RUSS DECKER
Chairperson
__________________
State of Wisconsin
Office of the Senate President
January
4
, 2010
The Honorable, the Senate:
Pursuant to Senate Rule
46 (2)(c), I am writing to inform you that I have directed the following proposal(s) to be withdrawn from committee and rereferred. I have obtained the consent of the appropriate standing committee chairperson and the chairperson of the committee on Senate Organization.
Senate Bill
439
, relating to
adopting Internal Revenue Code provisions related to individual retirement accounts and adopting provisions of the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act of 2008 for state income and franchise tax purposes, withdrawn from committee on Health, Health Insurance, Privacy, Property Tax Relief, and Revenue and rereferred to committee on Veterans and Military Affairs, Biotechnology, and Financial Institutions
.
Sincerely,
FRED A. RISSER
Senate President
__________________
State of Wisconsin
Department of Veterans Affairs
December 18, 2009
The Honorable, The Senate:
The Wisconsin Board of Veterans Affairs and I have heard your concerns regarding the pending rate increases at the Wisconsin Veterans Home at Union Grove. To this effect we are acting decisively to implement short-term and long-term plans that will insure your continued stay at our Home.
Specifically, the short-term plan entails the department enrolling all eligible members in the Aid-to-Indigent Veterans (AIV) program before the rate increases take effect on January 1, 2010. Once members are admitted to the AIV program, it will cover member AIV program under the current policy (i.e. Individuals with assets, income or individuals who do not meet eligibility requirements for the program such as spouses) I will "forebear (suspend) collections" until the department and the Board are successful in developing alternate solutions to assist these individuals.
Long-term plans are currently under development, and the department will propose several options to the Wisconsin Board of Veterans Affairs at its next board meeting on January 15, 2009. This board meeting will be held at the Wisconsin Veterans Home in Union Grove.
Please rest assured that our long term goal is to provide members with the viable options needed to secure their continued stay at our Home well into the future. Thank you for your trust and understanding in this matter.
Sincerely,
kenneth b. black
Secretary
__________________
State of Wisconsin
Department of Justice
December 18, 2009
The Honorable, The Legislature:
Section
165.90 of the Wisconsin Statutes requires the Department of Justice to report on the performance of cooperative county-tribal law enforcement programs receiving aid under this section. This letter constitutes our report.
This marks the twenty-second year that the Department has awarded grants for cooperative county-tribal enforcement programs. The statutes require counties and tribes tp develop joint program plans. The Department requires plans to include resolutions of support for the plan adopted by county boards and tribal governing bodies, to signify cooperation and mutual commitment.
S465
This program pays for a variety of law enforcement services to Native American communities across Wisconsin. Grants have been used for the costs of personnel, patrol, investigation, crime prevention, K-9 units, information technology, law enforcement training, alternatives to drug abuse and gang involvement, diversity training, cultural awareness education, and emergency/rescue equipment. An increasing number of grants are awarded to programs that include tribal police departments, generally helping to pay for tribal liaison personnel and patrol services provided to Native American reservations and communities.
The amount appropriated for this program in State Fiscal Year 2009 was $701,300. Grant funds comes from Indian gaming receipts as appropriated in the biennial budget. For Calendar Year 2009, the Department issues 19 awards totaling $701, 300. These awards were in the following amounts:
CY2009
County Tribe
Award
Sincerely,
j.b. Van hollen
Attorney General
__________________
State of Wisconsin
Department of Corrections
December 22, 2009
The Honorable, The Legislature:
As required by s.
301.03(10)(g), Wis. Stats., I am sending you a report on youth waived into adult court in Wisconsin. The statutory provision is as follows:
Keep statistics, by race, age and gender, of the number of juveniles over whom the court assigned to exercise jurisdiction under chs.
49 and
938 waives its jurisdiction under s.938.18 as well as the nature of the waiver that was ordered and annually report those statistics to the governor, and to the appropriate standing committees under s.
13.172(3).
The Department of Corrections (DOC) is grateful for the assistance of the Office of State Court in compiling the requested statistics. Since Wisconsin courts do not report any information directly to DOC on juvenile adjudications or adult convictions, the Department cannot fulfill the statutory mandate without the help of the Office of State Courts. The Wisconsin Consolidated Court Automation Programs staff and CIO Jean Bousquet produced the data on individual waiver cases that we used to compile the statistics on the following pages.
Please note several considerations in reviewing the waiver data:
•Race: The Office of State Courts did not supply DOC with data on race of waived youth. Unfortunately, local clerks of court do not submit race data in the majority of cases they post in the CCAP database. Thus, the Office of State Courts did not provide DOC with race information because of the significant amount of missing data.
•Age: The Office of State Courts supplied DOC with each waived youth's birth date and the date on which her/his case was waived to adult court. We calculated each youth's age on the date of waiver, rounding it to the nearest whole number, for the report. You will note that some persons are waived at older ages, generally as the result of absconding during a juvenile prosecution, being apprehended months or years later, and being waived to adult court due to their age and circumstances.
•Sex: The data on gender was reported by local courts in over 95% of cases entered into CCAP.
The Office of State Courts has provided the Department with annual data for years 2000-2008 inclusive. Data Tables for each year are attached. We are working with the Office to determine the method and schedule by which future reports will be reduced.
Sincerely,
Rick raemisch
Secretary
Referred to committee on Judiciary, Corrections, Insurance, Campaign Finance Reform, and Housing.
__________________
State of Wisconsin
Department of Revenue
December 22, 2009
The Honorable, The Legislature:
Section
565.45, Wisconsin Statutes, requires the Department of Revenue to submit a biennial report to the legislature regarding the "effect on the operation of the lottery not exceed 10% of gross lottery revenues unless approved by the Joint Committee on Finance under s.
13.10.
As indicated in the enclosed chart, total administrative expenditures remain well below the 10% limitation imposed by Section
25.75(3)(b).
Sincerely,
