More Department proposals for 2021

At the 18 March 2021 meeting of the Advisory Council, the Department presented its first eight proposals. These first eight proposals included the proposals that the Advisory Council originally approved of in 2019 (but which were not enacted because of the pandemic).

At the 15 April and the 20 May 2021 meetings of the Advisory Council, the Department presented another 18 proposals — D21-09 thru D21-26. Yikes. Here are those proposals, with links to the actual proposals that appeared at the May 2021 Advisory Council meeting.

D21-09, Employee Status solely determined by unemployment law

The Department seeks to amend the definition of employee and self-employment.

The Department proposes to amend sections 108.09(2)(bm) and 108.09(4s) to provide that all issues of unemployment insurance employee status may only be determined under Wisconsin unemployment statutes and rules. This proposal will provide consistency in determining individuals’ eligibility for unemployment benefits and employers’ unemployment insurance tax liability by limiting the employee status inquiry to the provisions of the unemployment insurance law.

D21-09 at 2. The actual proposed changes seem to do little more than re-arrange statutory wording, however. At present, current unemployment law prohibits consideration of licensing requirements or other state or federal law in determining employee status. So, there is a change in wording being proposed, but I cannot determine what substantively is being changed. The Department’s rationale seems to be that administrative law judges are over-turning initial determinations that held claimants to be employees (and so, concluding that the claimants truly were independent contractors) because those administrative law judges were looking to laws outside of unemployment law.

Yet, Wis. Stat. § 108.09(4s) currently holds that (emphasis supplied):

the appeal tribunal shall not take administrative notice of or admit into evidence documents granting operating authority or licenses, or any state or federal laws or federal regulations granting such authority or licenses.

So, the actual goal of this proposed change is unclear at the moment.

D21-10, SUTA dumping

This proposals adds a provision — required by federal law — to prevent employers from re-organizing themselves and thereby reducing their tax rate significantly and restoring a positive account balance as a “new” employer — a practice called SUTA dumping.

SUTA dumping is a major problem that can easily “cost” thousands of dollars (and maybe even tens of thousands) per employer, especially when extended beyond one year. The proposed penalties are a $5,000 forfeiture, a possible $10,000 civil penalty, and possible criminal charges as a class A misdemeanor (up to 9 months in jail and up to a $10,000 fine).

So, these penalties are chump change and unlikely to discourage any employer but the smallest from SUTA dumping. A large employer who might save $70,000 or more in three years will not bat an eye at these proposed penalties.

Moreover, the penalties for claimant concealment are much more severe. Alongside the financial penalties that claimants incur for the claim-filing mistakes, per 2017 Wis. Act 147 the criminal penalties for claimant concealment are:

• For benefits up to $2,500: An unclassified misdemeanor with a fine up to $10,000, imprisonment up to nine months, or both.
• For benefits up to $5,000: A Class I felony, for which the penalty is a fine upto $10,000, imprisonment up to three years and six months, or both.
• For benefits up to $10,000: A Class H felony, for which the penalty is a fine up to $10,000, imprisonment up to six years, or both.
• For benefits over $10,000: A Class G felony, for which the penalty is a fine up to $25,000, imprisonment up to 10 years, or both

And, unlike claimant concealment, actual and specific intent to commit SUTA dumping needs to be proven. Proposed Wis. Stat. § 108.16(8)(mm)3 will read:

For the purposes of this paragraph and par. (m), “knowingly” means having actual knowledge of or acting with deliberate ignorance of or reckless disregard for the statute violated.

D21-10 at 3. Claimant “intent” for the purpose of unemployment concealment is shown for any claim-filing mistakes by the following factors:

a. Whether the claimant failed to read or follow instructions or other communications of the department related to a claim for benefits.
b. Whether the claimant relied on the statements or representations of persons other than an employee of the department who is authorized to provide advice regarding the claimant’s claim for benefits.
c. Whether the claimant has a limitation or disability and, if so, whether the claimant provided evidence to the department of that limitation or disability.
d. The claimant’s unemployment insurance claims filing experience.
e. Any instructions or previous determinations of concealment issued or provided to the claimant.
f. Any other factor that may provide evidence of the claimant’s intent.

Wis. Stat. § 108.04(11)(g)2 (setting forth a claimant’s duty of care to provide accurate and complete responses to Department inquires).

These standards are hardly comparable. They should be. They need to be.

D21-11, Work-share modifications

Work-share has been one of the few unemployment success stories in Wisconsin during this pandemic. In light of federal changes to work-share programs during the pandemic, this proposal seeks to expand work-share options and flexibility in light of those federal changes so that more employers and employees can take advantage of these benefits.

This proposal is a no-brainer and should have been adopted months ago.

The Department wants to hear about other changes needed to work-share efforts in Wisconsin. Other than a reduction in the complicated paperwork (a universal complaint for work-share), contact me with your suggestions. I will pass them on to the Advisory Council.

D21-12, Secretary waiver of provisions for the sake of funding flexibility

This proposal expands the general savings clause (the Department’s secretary can waive compliance with any specific state requirement should that state requirement be found to conflict with federal law) to also allow the Department secretary to waive requirements that prevent the state from taking full advantage of federal funding opportunities (like immediately waiving the waiting week when the pandemic struck, as the legislative delay costs Wisconsin employers’ millions of dollars).

Given the current actions of the legislature, this proposal is probably dead on arrival no matter what the Advisory Council recommends.

D21-13, Initial tax rates for construction employers

Unemployment taxes have been declining so rapidly in Wisconsin that the initial tax rates for construction employers — one of the few booming industries from before and during the pandemic — are now lower than the initial rates of non-construction new employers.

2021 tax rates   Non-construction   Construction
Payroll<$500,000   3.05%              2.90%
Payroll>$500,000   3.25%              3.10%

D21-13 at 1. Because construction work is generally seasonal work, initial tax rates in construction should in theory be higher than for general, non-construction employers. The Department’s solution is to amend “the initial tax rate for construction employers to be the greater of the initial rate for non-construction employers or the average rate for construction industry employers as determined by the department on each computation date, rounded up to
the next highest rate.” D21-13 at 2.

Until construction work no longer has seasonal layoffs because of winter, this proposal makes sense.

D21-14, Phone hearings prioritized

Prior to the pandemic, the Department closed hearing offices and forced claimants and employers into phone hearings. An outcry ensued, but the pandemic made phone hearings a necessity.

Current regulations, however, still prioritize in-person hearings over hearings by phone. In this proposal, the Department wants:

to amend chapter DWD 140 to provide that, while parties may continue to request in-person hearings, it is the hearing office’s discretion whether to grant that request. The Department also proposes to clarify language in DWD chapter 140 regarding hearing records, Department assistance for people with disabilities at hearings, and to correct minor and technical language in DWD chapter 140.

D21-14 at 2. As currently worded, the proposal simply justifies what the Department wants to do and provides no actual reasons or justification for these changes. For instance, the Department lacks space for in-person hearings because the Department previously closed three out of four hearing offices.

Even more troubling, the substances of the proposed changes is lacking. Wis. Admin. Code § DWD 140 is THE set of regulations for how hearings are conducted. Any changes to this chapter could have long-term repercussions to claimants and employers about what happens at unemployment hearings and their access to the hearing files connected to these cases.

When presenting this proposal, the Department indicated that the changes to DWD 140 are needed as well as to DWD 149 to reflect the Department’s current practices in responding to open records requests. So, it begs the question of what exactly is in conflict between these regulations and the Department’s current hearing practices. Wis. Admin. Code DWD 149.03 provides:

(1)  Claimants and employing units. Except as otherwise provided under s. DWD 140.09, the department shall make the following records available to the following persons upon request:

(a) An unemployment insurance record concerning an individual is available to that individual.

(b) An unemployment insurance record concerning an individual’s work for an employing unit is available to that employing unit.

(c) An unemployment insurance record concerning a determination to which an employing unit is identified as a party of interest under s. 108.09, Stats., is available to that employing unit.

(d) An unemployment insurance record concerning an employing unit’s status or liability under ch. 108, Stats., is available to that employing unit.

In legal circles it is generally understood that phone hearings favor employers, as employer witnesses can gather in one room and share a set of notes during their testimony without an administrative law judge witnessing those notes being passed.

Finally, for comparison, here is a 1998 Department notice (from a 2000 training about unemployment hearings) about opting for a phone hearing. If the Department is going to go forward with this change, it should address these points it put forward in 1998 for why phone hearings are problematic.

D21-15, Camp counselor employer exclusion

Currently, summer camp counselors are generally ineligible to receive unemployment benefits because they are usually full-time students. But, summer camps must still pay unemployment taxes for the wages paid to summer camp counselor.

This proposal applies the federal definition of excluded employment for camp counselors to state law.

The result of this change is that summer camps will no longer pay unemployment taxes for the wages paid to their summer camp counselors. And, some summer camp counselors who are not students may lose the ability to include their summer camp wages in establishing a benefit year.

D21-16, Repeal of drug testing requirements

This proposal repeals the drug testing provisions the Walker administration kept trying to institute. Recall that the drug testing efforts came in three parts: (1) voluntary employer testing and reporting, (2) mandatory testing of claimants based on to-be-determined federally designated occupations for testing, and (3) mandatory testing of claimants based on a future, state-based list of designated occupations. Only the voluntary employer testing and reporting was ever implemented.

The big news here is that as of 31 March 2021, the Department has received 171 drug test reports (either a failed test or failing to take a test) from potential employers. Previously, the Department had reported none or just a couple of voluntary testing reports from employers. In any case, the impact of these 171 voluntary employer reports remains nil. “No claimants have been determined to be ineligible for UI benefits under the pre-employment drug testing statutes and rules and denied benefits because of the employers’ reports of a failed or refused drug test as a condition of an offer of employment.” D21-16 at 1. So, there has been no opportunity for claimants to maintain their eligibility by enrolling a drug treatment program at the state’s expense.

Because employers have no idea of whether a job applicant is receiving or not receiving unemployment benefits OR because employers are failing to provide the necessary drug-testing paperwork and follow the necessary protocols for reporting a drug test OR a combination of these two factors, the voluntary drug testing has been a complete bust. In more than five years, this effort has not led to a single disqualification or enrollment in a drug treatment program. Ending a program that is doing nothing should make sense.

D21-17, Repeal of the substantial fault disqualification

This proposal seeks to repeal the substantial fault disqualification. There are two issues with this proposal, however.

First, the Advisory Council previously rejected substantial fault when it was originally proposed. It was the Joint Finance Committee that went around the Advisory Council and which included substantial fault in the state budget. So, the Advisory Council does not need to approve of this repeal. It was already rejected, and the rejection should be included as a matter of course.

Second, court decisions in Operton v. LIRC, 2017 WI 46, and Easterling v. LIRC, 2017 WI App 18, have limited the scope of substantial fault in important ways from how the Department applies this disqualification. But, the Department continues to ignore those court precedents. Indeed, as of May 2021, I have come across two cases of employees disqualified for substantial fault because of unintentional mistakes where the mistakes in question are nearly identical to the mistakes in Operton (inadvertent job mistakes) and Easterling (unintentional mistakes while attempting to satisfy employer demands).

D21-18, Expansion of the relocating spouse quit exception

This proposal restores this quit exception to allow any claimant who has to quit a job because his or her spouse has to relocate. Prior to 2013, Wisconsin allowed claimants to receive unemployment benefits when they had to relocate because of a spouse transferring to another job for any reason. In proposal D12-19, the Department limited this quit exception to the spouses of military personnel who had to relocate.

So, this proposal restores the expansive nature of this quit exception.

The problem here, like with substantial fault, is that the Advisory Council previously rejected this Department proposal to limit this quit exception to the spouses of military personnel. Here is what the Advisory Council actually agreed to back in 2013. So, this proposed change should be included as a matter of course in the council’s agreed-upon bill.

D21-19, Repeal of the waiting week

The waiting week was enacted as part of the 2011 budget act, 2011 Wis. Act 32 and without any input from the Advisory Council.

The concept of a waiting week exists because state unemployment agencies originally could not act quickly on a claim for benefits, and so a waiting week was needed to give the state agency time to process the necessary paperwork. With the advent of claim-filing by phone, however, that additional time was no longer needed. The waiting week effectively became a vehicle for reducing the total amount of benefits paid out to a claimant, since claimants did not receive any unemployment benefits for the first week of their claim.

The Department estimates that the waiting week costs claimants $26.1 million each year. D21-19 at 3. Given the purpose of unemployment benefits to provide immediate economic stimulus to workers in time of need after losing their jobs, a waiting week makes no sense.

D21-20, Repeal of the lame duck work search and work registration changes

The lame duck laws, see 2017 Wis. Act 370 for the unemployment changes, that were enacted after Scott Walker lost his re-election bid, moved the Department’s work search and work registration requirements from Department regulations and into statutory law. That is, Republicans were so concerned about making sure these obstacles for unemployment eligibility remained in place that they made them statutory rather just a regulation that the new administration might then revise.

So, this proposal restores what existed before the lame duck changes and gives the Department some additional flexibility in how work search and work registration requirements are administered.

D21-21, Repeal of the wage cap on benefit eligibility

Right now, a hard cap of $500 per week is written into unemployment law. This cap was first proposed by the Department in D12-18, which the Advisory Council adopted at their 21 Feb. 2013 meeting.

In light of Wisconsin’s partial wage formula, a claimant with a weekly benefit rate of $370 could in theory have as much as $574 in wages and still qualify for at least $5 in unemployment benefits. D21-21 at 1. In other words, the partial wage formula indicates that anyone with $575 or more in wages would NOT receive any unemployment benefits.

As a consequence, the $500 cutoff actually discourages some work, as any employee who receives $500 or more in wages loses all unemployment benefits. For instance, a person with a WBR of $370 who earns $550 in wages would receive $22 in unemployment benefits that week, if the $500 wage cap was eliminated.

In other states, the gap between earnings and unemployment eligibility is called an “earnings disregard.” In some of these states, a worker who earns just $200 in a week loses unemployment eligibility dollar for dollar, so the earnings disregard in those states is sizable. See Massachusetts, for example, in this table. Because of Wisconsin’s partial wage formula, the earnings disregard in Wisconsin is limited to this $500 wage cap and only applies for claimants receiving the highest weekly benefit rate.

So, at present this $500 wage cap has a very limited effect. But, should the weekly benefit even be increased, it will become a major problem. And, as indicated in the next proposal, Wisconsin now has the second-lowest weekly benefit rate in the mid-west. So, this artificial cap needs to go if Wisconsin is going to raise its weekly benefit rate.

Finally, as noted by the Department, D21-21 at 3, the eligibility ban when working 32 or more hours in a week remains in place.

D21-22, Raising the weekly benefit rate

Currently, Wisconsin has the second-lowest maximum weekly benefit rate in the mid-west.

State   Max. WBR    Max. w/ dependents
IL        $484           $667
IN        $390           $390
IA        $481           $591
MI        $362           $362
MN        $740           $740
OH        $480           $647
WI        $370           $370

A listing of the weekly benefit for all the states is available here.

Note: this data is different from what the Department reports in its proposal, and these numbers are current as of October 2020. These numbers have changed since then. Ohio, for instance, currently has a maximum WBR of $498 and $672 with dependents.

The highest WBR available is in Massachusetts, at $823 ($1,234 with dependents). The second highest is in Washington state at $790.

This proposal sets forth a series of increases in the weekly benefit rate.

1. For benefits paid for weeks of unemployment beginning on or after January 2, 2022, but before January 1, 2023, the maximum weekly benefit is capped at $409.
2. For benefits paid for weeks of unemployment beginning on or after January 1, 2023, but before December 31, 2023, the maximum weekly benefit is capped at 50% of the state’s annual average weekly wages.
3. For benefits paid for weeks of unemployment beginning on or after December 31, 2023, the maximum weekly benefit is capped at 75% of the state’s annual average weekly wages, or the maximum weekly benefit amount from the previous year, whichever is greater.

Wisconsin’s weekly benefit rate relative to the wages being paid in this state has never been all that good and has become essentially a token reimbursement in the last few decades.

Using the average weekly Wisconsin wage of $951 in 2019, the maximum WBR in 2023 would be $475, and in 2024 the maximum WBR would be $713. So, this proposal would basically make the maximum weekly benefit rate actually useful and relevant again in Wisconsin.

D21-23, Expanded flexibility in searching for suitable work

Here, the Department proposes two changes. First, the Department wants to expand the canvassing period from six weeks to eleven weeks.

The canvassing period is the time when you can reject a job offer which is a lower grade of skill or at a significantly lower rate of pay (less than 75%) than you had on one or more recent jobs without losing your eligibility for benefits. See Tips for filing for unemployment benefits in Wisconsin for more information about your canvassing period.

Second, the Department proposes expanding the trial time period for quitting a job without being disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits from 30 days to ten weeks (the original time period). The Advisory Council originally approved of the change from ten weeks to 30 days.

This trial time period provides various ways for an employee to still qualify for unemployment benefits when quitting a job regardless of the employee’s actual reason. The main reason found in this category usually is that the job fails to meet established labor market standards (e.g., wages are 25% or less than what is normally paid in that specific labor market for that occupation). But, any reason that would have allowed the employees to refuse the job offer in the first place as well as any reason for quitting the job with good cause applies here. Only the last reason — having good cause for quitting the job — is still available to employees after the trial period has expired.

D21-24, changing the SSDI eligibility ban to an offset

This proposal was previously discussed here, along with the entire history of the Department’s SSDI eligibility ban qua offset. Whether as an eligibility ban or an offset, it still makes no sense. There should be no SSDI offset, just like there should be no SSDI eligibility ban.

Here is hoping the Advisory Council can fix this crazy proposal and end this discrimination against the disabled.

D21-25, Mandatory e-filing for employers

At present, large employers (those with annual unemployment taxes of $10,000 or more) must e-file their reports and e-pay their unemployment taxes.

This proposal would mandate e-filing and e-pay for ALL employers.

The problem is that many one or two person LLCs and other self-employed individuals have no conception of unemployment taxes and the reports that need to be filed. Given the lack of broadband access in the state, this mandate for these small employers is likely difficult to impossible to implement.

Without a broad-based, educational media campaign, this mandatory e-filing will accomplish little more than allowing the Department to levy administrative penalties against small employers who have no idea what is going on and fail to provide their forms and payments via e-file and e-pay. The fact that implementation will be delayed until the Department actually has the technology in place to support this proposal offers little assurance. In short, this proposal should be rejected out-of-hand. After all, those who push for ease-of-use indicate that multiple kinds of access need to be maintained and fully supported. So, mandatory e-filing and e-pay actually runs counter to making unemploymeny more modern and easier-to-use.

D21-26, New worker mis-classification penalties

This proposal seeks to replace the token employer penalties for mis-classifying construction workers (1) with penalties that at least some have some dentures to them and (2) to expand this issue to all industries rather than limiting it to just construction.

The Advisory Council at the urging of Mark Reihl, then the head of the carpenters’ union in Wisconsin (and now division director for unemployment) originally approved the original penalties proposed by the labor caucus.

1. $500 civil penalty for each employee who is misclassified, but not to exceed $7,500 per incident.
2. $1,000 criminal fine for each employee who is misclassified, subject to a maximum fine of $25,000 for each violation, but only if the employer has previously been assessed a civil penalty for misclassified workers.
3. $1,000 civil penalty for each individual coerced to adopt independent contractor status, up to $10,000 per calendar year.

D21-36 at 1.

With this proposal, the Department explains:

The proposal removes the $7,500 and $10,000 limitations on these penalties and provides that the penalties double for each act occurring after the date of the first determination of a violation. The proposal also removes the limitations on the types of employers to which the penalties apply, allowing them to be assessed against any type of employer that violates the above prohibitions.

D21-26 at 4.

BUT, the intent that needs to be shown for these mis-classification penalties remains unchanged. Per Wis. Stat. § 108.221(1)(b):

(b) The department shall consider the following nonexclusive factors in determining whether an employer described under par. (a) knowingly and intentionally provided false information to the department for the purpose of misclassifying or attempting to misclassify an individual who is an employee of the employer as a nonemployee:

1. Whether the employer was previously found to have misclassified an employee in the same or a substantially similar position.
2. Whether the employer was the subject of litigation or a governmental investigation relating to worker misclassification and the employer, as a result of that litigation or investigation, received an opinion or decision from a federal or state court or agency that the subject position or a substantially similar position should be classified as an employee.

Under this standard, it is well nigh impossible to charge an employer with mis-classification for a first-time violation. On the other hand, claimants are given no such leeway for their claim-filing mistakes. As noted above with proposal D21-10 (SUTA dumping), claimants who have filed for unemployment insurance previously and been given notice to read the claimants’ handbook are presumed to know everything about how to file an unemployment claim and to not make any claim-filing mistakes. But, here, employers are not liable for mis-classification (a far more serious problem economically) until after their first instance of mis-classification. In other words, these mis-classification penalties can only apply to employers when prosecuted a second time for the same mis-classification. Having two bites of the apple sure is nice.

Either employers should be held to the same claim-filing standards as employees, or the intent requirements used against employees for their claim-filing mistakes needs to be seriously redone.

Tax matters

Given the delays with unemployment claims in Wisconsin, eventual payment of benefits is leading to folks receiving lump sum payments of $10,000, $15,000, or even $20,000 or more.

Payments that large will mean a federal and state income tax liability, IF you do not have state and federal taxes deducted automatically at the time benefits are paid — aka, tax withholding.

Note: Because benefit payment levels are generally low in Wisconsin, having taxes deducted from benefit payments has usually NOT been an issue. With the supplemental funding from the $600 PUC in spring and summer of 2020 and the $300 PUC in 2021 and because lump sum payments are including six to twelve months of benefits, the amounts being paid are now much, much larger than normal.

Keep in mind that income taxes are almost always paid on a calendar year basis. So, for income tax purposes what matters is in which year benefit payments are made. The weeks being claimed is what matters for unemployment, but is inconsequential for your income tax.

Note: A vital document everyone should have is a PDF of their benefit payment history. Instructions for getting that PDF document are available here. As noted in these instructions, follow them carefully. You should probably be getting a new PDF of your benefit payments every month.

2020 income taxes

If a large payment was made to you in 2020, the American Relief Plan allows waiver of the first $10,200 in unemployment benefits received on your federal income taxes.

But, in Wisconsin state income tax is still owed on all unemployment benefits received. As of yet, there is no waiver of state taxes owed on unemployment benefits received. Instructions for paying the taxes owed are here.

If you have already filed your 2020 federal income taxes before mid-March 2021 when the American Relief Plan was enacted, the IRS will automatically make the waiver correction on your federal tax return. So, there is no need to file an amended tax return to the IRS.

2021 income taxes

Income tax returns for the 2021 calendar year are not due until 2022. But, a big payment of unemployment benefits in 2021 of $10,000 or more will likely mean that you should be filing both federal and state estimated taxes on a quarterly basis to avoid penalties. These estimated tax payments are needed if federal and state income taxes are not automatically deducted from your unemployment benefits when those benefits are paid. Estimated taxes are due for earnings received:

• January thru March: estimated taxes postmarked or paid by April 15th
• April and May: estimated taxes postmarked or paid by June 15th
• June thru August: estimated taxes postmarked or paid by Sept. 15th
• September thru December: estimated taxes postmarked or paid by 18 January 2022 (but, to avoid calendar year confusion and issues, you should probably make this last payment before December 31st)

For example, if you receive a big payment of unemployment benefits in March 2021 without any federal or state income tax deductions, then you should probably file both a federal and state estimated tax payment for the first quarter of 2021 by April 15th.

If federal tax deductions were made from that benefit payment but no state deductions were made, then you only need to file a state estimated tax payment.

If state tax deductions were made from that benefit payment but no federal deductions were made, then you only need to file a federal estimated tax payment.

Obviously, the requirement to pay estimated taxes when there is no tax withholding also applies when those weekly benefit payments add up over time. With the addition of the $300 PUC until September 6th of this year, a person with a weekly benefit rate of $300 will be receiving $600 each week. Ten weeks of those payments will be $6000, and fifteen weeks will be $9,000. So, it will be a good idea to make an estimated tax payment for that amount where there is no tax withholding.

Even when back to work but at a reduced schedule, you will probably still be eligible for unemployment benefits, including the $300 PUC. So, these benefits will add up quickly, and tax withholding from your workplace wages will not be enough to cover the income tax liability.

In other words, if you are receiving unemployment benefits in 2021 and there is no federal and state tax withholding when those benefits are paid, you should consider filing quarterly estimated tax payments.

Here are the forms needed for filing 2021 estimated taxes:

• Federal ES-1
• State 1-ES
• A spreadsheet for calculating state and federal estimated taxes

Note: The spreadsheet, the information presented in this post, and the links to other websites and information is for your own personal use and is not intended as tax advice or guidance for your specific situation. Per IRS Circular 230 Disclosure requirements: To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the IRS, any US federal tax advice contained in this communication is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding tax-related penalties under the Internal Revenue Code, or (ii) promoting, marketing, or recommending to another party any transaction or matter discussed herein.

The Department of Workforce Development itself has information about tax withholding and for turning tax withholding on or off. To avoid estimate tax payments in the future, make sure to turn tax withholding for state and federal income taxes on. For any unemployment benefit payments received without tax withholding, consider making the estimated tax payments described here.

American Rescue Plan

The latest rescue package signed into law on 11 March 2021 provides for:

• $1,400 per person direct stimulus payments for individuals earning less than $75,000 and for couples earning less than $150,000.
• PUA benefits extended 23 more weeks on top of the original 50 weeks (39 under CARES and 11 under Continued Assistance) for a total of 73 weeks until 6 September 2021.
• PEUC benefits extended 29 more weeks on top of the original 24 weeks (13 under CARES and 11 under Continued Assistance) for a total of 53 weeks until 6 September 2021.
• The additional $300 PUC per week starting on the week ending 1/2/2021 continued for all weeks until 6 September 2021.
• Work share programs are extended thru 6 Sept. 2021.
• Full federal funding of EB benefits extended thru 6 Sept. 2021.
• The federal subsidy for reimbursable employers is increased from 50% to 75% for unemployment weeks beginning after 31 March 2021 until the week ending 9/6/2021.
• Full, 100% funding of waived waiting week benefits retroactive to the week ending 1/2/21 (this subsidy was previously 50%) and effective through the week ending 9/6/2021. As the Department persuasively indicated on March 18th to the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council, this federal funding means that claimants get an additional $300 PUC payment earlier into their hands as well as one week of regular unemployment benefits being funded by the federal government rather than Wisconsin employers (meaning that Wisconsin employers end up with the first week of benefits paid for by the feds rather than out of their unemployment accounts). At the March 18th meeting of the Advisory Council, labor caucus members pushed for full support of this waiting week waiver, but employer representatives for some reason had to think about whether employers would want to have one week of benefits subsidized or not.
• Waiver of all interest charges for states that have seen their unemployment trust funds go negative, hence free money (does NOT apply to Wisconsin, as the trust fund is $1 billion in the black as of February 2021).
• Waiver of federal income taxes on the first $10,200 received in unemployment benefits (regular, PUA, PEUC, EB, and PUC) for 2020 income taxes (not 2021 income taxes, which will be due in 2022).
• Additional funds offered to states to shore up and modernize their claim-filing systems “to help workers get the benefits they deserve when they need them.” States will need to submit grants to DOLETA to receive this funding.
• An expanded Child Tax Credit on income tax forms that will provide $300 per month to families with children under 6 and $250 per child 17 and under.
• 100% coverage of any COBRA premiums for any workers laid off and maintaining health care coverage through COBRA thru 30 Sept. 2021. Details and mechanisms for this coverage are to be determined and will include employer or insurer payments for that coverage on behalf of the former employees.
• Expanded subsidies for ACA health coverage that will apply to 2021 and 2022 calendar years. Anyone receiving unemployment benefits in 2021 will be automatically eligible for subsidized ACA health care coverage. The extent of those subsidies are to be determined.
• Financial shoring up of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation so as to keep pension payments flowing to millions of retirees.

There are income limits to many of these provisions. But, for nearly all unemployed workers in Wisconsin, those income limits will not be an issue.

Taxes and spending

Jake has a look at the latest WisPolicy Forum report on taxing and spending in the mid-west.

As Jake observes from the report, for the twenty-year period from 1997 to 2017, Wisconsin has led the mid-west in declining tax revenues, a commensurate decline in education spending, and a comparative increase in spending on Medicaid, corrections, and highways. These changes, Jake explains, are tied directly to the policy choices of recent years.

For example, a reason Medicaid spending is higher in Wisconsin because we refuse to take the expanded Medicaid in the Affordable Care Act, which would push those expenses onto the Feds instead of us (on a related note, a Pew report earlier this year placed Wisconsin 45th in the country for federal aid).

On the Corrections side, this is an obvious effect of the “lock em up” mentality of WisGOPs that has ended up with the state spending more on Corrections than the UW System. The “6th in the US” highway spending number can be connected back to a huge increase in local wheel taxes to fix roads that Scott Walker and the WisGOP Legislature refused to pay for.

Two things should be added to this post and the WisPolicy Forum’s tax report, however. First, the report is only dealing with changes in averages. So, the big shift in Wisconsin in the tax burden away from the wealthy and onto the shoulders of the middle-class is ignored. And, the over-reliance on property taxes in Wisconsin for funding local government and schools only makes this discrepancy worst, as property taxes based on a flat percentage are inherently regressive.

Second, several taxes are left out of this analysis completely, including unemployment taxes that employers pay on the first $14,000 of annual income paid to each employee. The 2018 Tax Measures Report has all of this tax information. Compared to the other fifty states, Wisconsin’s unemployment taxes are below average:

2018 Tax Measures Report at 64. As seen here, in 2018 Wisconsin’s average unemployment tax burden for employers was $255. For comparison, Minnesota’s was $340, Michigan’s was $352, and Iowa’s was $318.

Other measures likewise indicate that the unemployment tax burden on employers is exceptionally low in Wisconsin among mid-western states:

Average employer contribution in 2018 for every $100 in wages paid to an employee
Wis. 0.54
Minn. 0.56
Mich. 0.64
Iowa 0.69

For every dollar of tax paid in 2018, the amount going to
Benefits owed / Trust fund surplus
Wis. 0.75 / 0.25
Minn. 0.94 / 0.06
Mich. 0.63 / 0.37
Iowa 1.08 / -0.08

2018 Tax Measures Report at 62, 34, 33, and 26, respectively.

So, Wisconsin has the lowest unemployment tax burden of these four states, and 25 cents of every tax dollar being paid is going into the trust fund (only Michigan is saving more monies than Wisconsin for its trust fund).

Compared to these other states, then, employers in Wisconsin have little to complain about relative to employers in other mid-western states. And, this now very light tax burden in Wisconsin is very much the result of state policies that have made it difficult to impossible for employees to qualify for unemployment benefits or which make it difficult for employees to even files a successful claim.

Winter work search concerns

As they say on a popular television show, “Winter is coming.” For Wisconsinites, winter means seasonal layoffs, as Wisconsin for the time being still has a winter.

Seasonal layoffs, however, no longer mean seasonal unemployment with work searches waived for the snowy months. Rather, DWD has instituted an 8 week + additional 4 week work search waivers that are complicated to follow and difficult to get. The Department’s work search FAQ has the needed information about the new work search requirements and the end of seasonal work search waivers.

Keep in mind that the end of seasonal work search waivers came when DWD adopted a proposal based in part on how Florida limited its work search waivers; see also this direct link to my comments on the proposed regs. Obviously, DWD did not consider that Florida has a much different winter than Wisconsin.

The limited work search waivers were enacted in 2013 but not put first into effect until the 2015-16 winter season.

So, the first time the public could respond to these new waivers was at the 17 November 2016 public hearing, and hundreds voiced their displeasure to this change in waiver practice.

As the minutes for the 19 January 2017 Advisory Council meeting explain (p.5 of the pdf):

A total of 295 people provided 307 comments by letter, e-mail or at the public hearing. The department received the majority of correspondence by letter (158 letters) or through e-mail (123 emails). A total of 51 people attended the public hearing in which 19 people testified, 6 people testified and provided written correspondence and 1 person registered an opinion, but did not speak. A majority of the correspondence was specific to an employer or industry and contained the same text. A tally of the comments showed 246 comments received related to work search waivers for recalled employees.

These minutes leave out, however, that almost all of the comments — similar or not — were from employers. The 43 pp. summation of those comments show that employers were deeply concerned over retaining skilled and dedicated seasonal employees who were now at risk of leaving due to the new work search requirements that force employees during winter layoff months to search for and accept work with other employers and thus disrupt the operations of the original employer. Letters from Sen. Erpenbach, Sen. Harsdorf, and Sen. Carpenter also raised these concerns about employers losing valuable employees.

NOTE: Sen. Harsdorf’s bill to restore seasonal work search waivers, SB83, has not gone anywhere.

Apparently, nothing was done for the upcoming winter season that is now approaching. The only official response to this uproar is set forth in the last Q&A in the work search FAQ (emphasis supplied):

What is the policy basis for the requirement change?

The requirements are a result of a change in DWD’s administrative rules. These rules not only bring Wisconsin in line with more than half of all U.S. states and reaffirm the purpose of UI as delivering short-term assistance, but they also respond to employer concerns regarding the solvency of the UI Trust Fund’s balancing account. The change assures that Wisconsin’s UI law conforms to the federal requirement that state UI programs provide for an experience-rated UI tax system. This ensures fair and equitable financing of the payment of benefits among employers. By encouraging employees to find employment during their industry’s off season, fewer benefits are paid. This assists employers who have negative account balances and are taxed at the maximum UI tax rate. DWD, with the support of three separate committees in the Wisconsin State Legislature, restored the waiver limits that were in place prior to their repeal in 2004.

The concerns of employers about keeping valuable employees through winter layoffs in a state that has a winter and staying competitive when work returns in the spring apparently mattered for naught.

But, employees are not simply thrown to the winter wolves or wampas. Here are three things claimants should keep in mind when performing their four jobs searches a week.

Canvassing periods In Wisconsin, claimants have during their first six weeks — their canvassing period — the right to refuse work outside of their typical job experience. For instance, if the claimant is a nurse, he or she can decline a McDonald’s job during the first six weeks of his or her job search. See, e.g., Einerson v. Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, Inc., UI Hearing No. 09610221MW (29 April 2011) (employee properly declined to accept the newly created position during her canvassing period because the new position required non-professional responsibilities that encompassed significantly less skills than were required in her most recent employment).

Protection of labor standards After their six week canvassing period, employees must accept ANY job offer as long as it meets labor market criteria (not less than 25% of the average wage for that job during that shift in question in the local labor market — aka the relevant county). So, a person can decline a nursing job if the $8 an hour pay is less than 25% of the average, local labor market rate. See, e.g., Hemenway v. Life Style Staffing, UI Hearing No. 12002612MD (9 Jan. 2013) (employee entitled to refuse offers of new work from the employer if the conditions were substantially less favorable to him than those prevailing for similar work in the locality). These labor standards protections arise from long-standing federal requirements described in UIPL No. 41-98 (17 August 1998).

Unreasonable job offer conditions A claimant can turn down job offers if the commute or shift is not reasonable for the applicant. Commute is relative to the area (a twenty-file mile commute in Milwaukee could be too long but normal and expected in rural Wisconsin). And, a shift not previously worked by the claimant can also be grounds for declining the job. So, a nurse who typically worked first shift can decline a third shift job offer if she has little to no experience working third shifts. See DWD 128 for the details.

Department unemployment proposals in 2017

At the 19 January 2017 meeting of the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council, the Depatment introduced nine proposals. At the 16 March 2017 Advisory Council meeting, the Department introduced a tenth proposal. Here is a rundown of those proposals and their current status as of 23 May 2017.

D17-01 Charging benefits to employers in concealment cases, revised

This provision will allow the Department to charge any benefits paid out in concealment cases to employers who do not provide wage information to the Department rather than charging the allegedly concealed unemployment benefits in question to the balancing account. The problem the Department is trying to address is that employers who are not being charged for unemployment benefits being paid out do not have a financial incentive to respond to Department inquiries.

For example, an employee gets laid from her full-time factory job. After a few weeks, she lands a part-time gig waiting tables on weekends at a banquet/wedding establishment. The employee makes a mistake about reporting her part-time tip income from the banquet employer, however. A year later, that employer does not respond to the Department’s inquiries for that tip income. The Department charges concealment against the employee anyway, and the employee does not appeal the determination for some reason (for example, she never received the concealment determination). Under this proposal, the banquet employer will now have the concealment over-payment lodged against its unemployment account, even though this employee never collected any unemployment benefits from that employer’s account.

As the February 16th meeting of the Advisory Council, the Department revised the proposal so that employers failing to provide the requested wage information would be fined $100 and those fines would be used for program integrity. As the Department explains, this additional funding would provide the Department with more than $100,000 for additional “concealment” prosecutions (footnotes omitted):

Based on 2016 data, there were 5,038 work and wage determinations with an overpayment due to concealment that were detected from a cross match or by the agency. These were chosen as these investigations rely heavily on employer information for the determination to be accurate. According to subject matter experts within the Benefit Operations Bureau, approximately 20% of work and wage information verification forms are not received or are incomplete. That results in approximately 1,007 work and wage concealment determinations made annually when employers fail to respond or fail to provide complete information. A total of 1,007 determinations with a $100 civil penalty would result in up to $100,700 annually in recouped penalties that would flow to the UI Program Integrity Fund.

At the 11 May 2017 Advisory Council meeting, the Department made the surprise announcement that IT changes would be needed to address the council’s questions and concerns (there was no description provided about what those questions and concerns were) and that the proposal was being withdrawn until the Department could implement the needed IT changes necessary for this proposal.

D17-02 Joint and several liability for fiscal agents

The Department memo explains the problem being addressed here (footnotes omitted):

Individuals who receive long-term support services in their home through government-funded care programs are domestic employers under Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance law. These employers receive financial services from fiscal agents, who directly receive and disperse government program funds. The fiscal agent is responsible for reporting employees who provide services for the domestic employers to the Department, and for paying unemployment tax liability on behalf of the employer. Currently, approximately 16,000 of the 19,000 domestic employers in Wisconsin receive government-funded care and use a fiscal agent. These employers incur tax liability when fiscal agents fail to file quarterly reports or fail to make tax liability payments. It is difficult to collect delinquent tax from domestic employers who use fiscal agents because these employers are typically collection-proof.

The goal here is to make the fiscal agents liable for the unemployment taxes at issue.

Because elder care services are statutorily distinct in Wisconsin from child care services connected to special needs or special education, it is not clear whether this proposal encompasses both programs. Also, while the proposal only speaks about government-funded care, much care (especially elder care) is paid for through fiscal agents without any government funds (many who have or are caring for elderly parents do so without government assistance at least initially). So, the proposal could be much more significant than originally framed.

It is also not all that clear what this proposal actually accomplishes. The Commission has explained that, before the question of employee status can be addressed, the issue of which employing unit (and hence employer) for which the services at issue are being provided must be examined.

This said, the commission would emphasize that as a general matter, an issue of whether a claimant provides certain services as an “employee” should not be resolved — indeed, often can not be resolved — without first deciding, expressly, what employing unit the claimant provides those services “for” within the meaning of Wis. Stat. § 108.02(12)(a). For the reasons discussed above, this is just as true in a § 108.09 claimant benefit entitlement case as it is in a § 108.10 employer tax liability case.

Dexter-Dailey v. Independent Disability Services Inc, UI Hearing No. 07002206JV (2 November 2007) (finding in the unique circumstances of this case that an individual’s status as an employee could be determined without first considering who the employer in question was); see also Community Partnerships Inc., UI Hearing No. S0600013MD (22 February 2008) (while caregivers were undeniably providing services “for” the individual clients and their families, these caregivers were also providing services “for” the named employer by discharging its obligation to see to it that these services were provided).

In County of Door, the Commission examined at length the circumstances of support services being offered to a disabled individual through a county program and discussed numerous cases that all indicated the county and not the disabled individual was the employer of record.

These decisions are persuasive. While the specific programs under which the funds originated and the care was provided were somewhat different in these cases than in the case of Hoosier and Paul [the claimants], the general principles are the same. These cases establish that, notwithstanding that a disabled person derives a benefit from care being provided to them under the auspices of a county program, it is appropriate to conclude that in such cases the services are being provided “for” the county — which bears the responsibility for seeing to it that such care is provided, and which arranges for and oversees the provision of such care. Here, as in the cases just discussed, the County benefited from the services being provided by Hoosier and Paul, in that pursuant to its application for the BIW funds, the County had assumed an obligation to see to Susan’s care. The care provided by Hoosier and Paul to Susan met the County’s obligation.

County of Door, UI Hearing No. S0500025AP (28 March 2007). Given this complexity in how the services are being provided, joint and several liability may only serve as a band-aid to the much more complicated problem of getting fiscal agents to comply with their legal requirements and making those using those services aware of what is actually going on legally about employment coverage. As the Commission noted in Community Partnerships Inc.:

That is precisely the reason that the “fiscal agent” provisions were created. In the absence of such provisions, the disabled individual (or their legal guardian), would bear the burden of having to handle all of the normal responsibilities of a UI-covered employer, including filing required reports and remitting required contributions on the “payroll” paid to the caregiver, and dealing with investigations and hearings on appeals. What §§ 46.27(5)(i) and 47.035 allow is for a social service agency to take over that administrative role, which disabled individuals (and their guardians and or family members) are ill-equipped to handle. What § 108.02(13)(k) in turns allows is for this to happen without the social service agency thereby being considered to be the actual “employer”.

So, the real problem at issue is that the fiscal agents in question are not actually performing their responsibilities as fiscal agents for their clientele, i.e., paying the unemployment taxes that are due.

The council approved of this measure at the April 20th meeting.

D17-03 Employer assessment for failing to provide records

The Department memo provides a good explanation of what this proposal seeks to accomplish (footnotes omitted).

Under current law, employing units are required to maintain work records and must allow the Department to audit those records. When the Department intends to audit an employer, it sends a written notice to the employer requesting information regarding the employer’s employment records. If the employer does not respond, the Department issues a second written request to the employer. If the employer fails to respond to the second written request, the Department issues a subpoena to the employer. When the Department issues a subpoena, the Department must pay a fee to have the subpoena served.

About 40% of employers served with subpoenas provide an inadequate response or fail to respond to the subpoena. When an employer fails to comply with a subpoena, the Department’s remedy is enforce the subpoena in Circuit Court requesting that the employer be held in contempt. This is a time-consuming process that the Department has not historically used.

The Department proposes to change the law to assess an administrative penalty of $500.00 for a person’s failure to produce subpoenaed records to the Department. The Department will rescind the penalty if the employer fully complies with the subpoena within 20 calendar days of the issuance of the penalty. The intent of this proposal is to ensure employer compliance with requests for wage data.

D17-04 Ineligibility for concealment of holiday, vacation, termination, or sick pay

This proposal expands the zero eligibility for concealment that presently takes place when wages are not reported to any failure to report vacation or holiday pay. Charles O’Neill v. Riteway Bus Service Inc., UI Hearing No. 15600518MW and 15600519MW (16 May 2015) at n.4 explains:

Vacation pay and holiday pay are treated as “wages” for purposes of the partial benefit formula, but they are not wages. See Wis. Stat. § 108.05(3); UID-M 13-26, issued Dec. 6, 2013, and revised Dec. 9, 2013. If a claimant conceals vacation or holiday pay, it is considered concealment of a material fact under Wis. Stat. § 108.04(11)(a), and the partial wage formula applies. Concealment of wages, on the other hand, falls under Wis. Stat. § 108.04(11)(b). If a claimant conceals wages in any given week, the claimant is ineligible to receive any benefits for that week.

The Advisory Council approved of this measure at the April 20th meeting.

D17-05

This proposal is similar to one the Advisory Council previously rejected, D12-08, at the 1 April 2013 council meeting. In this version, the Department explains (footnote omitted):

The department may request information from unemployment benefit claimants in order to ensure that they are eligible for benefits. Under current law, a claimant is ineligible for benefits for the week in which the claimant fails to answer the department’s eligibility questions, and any subsequent weeks, until the claimant responds. A claimant who later answers the department’s eligibility questions is retroactively eligible for benefits beginning with the week in which they failed to answer the questions, if otherwise eligible.

The department proposes to amend the law to provide that claimants who fail to answer eligibility questions are ineligible beginning with the week involving the eligibility issue, not the week in which the claimant fails to answer the department’s questions. This proposed amendment clarifies that, if the department questions a claimant’s eligibility, the department will hold the claimant’s benefits until the claimant responds in order to reduce improper payments.

The council approved of this measure at the April 20th meeting. This proposal may conflict with the holding in California Department of Human Resources Development v. Java, 402 U.S. 121, 91 S.Ct. 1347, 28 L.Ed.2d 666 (1971) that unemployment benefits be paid “promptly.” See also UIPL-1145 (12 Nov. 1971) (“Determinations on issues arising in connection with new claims may be considered on time within the meaning of the Court’s requirement for promptness if accomplished no later than the second week after the week in which the claim is effective.”) and UIPL No. 04-01 (27 Oct. 2000) (similar).

D17-06 Changing the standard of proof in all UI cases, revised

This proposal seeks to make preponderance of the evidence the burden of proof for all unemployment cases. At present, claimant concealment cases require that the concealment at issue be proven by clear and convincing evidence. See, e.g., Holloway v. Mahler Enterprises Inc., UI Hearing No. 11606291MW (4 Nov. 2011). This proposal would undo the holdings in these cases as well as in misconduct cases involving theft. See, e.g., Kircher v. Stinger Tackle, UI Hearing No. 92201671RH (24 June 1994). Cases concerning whether an employer’s failure to pay unemployment taxes was willful or not would also be affected. See. e.g., Henry A. Warner, UI Hearing No. S9100679MW (16 July 1993) (clear and convincing evidence needed for showing the kind of fraudulent conduct at issue for a willful failure to pay unemployment taxes).

The only rationale provided by the Department is that Minnesota has a universal standard of proof in its unemployment cases. The Department fails to note that numerous other states do NOT have a universal burden of proof in their unemployment cases. The proposal also does not deal with Wisconsin court decisions that hold that fraud must be proven by clear and convincing evidence, a higher degree of proof than in ordinary civil cases. Kamuchey v. Trzesniewski, 8 Wis.2d 94, 98, 98 N.W.2d 403 (1959), citing Schroeder v. Drees, 1 Wis.2d 106, 83 N.W.2d 707 (1957), Eiden v. Hovde, 260 Wis. 573, 51 N.W.2d 531 (1952). As the Wisconsin Supreme Court explained in Wangen v. Ford Motor Co., 97 Wis.2d 260, 299-300, 294 N.W.2d 437 (1980):

This court has required a higher burden of proof, i.e., to a reasonable certainty by evidence that is clear, satisfactory and convincing (Wis. J.I. — Civil Nos. 205 and 210), “[i]n the class of cases involving fraud, of which undue influence is a specie, gross negligence, and civil actions involving criminal acts.” Kuehn v. Kuehn, 11 Wis.2d 15, 26, 104 N.W.2d 138 (1960). See, e.g., Klipstein v. Raschein, 117 Wis. 248, 253, 94 N.W. 63 (1903) (whether fraud occurred); Lang v. Oudenhoven, 213 Wis. 666, 668, 252 N.W. 167 (1934) (whether moral turpitude existed in cases of fraud); Martell v. Klingman, 11 Wis.2d 296, 310-311, 105 N.W.2d 446 (1960) (whether gross negligence existed); Comment to Wis. J.I. — Civil No. 2401, Misrepresentation: Intentional Deceit (whether intentional deceit occurred); and Poertner v. Poertner, 66 Wis. 644, 647, 29 N.W. 386 (1886) (factual issue of adultery in divorce action). This burden of proof, referred to as the middle burden of proof, requires a greater degree of certitude than that required in ordinary civil cases but a lesser degree than that required to convict in a criminal case.

NOTE: there are generally three standards for the burden of proof in legal matters: preponderance of the evidence, clear and convincing, and beyond a reasonable doubt.

D17-07 Revisions to collections statutes, revised

This proposal seeks to make numerous changes to the Department’s collection efforts.

• Attempts to undo a recent holding in Wisconsin bankruptcy court, In re Beck (Bankr. E.D. Wis., 2016), that the personal unemployment debts of claimants are not to be treated as “secured” debts for bankruptcy purposes. Under this decision, unemployment debts can be discharged or written off and considered un-collectable, unlike employer debts. The Department wants to reverse that result by rewriting how claimant over-payments are described in state law. The proposal seeks to accomplish this change by removing references to employer, employing units, and s.108.10 and thereby making unemployment collection provisions generic to any and all “persons.”
• Increasing the penalty for third-parties who do not cooperate with the Department’s collection efforts (such as employers for wage garnishment or banks for account liens) to 50% of the amount at issue and adding those penalty amounts to the Department’s “program integrity” fund.
• Removing the 20% threshold for personal liability for an employer’s unpaid unemployment taxes.
• Expand the scope of state payments eligible for an intercept to satisfy delinquent employer taxes. Currently, these intercepts only occur for claimant over-payments.

A May 23rd revision to this proposal included new language on pp.6 and 8 so that liens can be recorded even when an appeal is pending and indicated on p.10 that the Department would provide ten days notice for any warrants or liens it was seeking (in essence, codifying the Department’s current practice)

The Advisory Council approved of this measure at the 23 May 2017 meeting with one change: the ten day notice for warrants and liens would instead be fifteen days notice.

D17-08 Many miscellaneous changes, revised, revised again

This catchall proposal contains numerous technical changes. The Advisory Council approved this proposal at the 23 May 2017 meeting.

Noticeably, this proposal is the first which provides some fiscal numbers on the number of positions to be funded from the Department’s program integrity slush fund that are outside of the state’s normal biennial budget:

In the schedule under section 20.005 (3) of the statutes for the appropriation to the department of workforce development under section 20.445 (1) (v) of the statutes, as affected by the acts of 2017, the dollar amount is increased by $1,630,000 for the first fiscal year of the fiscal biennium in which this subsection takes effect for the purpose of increasing the authorized FTE positions for the department of workforce development by 5.0 SEG positions annually and providing additional funding for the purpose of conducting program integrity activities, investigating concealment, and investigating worker misclassification. In the schedule under section 20.005 (3) of the statutes for the appropriation to the department of workforce development under section 20.445 (1) (v) of the statutes, as affected by the acts of 2017, the dollar amount is increased by $1,630,000 for the second fiscal year of the fiscal biennium in which this subsection takes effect for the purpose of increasing the authorized FTE positions for the department of workforce development by 5.0 SEG positions annually and providing additional funding for the purpose of conducting program integrity activities, investigating concealment, and investigating worker misclassification.

The Advisory Council gave its go-ahead for this proposal on May 23rd.

D17-09 Miscellaneous rule changes

This proposal is a catch-all of various rule changes. The Department did not provide actual language of the proposed changes. Perhaps the most significant change here is that the wait-time for unemployment hearings will be ten minutes for all parties (at present, the appealing party has fifteen minutes to arrive before the hearing is closed, while the non-appealing party has five minutes to arrive late before the hearing starts). That is, under this new rule, an appealing party will need to arrive for a hearing set to start at 10:30am no later than 10:40am before that hearing will be closed and dismissed because the appealing party failed to appear.

The council approved of this measure at the March 16th meeting. As a result, the scope statement is now available.

D17-10 Drug testing changes, revised

Voluntary reporting by employers of either positive drug test results by job applicants or the applicants’ refusal to take a drug test has not been happening. And so, the Department has proposed various changes to make this voluntary reporting by employers more palatable.

The proposal cleans up some of the statutory language from the original drug-testing provisions. It also adds some options for how the Department will apply occupational drug-testing (when federal rules are finally put into place), reinforces the confidentiality of the drug testing at issue, and attempts to immunize employers from liability for reporting applicants’ drug test results.

NOTE: the liability immunization is more talk than substance, as federal ERISA and HIPAA laws that govern self-insured employers will preempt any and all state laws.

Finally, to take advantage of unspent funds, the Department proposes that leftover monies for drug testing and treatment be transferred to the Department’s program integrity efforts. So, the $500,000 slated for testing and treatment in FY2017 will be added to the Department’s mushrooming slush fund for finding claimant mistakes and charging them with concealment.

The council approved of this measure at the April 20th meeting.

UI solvency done on backs of the unemployed

The CapTimes and Madison.com just published my letter to the editor about a recent AP report on the solvency of the state’s UI fund.

Dear Editor: Recent concerns over the solvency of the Unemployment Insurance fund are misplaced.

As stated in a recent article, “The state could also further cut down on benefit payments to address the fund’s solvency,” and the state has been doing just that. Benefit payments in Wisconsin have plummeted to record lows. In early 2013, the Department of Workforce Development projected UI benefits to be $797 million in 2014 and $696 million in 2015. The actual benefit payments in 2014 were $732,327,104 and only $605,481,027 in 2015, $91 million less than expected.

Why have benefit payments plunged from what was expected? First, the department has set up a series of obstacles for folks to overcome when filing their claims, including poor phone support, mandatory internet registration, cumbersome job search busy work, and an increasingly complex filing process. Second, until the recent appeals court decision in Operton v. LIRC, substantial fault allowed DWD to disqualify claimants for inadvertent mistakes they make on the job. Finally, DWD has been charging claimants with unemployment fraud for making mistakes when trying to follow the increasingly complex process DWD has set up.

Recent DWD statistics showcase how unemployment fraud is becoming a major operation within DWD. In 2014, unemployment fraud charges jumped 44 percent from the previous year even as benefit payments markedly declined. For 2015, collection for unemployment fraud was up nearly 81 percent from 2013 collection efforts.

Since it is now so oppressive and dangerous to collect unemployment benefits, the risk of the fund going insolvent is minimal. But this concern for fund solvency ignores the whole point of unemployment benefits: to help those in need (and the state as a whole) when folks lose jobs through no fault of their own. In place of employers paying their taxes, the state has essentially achieved solvency on the backs of the unemployed.

DWD/Advisory Council bill going forward

The official Advisory Council/DWD bill has just been introduced, AB819. So, here is a rundown of what has been happening with unemployment law over the last several months, organized by proposal.

Department Proposals

• A second SSDI prohibition, D15-01, to replace the current prohibition was approved in April 2015 and back-dated in May 2015. But, after the Department started winning the court cases challenging the old SSDI prohibition (see this post for the details), this proposal disappeared from the Department’s legislative draft at the council’s September 2015 meeting. But, after the Labor and Industry Review Commission ruled in November 2015 that departmental error had occurred when appeal tribunals (but not the Commission) had originally ruled in favor of claimants regarding dual receipt of SSDI and UI benefits (and so no repayment of UI benefits previously received was proper), this proposal re-emerged at the November 2015 council meeting in the Department’s legislative drafts and is now part of AB819. Why? This second SSDI prohibition is back-dated to January 2014, the effective date of the original SSDI prohibition.
• D15-02 is a house-keeping change that allows the Department to issue determinations against out-of-state employers in combined wage claims for being at fault for an erroneous benefit payment to a claimant. This proposal is part of AB416 and has been enacted in 2015 Wisconsin Act 86.
• D15-03 applies the Treasury offset program to employers, as described previously in this post. This proposal is part of AB416 and has been enacted in 2015 Wisconsin Act 86. Because of this quick enactment, employers will be subject to treasury offsets for their 2015 tax returns for any unemployment taxes for which they have been found individually liable.
• D15-04 sets up essentially a backup insurance program for reimbursable employers who get their unemployment accounts swindled by identity fraud (and so have little to no hope of ever recovering the stolen benefits). The final recommendation from the council was for reimbursable employers to be taxed initially in order to create a fund of $1 million for covering themselves against identity fraud, essentially the second option of the three presented. This proposal is part of AB819.
• D15-05 corrects a hole in the statutes that accidentally left LLPs out of the definition of employer (see also this DWD memo on this issue). This proposal is part of AB819.
• The Advisory Council approved the Department’s appeals modernization proposal, D15-06, at the 7 January 2016 meeting. LRB draft language was prepped soon thereafter. Perhaps the most significant change in this proposal — notice by Internet in place of postal mail — has NOT received any discussion of comment from council members, however. This proposal is now part of AB819.
• A renewed work-share program, D15-07, is part of AB416 and has been enacted as 2015 Wisconsin Act 86.
• Proposed changes to the definition of claimant concealment in D15-08 (described in this previous post and described in a Department memo (discussed in this post) are part of AB819. Additional criminal penalties for concealment in AB533 continue to advance in the legislature. To see what all the fuss is about, take a look at this January 21st Assembly Committee on Public Benefit Reform hearing regarding AB533 and other UI bills or read this LIRC memo on the proposed concealment changes.
• Technical changes in D15-09 and included in AB819 will allow the Department to distinguish able and available determinations from separation determinations.
• D15-10 eliminates the publication of the claimant benefit tables within the statutes and is included in AB819.
• Major changes to the process for getting unemployment decisions reviewed in circuit court, set forth in D15-11, are part of AB819. These changes were previously described here and here.
• D15-12 allows the same protocols for unemployment taxes in regards to fiscal agents in adult care to apply to fiscal agents in child care situations. This proposal is part of AB819.
• D15-13 ends the sunset date in 2034 for the program integrity fund (i.e., the fund for receiving some of the monies from concealment enforcement) since the Department now expects concealment monies to continue in perpetuity. See the next two proposals for why.
• The Department’s proposals for a program integrity slush fund, D15-14 and D15-15, are part of AB819.

Labor and Management Proposals
At the Advisory Council’s 19 January 2016 meeting, the council took action on various management and labor proposals and the agreed-to changes have been incorporated in AB819.

The management proposals that the council agreed to include significant changes to what will be considered suitable work:

• During the first six weeks of a job search, suitable work that a claimant MUST accept will be those jobs that (1) do not have a lower grade of skill than one or more of his or her most recent jobs and (2) have had an hourly wage that is 75 percent or more of what the claimant previously earned in his or her most recent, highest paying job.
• After the first six weeks, suitable work means any work the claimant is capable of performing regardless of prior experience, skills, or training, as long as the wages for that job are above the lowest quartile wage-level in the claimant’s relevant labor market.

Once a job offer is considered suitable work for a claimant, then the claimant only has good cause for declining the job offer if the claimant’s personal safety is at risk, the claimant’s sincerely held religious beliefs conflict with the work, the work entails an unreasonable commuting distance, or some other compelling reason makes accepting the offer unreasonable. These changes to what will be considered suitable work will also apply to those who tentatively accept a job and then quit within the first thirty days.

In addition, this accepted management proposal will either eliminate unemployment eligibility entirely for anyone receiving temporary or partial workers’ compensation benefits or mandate offsets against UI benefits for those receiving these kind of workers’ compensation benefits (the specific type of workers’ compensation benefit being received leads to the different kinds of treatment). In other words, the SSDI prohibition is being expanded to workers’ compensation benefits. Also, anyone making a mistake in how they report their specific workers’ compensation benefits will, under the new on-line filing system, likely face a concealment charge for his or her mistake in reporting the kind of workers’ compensation benefits he or she is receiving.

These management-sponsored changes will take effect four weeks after enactment.

The labor proposals that the council agreed to include:

• repealing the mis-classification prohibitions in workers’ compensation and fair employment law,
• creating an administrative penalty for mis-classification for unemployment purposes of $500 per employee (capped at $7,500) when construction employers (and only construction employers) knowingly and intentionally provide false information to the Department (NOTE: compare this definition with the proposed changes to claimant concealment) for the purpose of misclassifying or attempting to mis-classify an employee,
• fining employers in painting and sheetrock work $1,000 per incident (capped at $10,000 per calendar year) when coercing employees into accepting non-employee status for unemployment purposes, and
• fining construction employers $1,000 per employee (with a maximum of $25,000) for subsequent violations as well as possible referral for criminal prosecution.

These mis-classification changes will take effect six months after passage.

Budget Bill Fixes
The LIRC funding fix bill, discussed here, is also right now being considered by the legislature.

The call in the budget bill for the Department to create suitable work rules for claimants has been eliminated by the management-sponsored changes to suitable work described above.

Update (12 June 2021): Fixed broken DWD links to labor proposals and management proposals that the Advisory Council agreed to.

UI Legislative proposals active in 2016

At the 17 December 2015, several legislative proposals affecting unemployment benefits were described to the Advisory Council. This legislation includes:

• Returning work search waivers to what previously existed — Employees and employers have begun to voice concerns about how the limitations on work search waivers previously approved by the Advisory Council do not make sense for Wisconsin. No immediate change to the current work search waivers will happen, however. And, whether Wisconsin ever returns to the original rules is uncertain. For instance, there was extended discussion by council members of perhaps allowing employers to designate certain employees for longer waivers because of their skills or high value to the employer but leaving other employees to the now 8/12 week waiver maximum. See my own comments on the proposed regulations.
• Expanded criminal penalties for unemployment concealment — Previously discussed here.
• UI law changes in order to counter recent NLRB decisions — Legislators want to pass legislation that will supposedly undo a recent NLRB decision called Browning-Ferris Industries that re-defined the test for determining when the employees of one company will be treated as the employees of another company (e.g., when the employees of a franchisee or temp agency are really the employees of the franchisor or client company because the franchisor or client company sets the terms and conditions of employment for the employees). NOTE: unemployment is not mentioned once in the decision, so the applicability and purpose — let alone its effectiveness — of the state law changes in this proposed legislation are muddled at best. And, as DWD notes in its memo, the changes could be extremely problematic for some Wisconsin employers.
• Exempting real estate agents from unemployment law — The proposed legislation is intended to remove real estate agents from coverage of any and all employment law and unemployment law issues.
• Whether UI claimants will have their benefits publicly revealed — As DWD notes, this proposed legislation conflicts directly with federal law.

Also, the Department has begun publishing on its website some of the proposals being discussed by council members, including management proposals to add additional claimant disqualifications and labor proposals regarding new penalties for employers who mis-classify their employees as independent contractors and increasing the wage base and tax schedule for employers’ unemployment taxes in order to make the UI fund solvent. NOTE: This 2013 PowerPoint presentation describes what makes or does not make a UI fund solvent. The Department has yet to publish any of its proposals, so this blog remains the sole source for Department-initiated changes to unemployment law. For instance, the Department is still waiting for the Council’s decision on its UI modernization proposal, D15-06.

NOTE (8 January 2016): At the January 7th council meeting, the Advisory Council approved of D15-06 with minor changes that were not detailed.

AB416 is now 2015 Wis Act 86

As noted previously, three DWD proposals were quickly put into a bill, AB416, and that bill was passed by the legislature, signed by the Governor on November 11th, and published that same day as 2015 Wisconsin Act 86.

The three DWD proposals that make up this bill are:

• D15-02 — adding the ability to issue determinations against out-of-state employers in combined wage claims for being at fault for an erroneous benefit payment to a claimant,
• D15-03 — applying the Treasury offset program to employers, as described previously in this post, and
• D15-07 — changes to how work share benefits are calculated so as to comply with federal requirements for work share programs.

Given the quick passage of this bill, the Treasury offset of tax refunds against employers will be in effect for the 2015 tax year. Accordingly, employers who owe money because of unpaid employer employment taxes will have any 2015 tax refunds due them intercepted by the state in order to recover unpaid taxes that are due.