Month: October 2026

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently announced the issuance of a new field assistance bulletin addressing the treatment of related duties performed by tipped employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2026-1 brings the Department’s guidance on tipped employees with dual jobs into alignment with current regulations.

The bulletin withdraws the division’s 1979, 1980, and 1985 opinion letters concerning the application of dual jobs regulations to tipped employees. The withdrawal of the three opinion letters is necessary because they no longer reflect the Department’s policy or interpretation of the FLSA. The bulletin also clarifies that the current dual jobs regulation focuses on whether an employee performs duties related to the employee’s tipped occupation, rather than imposing a specific percentage-based limit on the time an employee may spend performing related, non-tipped duties within that occupation.

The publication of the new bulletin follows a 2024 federal court decision that vacated the department’s 2021 dual jobs final rule. After that decision, the department removed the regulatory text adopted under the 2021 rule and reinstated the original dual jobs regulations.

The new field assistance bulletin clarifies that no current Department guidance relies on the former percentage-based limit on the time a tipped employee may spend performing related, non-tipped duties, commonly known as the 80/20 rule. The Department removed its 80/20 rule guidance from its Field Operations Handbook in January 2025, and the handbook is now consistent with the reinstated 1967 dual jobs regulations.

Wisconsin home sales dropped 2.4% over the year in September amid rising mortgage and a slowing state housing market.

That’s according to the latest Wisconsin Realtors Association report, which notes the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 6.86% last month. That’s the highest it’s been since January 2025 when it hit 6.96%.

WRA President and CEO Tom Larson notes both buyers and sellers will be impacted if this trend continues.

“Specifically, lower affordability obviously hurts buyers, and higher rates also keep potential sellers from listing their homes because they don’t want to give up the very favorable rates locked in over the last six years,” he said in the report.

A total of 6,284 homes were sold in Wisconsin last month, compared to 6,439 in September 2025. Just over a third of those sales were in southeastern Wisconsin, while the state’s northeastern and southcentral regions each made up about 20% of the total for the month.

Even as higher borrowing rates “softened” buyer demand, total listings and housing supply in Wisconsin increased over the year, the report shows.

Total listings rose 3.8% since September 2025, though new listings also fell 5.1% over the same period. And months of supply rose 2.3% to 4.4 months in September, continuing a slow trend of improvement since late 2022.

“Supply is improving, but slowly: large metro counties sit at four months of inventory, still a seller’s market, while rural counties are at 6.1 months,” authors wrote, noting six months of supply is generally considered a balanced market.

Meanwhile, the state’s median home price increased 1.5% to $342,000, which WRA says is the slowest annual increase since June 2014. But even with that slower growth, overall affordability declined by 5.5% over the year as “flat income growth and higher rates squeezed buyers,” WRA notes.

State utility regulators have signed off on an energy developer’s proposal to build a pair of new natural gas power plants in southern Wisconsin tied to rapidly growing electricity demand from data centers.

The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin on Thursday unanimously approved Chicago-based Invenergy’s applications for the Foundry Ridge Energy Center in Walworth County and the Red Oak Ridge Energy Center in Kenosha County.

Together, the projects will be able to generate roughly 1.5 gigawatts. Invenergy hopes to bring the smaller, 324-megawatt Walworth County plant online in 2028, and the larger, nearly 1.2-gigawatt Kenosha County plant online in 2030.

The Kenosha County plant would be the second-largest of the state’s 29 existing natural gas power plants, while the Walworth County plant would be the 12th-largest, according to a report from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In a statement, Daniel Runyan, senior vice president of development for Invenergy, thanked the commission and “all who participated” in the process.

“Invenergy is proud to provide practical solutions to increase domestic energy supply and keep Wisconsin’s economy growing,” Runyan stated. “Foundry Ridge and Red Oak Ridge will join solar, battery storage, and wind power across the state, generating reliable power and good-paying jobs for the bright future ahead.”

Invenergy filed documents with the Public Service Commission last year to build the projects.

We Energies has applied to acquire the natural gas plants as part of a plan to add new generation resources to the grid to meet rising electricity demand.

The cost of acquiring and building both natural gas plants is more than $2 billion, according to the utility’s applications.

According to the State Controller’s Office, the state ended fiscal year (FY) 2026 with a positive ending balance of over $3.3 billion in the General Fund—the state’s main checking account—exceeding budgeted estimates by roughly $350 million. Additionally, the balance in the state’s savings account or ‘rainy day’ fund, also known as the Budget Stabilization Fund, has increased to approximately $2.1 billion.

The new Annual Fiscal Report, which covers FY 2026 that ended on June 30, 2026, is available on the DOA Annual Fiscal Report page. Highlights of the report include:

• The state’s undesignated General Fund balance at the end of FY 2026 was over $3.3 billion, which was roughly $350 million above budgeted estimates.
• The current State Budget Stabilization Fund balance increased to roughly $2.07 billion at the end of FY 2026, the largest figure in state history.
• State general fund tax collections in FY 2026 increased by 3.4 percent over the prior year and were two percent higher than estimated.

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in September after rising 0.4 percent in August, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.7 percent  before seasonal adjustment.

The index for gasoline rose 9.1 percent in September, accounting for over half of the monthly all items increase. The energy index increased 5.2 percent over the month following a 2.1-percent increase in August. The shelter index rose 0.4 percent in September after rising 0.3 percent in August. The index for food was unchanged in September, as the index for food away from home increased 0.2 percent and the index for food at home fell 0.1 percent.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.3 percent in September, as it did in August. Indexes that increased over the month include recreation, used cars and trucks, education, airline fares, medical care, and apparel. Conversely, the index for communication was among the small number of major indexes that decreased in September.

We Energies plans to build a new natural gas power plant in Wisconsin’s Fox Valley.

The utility filed an engineering plan with state regulators last week for a 750-megawatt natural gas power plant, dubbed the Fox North Energy Center. It would be built at the existing gas-fired Fox Energy Center site in the village of Wrightstown.

n a statement, We Energies spokesperson Brendan Conway said the Fox North Energy Center will help meet the state’s growing energy needs while improving grid reliability across the region.

“The engineering plan marks the first step in the review process,” Conway said. “Additional information about the project will be provided through regulatory filings in the coming months.”

The proposal comes as a draft report from state utility regulators found electricity demand in Wisconsin is expected to rise by 40 percent by 2032, driven by three large data center developments. The same report projected coal would fall to around 3 percent of Wisconsin’s energy generation, while natural gas would rise to about 50 percent by 2032.

Utilities and energy developers across the state are proposing new electricity generation in response to rising demand.

We Energies also plans to spend more than $2 billion to acquire a pair of natural gas projects that Chicago-based energy developer Invenergy has proposed in Kenosha and Walworth counties, able to generate a combined roughly 1,500 megawatts.

Invenergy also wants to build a pair of gas plants in Calumet County that would be able to generate a combined 1,900 megawatts. A spokesperson for We Energies declined to say whether the company planned to purchase those plants, but one was included in a spreadsheet it filed as part of its ongoing rate case.

We Energies hasn’t said whether the proposed gas plant in Wrightstown would serve a data center.

FEMA announced that federal disaster assistance is available to the state of Wisconsin to supplement recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe storms and tornadoes on July 27, 2026.

The President’s action makes federal funding available to affected individuals in Forest, Outagamie, Vilas and Winnebago counties. Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and families recover from the effects of the disaster.

Individuals and families who sustained losses in the designated areas should first file claims with their insurance providers and then apply for assistance online at www.DisasterAssistance.gov, by calling 1-800-621-3362 or by using the FEMA App. If you use a relay service, such as video relay service (VRS), captioned telephone service or others, provide FEMA the number for that service.

Public Assistance federal funding is available to state, tribal and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged in Vilas and Winnebago counties.

On Monday, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), announced that Americans will have access to more reliable, accessible, and actionable information about what their health coverage includes and what they are likely to pay before receiving care under new regulations that strengthen federal healthcare price transparency requirements. The actions taken today to create a more transparent healthcare marketplace also ensure employers can make more informed decisions; researchers can better understand healthcare markets; and innovators can build better tools.

Updates to the Transparency in Coverage (TiC) rules, finalized today by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), in partnership with the Departments of Labor and the Treasury (the Departments), build on the historic health care price transparency rules established during President Trump’s first term.

The final rules improve the underlying healthcare pricing data by reducing duplicative and unnecessary information, providing more context about in-network prices, increasing available out-of-network pricing information, and strengthening accountability for the completeness and accuracy of published data. Reporting frequency for pricing information will change from monthly to quarterly, maintaining meaningful transparency while lowering administrative burden.

The rules also require group health plans and health insurance issuers to provide consumers with personalized cost-sharing information by phone, in addition to existing online tools.

These improvements will help technology developers build better consumer tools, give consumers more reliable information when comparing costs before receiving care, and enable employers and researchers to better analyze healthcare markets, all of which will help drive competition across the healthcare industry.

The Departments plan to begin development of the initial schema for the Prescription Drug File in November 2026 and will finalize it on or around May 2027. Plans and issuers will be expected to publish their Prescription Drug Files using this schema starting in December 2027 and monthly thereafter.

Recent data have found that the top 25% of the most expensive healthcare service prices have dropped by 6.3% per year following the initial implementation of price transparency requirements on hospitals and health plans.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Monday aimed at bringing down near-record diesel prices by waiving restrictions on cheaper red-dyed diesel. Red-dyed diesel is the same as regular diesel. It’s just untaxed and dyed red to distinguish it for off-road use only, such as for tractors or industrial purposes.

Allowing broad use of tax-exempt diesel could be especially helpful for truckers grappling with a historic spike in diesel set off by the war in Iran and amplified by attacks on Russian refineries and export restrictions in China.

The diesel move could also help farmers who rely on trucks to deliver their goods to market and to receive fertilizer and other supplies.

“For many years, farm vehicles, construction equipment and other off-road vehicles have used what’s known as red-dyed diesel. You know what that is? I don’t know what the hell it is, but whatever it is, it is supposed to be very good,” Trump said, before adding it’s “exactly the same as normal diesel.”

According to a fact sheet released by the White House, the order will “temporarily allow off-road ‘dyed’ diesel for highway use and defer the applicable Federal excise tax, lowering costs for Americans.”

The executive order instructs the Internal Revenue Service to waive penalties on ‘dyed diesel’ for highway use through the end of the year.

The catch is the tax obligations don’t go away completely, they are just deferred until next year. However, the order instructs officials to explore ways to forgive the tax obligations, including potentially legislation.

The order also instructs administration officials to encourage more states to adopt similar policies and to ensure farmers have access to dyed diesel in high-demand areas.

Diesel prices skyrocketed from $3.76 a gallon before the Iran war to a record of $6.53 a gallon on September 22, according to AAA. The national average price for diesel on Tuesday was $6.32 a gallon.

Normally, diesel for on-road use is taxed at 24.4 cents per gallon by the federal government. Diesel also faces state taxes, which average 35.5 cents per gallon, according to federal data.

Starting October 1, Wisconsin employers on average will pay 1.97% less in worker’s compensation insurance rates, saving an estimated $36 million for policies over the coming year, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) announced today with the Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI).

The lower rates reflect Wisconsin employers’ attention to workplace safety for the benefit of workers and employers alike. The 2026 rate decrease, approved by OCI, marks the 11th straight annual decline in Wisconsin. The actual premiums vary by employer based on factors such as injury risk exposure.

“Workplaces that are fair, just and safe support the success of working families and give Wisconsin employers a competitive edge in recruitment and retention,” DWD Secretary Amy Pechacek said. “Partnerships between employers, workers and training providers are critical to advancing a culture of workplace safety and worker well-being.”

Worker’s compensation insurance rates are adjusted annually by a committee of actuaries from members of the Wisconsin Compensation Rating Bureau (WCRB). This independent body examines and selects the methodology and trends that produce the proposed rate adjustment, which is then reviewed and approved by the Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance. While the overall rate level will decrease by 1.97%, the impact on policyholders will vary based on specific circumstances.

“As we celebrate another year of rate decreases, Wisconsin employers can continue to count on our competitive insurance marketplace for affordable, high-quality coverage for their business and employees,” said Insurance Commissioner Nathan Houdek.