State of Wisconsin
Department of Public Instruction
July 7, 2009
The Honorable, The Senate:
The following individuals should be removed from confirmation to serve on the Professional Standards Council for Teachers:
Linda Helf, effective July 1, 2008, to serve until June 30, 2011 (retired)
Al Pyatskowit, effective July 1, 2008, to serve until June 30, 2011 (retired)
Jamie Lynn Oliver (Tomei), effective July 1, 2008, to serve until June 30, 2009 (graduated)
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Tony evers, phd
State Superintendent
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State of Wisconsin
Department of Health Services
July 8, 2009
The Honorable, The Legislature:
The Department of Health Services is pleased to submit to you and the Legislature the report on Preparedness of the Wisconsin Public Health System to Respond to Public Health Emergencies. This report was prepared by the Department of Health Services, Division of Public Health, as required by s.250.03(3)(b) of Wisconsin Statues.
Wisconsin's Public Health Preparedness Program continues to strengthen preparedness through planning, workforce competency development training, and exercises to assure not only individual agency response capability, but also strong coordination of regional and statewide responses. Highlights of the Pubic Health Preparedness Report include:
S242
• Extensive pandemic influenza planning, purchase of antiviral medication and the exercise of plans for disease containment.
• Planning for Wisconsin's Special Populations with statewide expert input on a toolkit for local public health agencies.
• The activation of the Wisconsin Emergency Assistance Volunteer Registry (WEAVR) to connect health care professional resources in a disaster.
• Testing, evaluating and improving emergency response to public health emergencies, terrorism and mass casualty events at the State, regional, local and tribal level.
These successes reflect sustained progress as well as exciting enhancements to Wisconsin's readiness to prevent, detect, investigate, control and recover from a public health event.
Sincerely,
karen e. timberlake
Secretary
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State of Wisconsin
Investment Board
July 8, 2009
The Honorable, The Legislature:
Section
25.17 (14r), Stats., requires that we advise you of the changes to investment guidelines and procedures adopted by the Board of Trustees for the internally managed portfolios. A few years ago, we began consolidating any changes adopted during a six-month period and reporting them to you on a semi-annual basis. Although the Board made no changes to the guidelines during the last six months, we wanted to continue with the reporting schedule and let you know that no changes were made to the internal investment guidelines.
The statutory reporting requirements appear to only apply to internal management and not to contracts we initiate with external managers or changes we make to existing contracts. However, because of the increased use of external managers over the past decade, we decided in 2006 to inform you of any new contracts with external managers r changes to existing contracts. In keeping with that policy, we want to advise you that we amended a contract with an existing external manager to cover a strategy focused on corporate bonds, which was designed to provide excess returns by taking advantage of historically high risk premiums. We also amended the contract with the manager that manages short term cash for certain internal and external domestic and international portfolios. SWIB made these changes to further diversify its holdings.
If you have any questions on any of the changes, please contact me at 266-9451 or Sandy Drew at 261-0182.
Sincerely,
keith bozart
Executive Director
Referred to committee on Veterans and Military Affairs, Biotechnology, and Financial Institutions.
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The committee on Education reports and recommends:
Relating to precollege scholarships.
No action taken.
John Lehman
Chairperson