Ayes: 8 - Representatives Ballweg, Kapenga, Nass, Kuglitsch, Litjens, Sinicki, Toles and C. Taylor.
Noes: 0.
Passage as amended:
Ayes: 8 - Representatives Ballweg, Kapenga, Nass, Kuglitsch, Litjens, Sinicki, Toles and C. Taylor.
Noes: 0.
To committee on Rules.
Senate Bill 153
Relating to: permitting governmental employers who are not participating employers in the Wisconsin Retirement System to be covered in the local government health insurance plan offered by the group insurance board.
Concurrence:
Ayes: 8 - Representatives Ballweg, Kapenga, Nass, Kuglitsch, Litjens, Sinicki, Toles and C. Taylor.
Noes: 0.
To committee on Rules.
Joan Ballweg
Chairperson
Committee on Labor and Workforce Development
Speaker's Communications
DATE: February 13, 2012
TO: Patrick E. Fuller, Assembly Chief Clerk
FROM: Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald
RE: Appointment to Joint Committee on Finance
Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald has confirmed, and hereby appointed, Representative Peter Barca's nomination of Representative Jon Richards to temporarily serve on the Joint Committee on Finance. Representative Richards will fulfill this duty until Representative Tamara Grigsby is able to make a full medical recovery.
Communications
February 6, 2012
Patrick Fuller
Assembly Chief Clerk
17 West Main Street, Suite 401
Madison, WI 53703
Dear Patrick:
I am pleased to transmit to you the following reports to the 2011 Legislature on legislation introduced by the Joint Legislative Council as well as activities of this committee;
RL 2011-02 Special Committee on Review of the Managed Forest Land Program, Revised December 5, 2011.
I would appreciate your including this letter in the Journal for the information of the membership. Additional copies of this report are available at the Legislative Council Staff offices, One East Main, Suite 401, or from our web page at
http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lc.
Sincerely,
Terry C. Anderson
Joint Legislative Council
Director
__________________
February 13, 2012
Patrick Fuller
Assembly Chief Clerk
17 West Main Street, Suite 401
Madison, WI 53703
Dear Chief Clerk Fuller:
Please add my name as a co-sponsor of Assembly Bill 553, relating to matching financial records for Medical Assistance eligibility and providing a penalty.
Sincerely,
Pam Galloway
State Senator
29th Senate District
__________________
Agency Reports
State of Wisconsin
Legislative Audit Bureau
Madison
February 8, 2012
To the Honorable, the Assembly:
We have completed our financial audit of the University of Wisconsin (UW) System for the years ended June 30, 2011, and June 30, 2010. UW System's financial statements and our unqualified audit opinion on them, dated December 21, 2011, have been included in UW System's 2011 Annual Financial Report, which is enclosed. This report will be presented to the UW Board of Regents at its meetings on February 9 and 10.
General Purpose Revenue (GPR), which is shown as State Appropriations on UW System's financial statements, increased 5.5 percent, from $974.4 million in fiscal year (FY) 2009-10 to $1,028.3 million in FY 2010-11. This funding does not include GPR funding that is used to repay debt on academic facilities, which is technically debt of the State of Wisconsin and not UW System. Such debt service payments totaled $73.1 million for FY 2010-11 and $52.7 million for FY 2009-10.
From FY 2009-10 to FY 2010-11, operating revenues increased by $215.2 million, or 6.9 percent. Tuition and Fees, which accounted for 32.3 percent of total operating revenues in FY 2010-11, increased by $67.0 million to $1,074.9 million. Federal grants and contracts revenue increased from $813.3 million in FY 2009-10 to $871.3 million in FY 2010-11. Other significant operating revenues of the UW System include state, local, and grants and contracts; sales and services of educational activities; and sales and services of auxiliary enterprises.
Operating expenses increased by $172.6 million from $4.1 billion in FY 2009-10 to $4.3 billion in FY 2010-11. Salaries and fringe benefit expenses, which comprise 66.4 percent of total operating expenses, increased by $103.5 million. Supplies and services expenses, which comprise 25.0 percent of total operating expenses, increased by $30.3 million.
Beginning in April 2011, the UW System's new Human Resource System (HRS) was used to calculate and produce employee payroll checks and maintain employee-related information. Because HRS was operational for only three months during our audit period, our review was limited. However, we identified concerns with access granted to users of the system and made a recommendation to UW System to improve controls in this area. We will perform a full review of HRS as part of our FY 2011-12 audit, and determine whether UW System took necessary steps to address the concerns we noted.
A789
Enclosed is a management letter, which includes an auditor's report on compliance and internal control over financial reporting, as required by Government Auditing Standards. This letter was provided to the UW System and includes our concern regarding HRS security, as well as the status of two continuing internal control concerns identified during prior audits.
Sincerely,
Joe Chrisman
State Auditor
__________________
State of Wisconsin
Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation
Madison
February 10, 2012
To the Honorable, the Legislature:
Click on the link below to view our interim 2011 annual report for the QNBV Investor Tax Credit (ACT 255) Program. The QNBV program has demonstrated its effectiveness in stimulating seed and early stage growth investments across many key industries, such as information technology, energy, bioscience, healthcare and advanced manufacturing. These industries provide a cornerstone for business and job growth in this state.
http://wedc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/QNBV-Report_2.14.2012.pdf
Some key report metrics I would like to highlight:
• State investment per job was only $12,106 in 2009 and that dropped to $8,174 in 2010.
• The state's investment dollars were leveraged from outside investments (equity and debt) at a ratio of 23:1 through 2010. We have certified 193 companies to-date and helped support 900 jobs in 2010.
• Final 2011 data will be available June 1, 2012.
The WEDC, through its Division of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, is aggressively implementing programs to stimulate business start-ups. We need to move this state from the bottom ten to the top ten in the nation for business start-ups. We are working together to find creative approaches to enhance seed and early stage equity investments and implement accelerator programs to create successful business start-ups.
Steve Jobs once said, "The only way to survive is to innovate our way out of this."
Our team looks forward to working closely with you to innovate and create an entrepreneurial culture and the programs that support it, the programs, like Act 255, that will lead the nation in business creation and job growth.
Please do not hesitate to contact me or anyone on my team if you need additional information on our division's programs and strategies.
Sincerely,
Lisa Johnson
VP of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
