Press Release
MADISON -- Representative Petryk, Chair of the Workforce Development Committee and Representative Edming, Chair of the Assembly Labor and Integrated Employment Committee once again sent a letter to the Department of Workforce Development Secretary - Designee requesting a copy of a statutorily required Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund financial report. The legislature has yet to receive the report from the DWD which was due on June 15th and is required by state statute.
“As businesses continue to recover from the pandemic, the legislature has continued to pass legislation to keep unemployment insurance taxes low for our local businesses,” said Representative Petryk. “Unfortunately, the governor continues to ignore solutions to the problem while his own agency cannot even fulfill a legal requirement to report on the status of the unemployment insurance trust fund.”
The Unemployment Insurance (UI) Trust Fund is the account onto which employers pay taxes to provide financial aids to those who have lost their job through no fault of their own. The balance of the trust fund is used to determine an employer’s tax rates each year. These rates fluctuate based on the cash balance of the fund and can cause employers to pay nearly 4 times more in taxes.
“Earlier this year the governor vetoed AB 237 that would have kept employers in the lowest tax rate, so the legislature took action again and passed AB 406,” said Representative Edming. Thankfully the governor changed his mind and signed this bill into law as Act 59, which provides employers much-needed relief for the next 2 years. However, as the legislature is making decisions to help keep tax rates for employers low to aid in our state’s economic recovery we are doing it with incomplete information from DWD.”
The report under Wisconsin State Statute 16.48 (3) was due to the legislature on June 15th.
A copy of the letter can be found here.
Last Update: Jul 23, 2021 8:34 am CDT
