News of the Day

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has released its Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP) for Fiscal Years 2024 –2028. The SEP establishes the EEOC’s subject matter priorities to achieve its mission of preventing and remedying unlawful employment discrimination.

The Plan calls for the EEOC to continue its focus on promoting promising practices to prevent discrimination; combatting pay discrimination and advancing equal pay; preventing and remedying systemic harassment; and tackling retaliation. Changes to the SEP include:

• Targeting discrimination, bias, and hate directed against religious minorities (including antisemitism and Islamophobia), racial or ethnic groups, and LGBTQI+ individuals.
• Expanding the vulnerable and underserved worker priority to include additional categories of workers who may be unaware of their rights under equal employment opportunity (EEO) laws, may be reluctant or unable to exercise their legally protected rights, or have historically been underserved by federal employment discrimination protections.
• Updating the emerging and developing issues priority to include protecting workers affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, including under the new Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and other EEO laws; employment discrimination associated with the long-term effects of COVID-19 symptoms; and technology-related employment discrimination.
• Highlighting the continued underrepresentation of women and workers of color in certain industries and sectors, such as construction and manufacturing, finance, tech and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.
• Recognizing employers’ increasing use of technology, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, to target job advertisements, recruit applicants, and make or assist in hiring and other employment decisions.
• Preserving access to the legal system by addressing overly broad waivers, releases, non-disclosure agreements, or non-disparagement agreements when they restrict workers’ ability to obtain remedies for civil rights violations.

Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled Legislature on Wednesday ignored Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ call for a special session to pass a $1 billion package that would keep a pandemic-era child care program running, send more money to the University of Wisconsin and create a paid family leave program. The special session remains open, giving lawmakers a chance to revisit Evers’ bills or, take up other proposals at a future date.

The package Governor Evers called on Republicans to pass would spend $365 million to make permanent the pandemic-era federally funded Child Care Counts program that’s set to end in January. The program distributed nearly $600 million to more than 4,900 child care providers from March 2020 through March 2023, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Governor Evers’ proposal goes beyond child care funding.

It would also provide up to 12 weeks of paid family leave for Wisconsin workers starting in 2025 at a cost of $243 million, and would give UW an additional $66 million.

The Evers package also includes $40 million more for the Wisconsin Technical College System; $100 million more for a grant program targeting healthcare-related worker shortages; $60 million for programs targeting nursing shortages; and $16 million to address teacher shortages.

The U.S. Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday but stiffened a hawkish monetary policy stance that its officials increasingly believe can succeed in lowering inflation without wrecking the economy or leading to large job losses.

“People hate inflation. Hate it,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a press conference after the end of a two-day policy meeting at which central bank officials held the benchmark overnight interest rate in the current 5.25%-5.50% range, but sketched a stricter policy path moving forward in an inflation fight they now see lasting into 2026.

While Powell said the Fed was “in a position to proceed carefully” with future policy moves, he also made clear the jury was, to some degree, still out on the central bank’s fight to contain the worst outbreak of inflation in 40 years.

“We want to see convincing evidence really, that we have reached the appropriate level” of interest rates to return inflation to the Fed’s 2% target, a judgment its policymakers have not yet made, Powell told reporters. Inflation by some measures remains more than double the Fed’s desired level, though Powell said the pace appeared to be in decline across several key parts of the economy.

Municipalities are struggling to keep pace with rapidly rising home prices, creating the largest gap between local property tax assessments and market values in recent years. That’s according to a new report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum. The report says the gap between assessed and market values has spawned concerns about the fairness of Wisconsin’s property tax system.

Over 800 Wisconsin municipalities have assessed values for the properties in their borders that are lower than 80 percent of their market value, according to the report. That’s the largest gap since at least 2011.

Ari Brown, a researcher for Wisconsin Policy Forum and the report’s author, said the main cause for that gap is “the hottest housing market in recent memory” over the last few years.

“When property values are rising so quickly, it is hard for local assessors to keep up with that,” he said. “There’s just a lack of supply and housing right now to meet demand.”

On top of trying to catch up to a booming housing market, revaluations can be a major expense for local governments, on top of other necessary costs like infrastructure investment, Brown said. A revaluation is a program undertaken by a municipality to appraise all property within its boundary to its full and fair value.

For example, a full revaluation for the city of Rhinelander — which has a population of roughly 7,800 — would cost nearly $160,000, according to the report.

Staffing constraints also make it difficult for local governments to catch up on assessments, said Jerry Deschane, executive director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities.

“Municipalities are trying to do their job — they’re trying to catch up,” he said. “But there’s a limited number of human beings out there, called state-certified assessors, and there are not enough of them to go around.”

Republican legislators announced a bill Monday that would devote more than $614 million in public funding to repair and renovate the Milwaukee Brewers’ stadium — far more than taxpayers spent to build it more than two decades ago.

Under the proposal, the state would give the team $60.8 million next fiscal year and up to $20 million each year after that through 2045-46. The city of Milwaukee would contribute a total of $202 million and Milwaukee County would kick in $135 million by 2050.

The team would contribute about $100 million and extend its lease at American Family Field through 2050, keeping Major League Baseball in its smallest market for another 27 years.

“It’s a win for Wisconsin,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said at a news conference at the stadium, American Family Field.

Seeking to justify the public spending, Vos said losing the Brewers to another city would cost the state and local economies tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue each year, which could lead to diminished state aid for communities around Wisconsin. Baseball operations at American Family Field generate enough tax revenue that lawmakers can afford to give the team money without imposing any new taxes, Vos said.

Rick Schlesinger, the team’s president of business operations, called the proposal a “good first step” during a separate news conference later Monday. He said he expects the plan will be amended, but that he’d be happy with it if it were passed today.

The proposal would have to pass the Republican-controlled state Assembly and state Senate and get Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ signature before it could become law. Evers’ office issued a statement Monday saying he looked forward to reviewing the proposal.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has raised its U.S. diesel price forecast for 2023 and 2024 in its latest short term energy outlook (STEO) report, which was released last week. The EIA now sees U.S. on-highway diesel fuel prices averaging $4.31 per gallon this year and $4.07 per gallon next year.

“We raised our diesel price forecast because of higher than expected August diesel crack spreads (the price of a gallon of diesel minus the price of a gallon of crude oil) and our expectation for lower distillate inventories in the fall,” the EIA noted in its September STEO.

“Announced maintenance at the Irving Oil refinery in St. John, New Brunswick, and at the Monroe Energy refinery in Trainer, Pennsylvania, will reduce distillate fuel oil supplies to the East Coast,” the EIA added. “Total distillate inventories in the United States have been well below average since last year, and we currently estimate U.S. distillate inventories will decline by about 11 million barrels in October, more than the average October draw from 2018–22 of nearly 8 million barrels, largely because of the maintenance,” the EIA continued.

The EIA’s latest gasoline and diesel fuel update at the time of writing, which was released on September 11, shows a rising price trend in U.S. on-highway diesel fuel prices.

As of September 18, the average diesel price in the U.S. is $4.575 per gallon, according to the AAA Gas Prices website. Yesterday’s average was $4.571 per gallon, the week ago average was $4.475 per gallon, the month ago average was $4.347 per gallon, and the year ago average was $4.960 per gallon, the site highlighted.

The Labor Department said Thursday that its producer price index — which measures inflation before it hits consumers — increased 1.6% last month from a year earlier. That is up from a small 0.8% yearly increase in July and just 0.1% in June. Sharply higher gas prices drove much of the increase.

Excluding the volatile energy and food categories, core inflation rose 2.2% in August from a year earlier, down from a 2.4% yearly increase in July.

Retail sales rose 0.6% in August, compared with a revised 0.5% increase in July, according to a report issued by the Commerce Department on Thursday.

Excluding gas, retail sales were just up 0.2% for August, according to the report. Sales at gas stations rose a robust 5.2%, while furniture and home furnishings stores saw a 1% drop in sales. Clothing and accessories stores had a 0.9% gain, likely helped by back-to-school spending. Restaurants saw a 0.3% increase. Grocery stores had a 0.4% sales increase. Online sales were unchanged in August.

The uptick in retail sales reflects the economy’s resiliency despite a still tough economic environment. Yet spending has been volatile this year after surging nearly 3% in January. Sales tumbled in February and March before recovering in the spring and summer.

Inflation accelerated for a second straight month in August, reversing previous declines as consumers continued to grapple with the rising cost of everyday goods. Prices climbed 3.7% from the same time last year, faster than the 3.2% reading in July

The Labor Department said Wednesday that the consumer price index, a broad measure of the price for everyday goods including gasoline, groceries and rents, rose 0.6% in August from the previous month, in line with estimates. It marked the steepest monthly increase this year, underscoring the challenge in taming high inflation.

Other parts of the report also pointed to a slower retreat for inflation. Core prices, which exclude the more volatile measurements of food and energy, climbed 0.3% and 4.3% annually. Core prices remain more than two times higher than the typical pre-pandemic level.

The spike in headline inflation largely stemmed from a surge in gas prices, which accounted for more than half of the increase last month, the Labor Department said in the report. In total, energy prices climbed 5.6% in August from the previous month, including a 10.6% jump in gas prices.

Other price gains also proved persistent and stubbornly high in August. Shelter costs, which account for about 40% of the core inflation increase, rose 0.3% for the month and are up 7.3% over the past year. Grocery costs rose 0.2% last month and are up 3% compared with the same time last year.

On its first day of oral arguments, the Wisconsin Supreme Court justices questioned whether a charitable arm of the Catholic Diocese of Superior should be exempt from paying into Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance system.

Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. argues its social welfare programs throughout Wisconsin are operated primarily for religious purposes and should be exempted from state unemployment insurance payments. In 2015, a Douglas County Circuit court judge exempted Challenge Center, Inc., a Catholic Charities subsidiary helping people with developmental disabilities, from having to pay into the state plan.

The Catholic Charities Bureau, or CCB, argues its other subsidiaries should also receive an exemption allowing them to pay into a church-run unemployment program. A circuit court agreed in 2020.  Two years later, a state appeals court overturned the ruling and sided with the Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, which argues while the diocese operates the CCB, the activities it performs — including offering low-income housing, assistance for the elderly and disability services — aren’t expressly religious in nature.

Liberal Justice Rebecca Dallet questioned where to draw the line for exempting charities run by religious organizations when “all you have to do is say a religious purpose, which is pretty broad stuff.”  “I mean, these are some pretty broad principles which are the basis of, I would venture to say, most religions, maybe all religions,” Dallet said. “So, where is that line?”

Attorney Eric Rassbach, of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the Catholic Charities Bureau, told the court the sincerity of the church’s mission to help the underserved is one limiting principle. Rassbach said courts “decide sincerity questions all the time” with regard to religious claims. He also said a nonprofit having an affinity for a religion isn’t enough.

“It actually has to be something that is operated by or controlled by a church,” Rassbach said. “And in this case, the diocese is the church. And so therefore, I think those are some pretty important limiting principles.”

Attorney Jeffrey Shampo, representing the Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, told the court that while the Catholic Charities Bureau is run by the diocese, federal tax forms and websites from its various nonprofits don’t mention religious activity. He said state statute requires nonprofits to be primarily operated for religious purposes in order to qualify for an unemployment insurance exemption.

“We have to look at the activities that they do, because otherwise they can assert that anything they do through these organizations would have a religious purpose because they’re all nonprofits,” Shampo said.

Conservative Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley disagreed.

“Your test would violate Catholic doctrine because Catholic doctrine says the provision of charity must be to all people, not discriminating against people based on faith,” Bradley said. “Charity should be provided to people who have no faith without proselytizing. So again, doesn’t your test, as you’ve advanced it, discriminate against religions that don’t look like what the Court of Appeals of Wisconsin apparently regards as religion?”