Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Ninety-Sixth Regular Session
The Chief Clerk makes the following entries under the above date.
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State of Wisconsin
October 22, 2004
The Honorable, The Senate:
The Senate Republican Caucus met on September 17, 2004, and accepted the resignation of Senator Mary Panzer from the position of Senate Majority Leader. Senator Scott Fitzgerald was nominated as Senate Majority Leader. The Senate Republican Caucus elected Senator Fitzgerald to the position of Senate Majority Leader.
Please contact me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
MARY LAZICH
Chair, Senate Republican Caucus
State of Wisconsin
Department of Administration
October 15, 2004
The Honorable, The Legislature:
Attached please find the Department of Administration's contractual service procurement report for fiscal year 2004 pursuant to Section
16.705(8), Wis. Stats.
Your review of this report may benefit from understanding the historical context of State contracting. During the 1990's, State government in Wisconsin grew at an unprecedented rate. Consistent with this, State contracting (excluding the University of Wisconsin System) grew by 123% between FY94 and FY03 (127% including the UW System).
Upon taking office in 2003, Governor Doyle directed his Cabinet to be conscientious about contracting for services. I am pleased to report that State agencies reduced the overall amount spent on contracting by almost 6%, or $32 million, between fiscal years 2003 and 2004 (a 0.5% reduction including UW System expenditures).
The Doyle Administration is thinking strategically about how the state contracts for goods and services. For example, Governor Doyle ordered that information technology (IT) contracts be scrutinized and that the State take an enterprise-wide look at how it spends its resources. This resulted in a decrease in State agency IT contracts of more than 24%, or $20.7 million, from 2003 to 2004. During the same period, UW System IT expenditures increased by 13.5% bringing the reduction in overall State IT contracting to 23%.
Moving forward, the State will continue to look strategically at how it contracts for goods and services in all areas and on an enterprise-wide basis. The Governor has directed that:
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The State Streamline its contracting processes and procurement organization to make it more efficient, effective and responsive.
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The state deploy the needed IT systems to allow for tracking and monitoring of all state contracts. This will allow the State to find opportunities to consolidate, eliminate or re-bid contracts to save taxpayer dollars. Additionally, it will allow adequate protections to be implemented to ensure that the terms of the contracts are properly carried out.
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When making contracting decisions, agencies must complete a uniform, rigorous cost-benefit analysis taking into account all relevant factors including quality and nature of services required, capacity and expertise of the State workforce, whether the work is a core service of State government, and whether it is a short-term service or an on-going need. While most agencies already do this, a greater level of consistency is needed.
In closing, this is the first contractual service procurement report submitted since fiscal year 1999. At that time, the system that generated the report provided a detailed, enterprise-wide view of all state procurements. Unfortunately, the IT system that captured the procurement data necessary to generate these reports was non-Y2K compliant and was never replaced.
The fiscal year 2004 report was generated using WiSMART, the state's accounting system. WiSmart was not designed to track detailed procurement information, but can provide a general view of expenditures for contractual services. DOA believes that a detailed, enterprise-wide view of state purchases of goods and services is essential to sound management of State operations. We are currently reviewing options that will enable the State to capture again more definitive procurement data for the entire enterprise. This will allow the State of Wisconsin to have the tools needed to purchase goods and services in a cost- effective manner, thereby realizing potential savings to the State consistent with business needs.
If you have questions about this report, please direct them to Patrick Farley in the Department of Administration, Division of State Agency Services at 266-0779.
Sincerely,
MARC J. MAROTTA
Secretary
Referred to joint committee on Finance.
Department of Administration
October 19, 2004
The Honorable, The Legislature:
Chapter
34, Laws of 1979, requires that when the Department of Administration maintains an office in Washington, D.C., for the purpose of promoting federal/state cooperation, it should submit a report detailing the activities of the office and reporting the status of federal legislation of concern to the Legislature and other and other state agencies (Wis. Stats. 16.548 (2)).
The report for the period July-October 2004 is attached.
Sincerely,
Marc J. Marotta
Secretary
State of Wisconsin
Medical College
October 15, 2004
The Honorable, The Senate:
Enclosed is the biennial report of the Medical College of Wisconsin, prepared according to the statutory requirement under section 13.106. This report covers the period ending June 30, 2004 for the Department of Family Medicine and contains information in the following areas:
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financial status of the family practice residency sites
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number of family practice residents choosing to practice in medically underserved areas of the state upon graduation
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number of graduates entering family practice as a career
Please feel free to contact me at 414-456-8217 if you have any questions or would like additional information.
Sincerely,
KATHRYN A. KUHN
Director of Government Affairs
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State of Wisconsin
Office of the Governor
October 21, 2004
The Honorable, The Senate:
I am pleased to nominate and with the advice and consent of the Senate, do appoint Gale
, Rick,
of West Allis, as a member of the State Fair Park Board, to serve for the term ending May 1, 2009.
Sincerely,
