Forward Analytics: Economic Impacts of COVID-19 in Wisconsin
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 26, 2021
From The Wheeler Report . . .
Forward Analytics released a new report quantifying the impact COVID-19 has had on businesses and workers in Wisconsin. The report starts with a thorough overview of the COVID-19 timeline in Wisconsin, followed by an analysis of how federal stimulus has “softened” the blow. According to the Executive Summary, “The hit to Wisconsin’s economy in the first half of 2020, particularly during March through May, was enormous. Wisconsin’s gross domestic product (GDP) fell 11.4%. From mid-March through late-April, more than 440,000 Wisconsinites filed new unemployment claims. That number was 15.6% of those employed in February. The state’s official unemployment rate soared from 3.5% in February to 13.6% in April, the highest it has been since the Great Depression.” The report states that nearly $20 billion was added to the state’s economy through cash payments to individuals, increased and extended unemployment benefits, and forgivable loans to small businesses. The report highlights that Wisconsin’s total personal income would have “declined significantly” in the second quarter without the federal funds.
Dale Knapp, Director of Forward Analytics said, “The sharp economic decline was short-lived as employers began rehiring significant numbers of workers in May and June. However, the pace of job gains slowed during July through September and employment declined in October and November. As of November, the number of jobs in Wisconsin stood 7.6% below February employment. At that level, the state has a long road ahead before the economy returns to pre-pandemic levels.”
While there are reasons to be optimistic about the future – Congress passed a stimulus bill with additional assistance, unemployment compensation has additional funds, and a vaccine is in the process of being rolled out. However, the report cautions that recently discovered mutations of COVID are more contagious and if infection rates here are similar to those in Great Britain it could slow the recovery in 2021.
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Bill Requiring In-Person Option Clears Committee
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 22, 2021
Senate Bill 6, which would require each school district to offer an in-person option and require a two-thirds school board vote for the district to move to virtual instruction, was recommended for passage on a 3-2 party-line vote by the Senate Committee on Human Services, Children and Families yesterday following the Committee’s public hearing on the bill. The SAA has registered its opposition to the bill and will keep the membership informed of additional developments on the legislation.
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Assembly to Take Up Amended COVID-19 Bill
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 22, 2021
From WisPolitics.com …
The Assembly will convene Tuesday to take up the COVID-19 bill that the Senate amended earlier this month.
Still, the notice Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, sent to members didn’t detail whether Assembly GOP leaders plan to sign off on the Senate’s changes or take other action on the bill.
According to Steineke’s office, the Assembly plans to convene at 1 p.m. He also asked members to reserve Jan. 28 as a potential session day with details to come later.
The offices of Steineke and Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment this afternoon.
The Senate earlier this month approved a stripped-down version of the COVID-19 bill after Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, reached an agreement with Gov. Tony Evers. That revised bill included a series of provisions that Evers had worked on with LeMahieu and Vos, including a proposal to provide liability protections to businesses, non-profits, schools, churches and others from COVID-19 lawsuits.
The provisions the Senate pulled from the bill included proposed bans on mandatory COVID-19 vaccines, stripping state and local officials of their powers to restrict gatherings in places of worship, and adding new restrictions for schools that provide only virtual learning opportunities.
Senate Republicans broke out those provisions in a string of standalone bills that had a public hearing today.
LeMahieu’s office declined comment on the Assembly coming in next week on the bill.
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LeMahieu, Steineke Stand By Conflicting COVID Relief Bills
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 20, 2021
From WisPolitics.com . . .
LeMahieu and Steineke continued to stand by conflicting COVID-19 bills.
The Assembly passed its COVID bill along party lines the first week of January before the Senate amended it by stripping out a host of provisions and passing a bill LeMahieu had negotiated with Evers. The centerpiece of the Senate version is the liability protections for businesses, non-profits, schools and others; it was also included in the Assembly version.
“Obviously, we like the bill that we passed,” Steineke said. “If you talk to senators individually about the items that were in there that they took out, you’d probably find a lot of support for those items. … We’ve got to find a way forward, and we’ll be trying to figure out what that is over the rest of the next few days.”
GOP senators have taken several of those provisions that were pulled from the bill and put them into standalone legislation. The Senate Human Services, Children and Families Committee has a public hearing Thursday on five of the bills. They include: prohibiting mandatory COVID-19 vaccines; prohibiting employers from requiring a vaccine as a condition of employment; adding new restrictions on how school districts can move to virtual instruction; stripping state and local officials of powers to limit gatherings in a place of worship; and directing DHS not to prioritize prisoners for the vaccine.
Many of the provisions the Senate stripped out of the Assembly bill were dropped in an attempt to secure Evers’ support for the bill.
Steineke and LeMahieu both said they haven’t spoken with the guv lately about the bills.
“We want a bill that will be signed into law,” LeMahieu said in an interview with WisPolitics.com. “I’m not sure what the Assembly will change. I’d still really like them to take up the version we sent over to them.”
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Bill Requiring In-Person Option to Have Hearing
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 19, 2021
Senate Bill 6, which would require each school district to offer an in-person option and require a two-thirds school board vote for the district to move to virtual instruction, will receive a public hearing before the Senate Committee on Human Services, Children and Families at 12:00pm on Thursday, January 21, 2021 in Room 201 Southeast, State Capitol. The hearing notice is linked below.
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