the discretion of the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules under s. 227.24 (2), Stats.
Notice of all emergency rules which are in effect must be printed in the Wisconsin Administrative Register. This notice will contain a brief description of the emergency rule, the agency finding of emergency or a statement of exemption from a finding of emergency, date of publication, the effective and expiration dates, any extension of the effective period of the emergency rule and information regarding public hearings on the emergency rule.
Copies of emergency rule orders can be obtained from the promulgating agency. The text of current emergency rules can be viewed at www.legis.state.wi.us/rsb/code.
Commerce
(Financial Resources for Bus. and Communities, Chs. Comm 105-128)
Rules were adopted revising
ch. Comm 108, relating to the use of rapid response funds in economically depressed areas of Wisconsin to preserve economic development.
Finding of emergency
The Department of Commerce finds that an emergency exists and that the adoption of the rule included in this order is necessary for the immediate preservation of public health, safety and welfare.
Analysis of Rules
Statute Interpreted: s.
560.04, Stats.
Pursuant to s.
560.04, Stats., the Department of Commerce (Commerce), as a part of its comprehensive duties involving community development and economic development, administers federal funds in the form of grants to eligible communities related to economic development. Under current rules, the maximum amount of funds that may be awarded to a community is $1 million per calendar year and the maximum amount that a business may borrow from a local government under the economic development program is also $1 million during any 5-year period. The timing and dollar limitations specified in the rules are barriers to providing a comprehensive and rapid response to changing economic conditions in a community.
Given the uncertainty inherent in today's marketplace, Commerce would like to maximize the use of federal community development block grant funds to positively impact local economies. Under the rules, as currently structured, Commerce's ability to respond rapidly to actual or potential plant closings or relocations in a specific geographical region is limited. The following emergency rule will allow Commerce to respond more rapidly to changing economic conditions.
This rule provides Commerce, working collaboratively with local communities, the ability to quickly respond to changing economic conditions due to potential plant closings, business relocations, layoffs, and other economic factors that could negatively affect the economic conditions in the community and state.
Publication Date:
March 22, 2003
Effective Date:
March 22, 2003
Expiration Date:
August 19, 2003
Employee Trust Funds
Finding of emergency
The Department of Employee Trust Funds, Employee Trust Fund Board, Teachers Retirement Board and Wisconsin Retirement Board find that an emergency exists and that an administrative rule is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public welfare. A statement of the facts constituting the emergency is:
Without emergency rule-making it will not be possible to avoid short-term harm to individual WRS annuitants who will already bear the effects of the market downturn though a zero percent fixed annuity dividend and a double-digit negative variable change.
The first annuity dividends actually affected by the 2002 rule-making (CR #02-049) are the dividends otherwise payable on March 1, 2003. Projections indicate that the fixed division dividend will likely be 0%, largely because of the effect of three years of market declines. The annual change to variable division annuities, which is more volatile because it reflects only the past year's market performance, will be negative and in the range of -26% to -30%. This means that the portion of an annuitant's annuity payable from the fixed division will not increase during 2003, while, if the annuitant receives a portion of his or her annuity from the variable annuity division, that portion of the annuity will be markedly reduced. Annuitants are concerned about the short-term effect of cuts to their annuities being made effective a month earlier this year than was the case in previous years.
The change from April 1 to March 1 was initiated with the best of intentions, primarily to get the additional money from dividend increases into the hands of annuitants as quickly as possible. In retrospect, the timing is unfortunate. When drafting of the rule began in early 2002, the year-end market earnings were unknown and a third consecutive year of market losses could not be predicted. The continued deterioration of investment returns in the latter part of 2002 has magnified the adverse, short-term effect of this change in the timing of dividends; that is, the size of the negative variable adjustment is larger.
Publication Date:
February 27, 2003
Effective Date:
February 28, 2003
Expiration Date:
July 28, 2003
Financial Institutions - Securities
Rules adopted revising
ch. DFI-Sec 4, relating to conforming Wisconsin's Securities Law rules concerning broker-dealer books and records to federally-mandated standards under the Securities Exchange Act.
Finding of emergency
The Division of Securities of the Department of Financial Institutions for the State of Wisconsin finds that an emergency exists and that the attached rules are necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety or welfare. A statement of the facts constituting the emergency follows:
Congress in its passage of the National Securities Markets Improvement Act (“NSMIA") in 1996 prohibited state securities regulators from establishing or enforcing under their state securities laws or rules, record-keeping requirements for securities broker-dealers that are inconsistent with, or not required by, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC").
Following passage of NSMIA, the SEC commenced a rule-making process that spanned a several-year period (including a 1998 reproposal of the entirety of the proposed rules for a new public comment period), culminating in adoption in late 2001 of an extensive series of broker-dealer books and records rules for effectiveness commencing May 2, 2003. The SEC's revised books and records rules cover a comprehensive series of areas, including: (1) customer account records; (2) order ticket information; (3) customer complaints; (4) mandated reports and audits; (5) compliance manuals; (6) records maintenance, retention, production and access; and (7) records required to be maintained at a firm's home office and at “local" offices.
Because of the preemptive effects of federal law under NSMIA, all of the existing provisions of the Wisconsin administrative rules in Chapter SEC 4 under the Wisconsin Securities Law dealing with broker-dealer books and records covering the information categories (1) to (6) described above are superseded by the federal rules established by the SEC that became effective today, May 2, 2003. Additionally, certain existing Wisconsin Rule of Conduct provisions tied to the existing Wisconsin books and records rules need to be revised appropriately.
Consequently, it is necessary to immediately revise and amend Wisconsin's broker-dealer books and records rules to conform to the federal rules that now have become effective, and to remove inconsistent requirements contained in the existing Wisconsin books and record-keeping rules. A subcommittee of the North American Securities Administrators Association (“NASAA"), an organization comprised of the securities administrators of all 50 states, including Wisconsin, has reviewed the impact of the SEC's books and record-keeping rules on existing state securities law licensing rules, and recommended that states utilize the incorporation-by-reference-of-the–federal-rules treatment as set forth in this Order Adopting Emergency Rules.
Accordingly, the emergency rules do the following:
(1) Under Section 1, the entirety of the existing Wisconsin general books and records requirement for licensed broker-dealers as set forth in rules DFI-Sec 4.03 (1) to (4) (that particularizes the types of required books and records, and prescribes records retention periods), is repealed and recreated to incorporate by reference the new, superseding, federal rules adopted by the SEC contained in sections 17a-3 and 4 under the Securities Exchange Act. New sub. (1) requires a firm to retain the books and records cross-referenced in federal SEC rules 17a-3 and 4, and new sub. (2) incorporates by reference the records preservation and retention requirements in federal SEC rule 17a-4. New subsections (3) and (4) replace the current Wisconsin rules in DFI-Sec 4.03 (3) and (4) [that prescribe branch office records and retention requirements], with language which provides that the books and records required to be prepared and maintained at broker-dealer offices triggering the definition of “branch office" under current rule DFI-Sec 1.02 (7) (a), are the same records prescribed under the new federal provisions in new federal Rule 17a-3, and must be held for the retention periods specified in new federal Rule 17a-4.
(2) Section 2 repeals current Wisconsin rule DFI-Sec 4.03 (6) [which permitted broker-dealers to utilize alternative records to satisfy the principal office and branch office records required in existing rules DFI-Sec 4.03 (1) and (3)], because under NSMIA, states no longer have the authority to permit alternative forms of broker-dealer records different from the records prescribed by federal law.
(3) Section 3 is a renumbering of current rule DFI-Sec 4.03 (7) to reflect the repeal of DFI-Sec 4.03 (6) in Section 2 above.
(4) Under Section 4, the existing Wisconsin Rule of Conduct provision in DFI-Sec 4.05 (5) [requiring broker-dealers to provide customers with prescribed new account information and subsequent amendments to such information] is amended to both substitute a cross-reference to the new federal provision on that subject in SEC rule 17a-3(a)(17) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and to repeal language in the Wisconsin rule inconsistent with federal provisions.
Publication Date:
May 7, 2003
Effective Date:
May 7, 2003
Expiration Date:
October 4, 2003
Health and Family Services
(Medical Assistance, Chs. HFS 100—)
Rules adopted revising
chs. HFS 101 to 107, relating to the Medicaid Family Planning Demonstration Project.
Finding of emergency
The Department of Health and Family Services finds that an emergency exists and that the rules are necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety or welfare. The facts constituting the emergency are as follows:
On June 25, 1999, the Department submitted a request for a waiver of federal law to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services that controls states' use of Medicaid funds. On June 14, 2002, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare granted the waiver, effective January 1, 2003. The waiver allows the state to expand Medicaid services by providing coverage of family planning services for females of child-bearing age who would not otherwise be eligible for Medicaid coverage. Under the waiver, a woman of child-bearing age whose income does not exceed 185% of the federal poverty line will be eligible for most of the family planning services currently available under Medicaid, as described in s.
HFS 107.21. Through this expansion of coverage, the Department hopes to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in Wisconsin.
Department rules for the operation of the Family Planning Demonstration Project must be in effect before the program begins. The program statute, s.
49.45 (24r) of the statutes, became effective on October 14, 1997. It directed the Department to request a federal waiver of certain requirements of the federal Medicaid Program to permit the Department to implement the Family Planning Demonstration Project not later than July 1, 1998, or the effective date of the waiver, whichever date was later. After CMS granted the waiver, the Department determined that the Family Planning Demonstration Project could not be implemented prior to January 1, 2003, and CMS approved this starting date. Upon approval of the waiver, the Department began developing policies for the project and subsequently the rules, which are in this order. The Department is publishing the rules by emergency order so the rules take effect in February 2003, rather than at the later date required by promulgating permanent rules. In so doing, the Department can provide health care coverage already authorized by CMS as quickly as possible to women currently not receiving family planning services and unable to pay for them. The Department is also proceeding with promulgating these rule changes on a permanent basis through a proposed permanent rulemaking order.
Publication Date:
January 31, 2003
Effective Date:
January 31, 2003*
Expiration Date:
June 30, 2003
Hearing Dates:
April 25 & 28, 2003
* The Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules suspended this emergency rule on April 30, 2003
