Month: January 2020

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Tony Evers' administration is seeking to delay Wisconsin's work requirement for childless adults on Medicaid until April. The requirement, passed under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, was originally scheduled to begin Nov. 1. But in September the Democratic Evers administration requested more time. The Legislature's Republican-controlled budget committee approved a delay until Jan. 30. The Wisconsin State Journal reported that on Wednesday Department of Health […]

The executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause in Wisconsin says he’s pleased Wisconsin governor Tony Evers has signed an order creating a nonpartisan redistricting commission.  Jay Heck says the power to redistrict should be taken away from the legislature.  Heck says he’s not surprised that Republican legislative leaders are opposed.   Responding to Assembly speaker Robin Vos who said Evers’  order  was a “fake, phony, partisan process,”   Heck says that’s the […]

Gov. Tony Evers has signed an executive order creating a task force on student debt. Evers' office announced he signed the order Wednesday morning. The panel will consist of a number of state officials or their designees, including the governor, the president of the University of Wisconsin System president and the Wisconsin Technical College System president. State Department of Financial Institutions Secretary Kathy Blumenfeld will serve as chairwoman. The task […]

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater officials are considering layoffs as the school grapples with declining enrollment. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that Chancellor Dwight Watson wrote in a campus-wide letter that the school will face $12 million in budget cuts over the next two fiscal years to make up for lost tuition revenue. Watson wrote in his letter that the school will have to enact a combination of contract non-renewals, reduction in […]

The local  unemployment rate is up slightly in the latest reporting period.  The city of Fond du Lac unemployment rate in December was 2.8 percent,  up from 2.6 percent in November.  In Fond  du Lac County the jobless rate was up two tenths of a percent to 2.7 percent.   The December unemployment rate in Dodge County was three percent, up from 2.7 percent in November.

Nobody was injured and no livestock were lost in a fire that destroyed a barn on a Waupun prison farm.  Waupun fire chief B.J.  DeMaa says firefighters from multiple departments battled the blaze at the prison farm on Highway AW near Waupun for several hours Wednesday morning.  "When crews arrived on scene, the structure was fully engulfed and there had already been partial building collapse,"  DeMaa told WFDL news.  DeMaa says the barn […]

A Ripon police officer is being credited with helping save the life of a Ripon woman whose SUV plunged into a creek over the weekend.  Ripon Police Chief Bill Wallner says Officer Trevor Hanke was on patrol Saturday  when he noticed tire tracks leading down an embankment  toward Silver Creek and found a  vehicle upside down in the creek.  The driver, 21 year old,  Elizabeth Romo, had crawled out a back window and was […]

A former Mayville police officer has been convicted of misconduct in office.  Mark Forster pled guilty to three felony counts and two other charges including child enticement were dismissed and read into the record.  According to a criminal complaint Forster had a relationship with a 17 year old girl, including sexual contact with the girl when he was on duty.  A pre-sentence investigation was ordered.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Tony Evers has signed into law a bipartisan bill that increases funding for homeless shelters by $1 million over the next two years. The Legislature passed the bill last week. It is the only one of eight bills in a homelessness package that has cleared both the state Senate and Assembly. The Assembly has passed the other seven, but they've stalled in the Senate under […]