Wisconsin school districts could soon have more flexibility in choosing their fall start date.  Under current law, Wisconsin public schools are prohibited from starting fall classes until September 1.

The state Department of Public Instruction (DPI) can grant school board requests for an exemption to start school early for “extraordinary reasons.”

Now, an administrative rule is working its way through the Legislature that would expand the types of reasons for DPI to grant an exception for school districts.  If approved, exceptions would include factors that pertain to student graduation rates, reading and mathematics proficiency, school attendance, mental health of students and staff, and recruitment and retention strategies for educators.

The Tourism Federation of Wisconsin has long been against the change, saying repealing the September 1 start date for public schools would lead to a loss in revenue for Wisconsin’s businesses.

Several members of the tourism industry testified against the change this week.

Bill Elliott, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Hotel and Lodging Association, which represents approximately 600 members, said changing the start date for schools won’t fix the problems facing education.

“At the same time, the changes would have a negative impact on the lodging industry and all the other businesses that make up Wisconsin’s tourism economy,” Elliot said. “Starting school before Sept. 1 shortens the Wisconsin summer for vacations and travel by families with school aged children, which negatively impacts the already short tourism season.”

Minnesota and Michigan have state laws that prohibit schools from starting until after Labor Day.  School boards have autonomy in Illinois.

State Representative Joel Kitchens, R-Sturgeon Bay, said DPI should not get to change the rules, the Legislature should.

“Tourism is a big part of our economy here in Wisconsin and many, many families depend on that,” Kitchens said. “But it’s not just good for business. It’s good for families. I mean, my kids will tell you that the vacations that we took together as a family were some of their best memories, and I think it also played a big part of enhancing their education.”

Superior leaders are bracing for a legal challenge after its planning commission recommended the city deny local approvals for a nearly $1 billion natural gas plant there. An attorney for one of the project’s owners told the commission that utilities can move forward without the city’s blessing.

The Superior City Council, some of whose members have signaled opposition to the plant, will have the final say on local approvals for the proposed Nemadji Trail Energy Center, or NTEC. Several utilities want to build the 625-megawatt plant to maintain reliable and affordable power as they shift from coal to renewable energy, including Minnesota Power in Duluth.

Minnesota Power requested the city vacate streets and change zoning to allow the project to move forward. Even so, Justin Chasco, an attorney for the utility, said it can build the plant without any zoning changes because the Wisconsin Public Service Commission has already approved the project.

“Wisconsin law is crystal clear that when that determination has been made, the city has no power to undo it,” Chasco said.

Wisconsin law says no local ordinance can prevent or hinder construction when the PSC has issued power plants a certificate to build — and the project received approval from the state in 2020. The planning commission voted 4-2 in opposition to the utility’s requested changes. Shortly before its vote Wednesday night, Superior Mayor Jim Paine said he didn’t appreciate veiled or direct threats, adding he expects the utility to respect any final decision.

“If it’s not, I cannot be bullied out of that. We will see you in court,” Paine said. “I’m not afraid to defend the decisions of the city or its governing bodies.”

Paine told WPR the city is prepared for any legal challenge. He said he doesn’t expect the city council to take up the commission’s recommendation until sometime in May. If the council denies local approvals for the project, Minnesota Power spokesperson Amy Rutledge said the utility has “legal remedies” it could pursue.

Candidates and political groups will have to disclose when they use artificial intelligence to generate audio or video in ads aired in Wisconsin, according to a new law signed Thursday.

The bipartisan legislation comes in a national election year that some political experts say will be defined by AI-generated content and influence campaigns.

“This technology is not good or bad. Somebody can use AI to generate graphics to generate a jingle for a radio ad, to maybe make an animation that illustrates their views on the issues,” said Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, who co-authored the bipartisan bill. “But they can also use it to make it look like their opponent said and did something they didn’t.”

The law requires any audio or video campaign materials — whether produced by a candidate, PAC or other campaign entity — to disclose at the start and end of an ad if they used “synthetic media,” or media that is “substantially produced by means of generative artificial intelligence.”

Groups that violate the requirement will face fines. At least four other states currently have disclosure laws on the books, including California and Michigan, and similar legislation is pending in a handful of others, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

When the bill passed the Assembly last month, Rep. Adam Neylon, R-Pewaukee, told colleagues AI was making it harder to know what’s real. Voters, he said, were being asked to determine truth from fiction.

“And to do that, they need the tools, they need disclosures, they need disclaimers when artificial intelligence is generating false representations,” Neylon said at the time.

After nearly a year of frantic lobbying and debate, the EPA has finalized strict new rules on vehicle emissions that will push the auto industry to accelerate its transition to electric vehicles. The EPA expects that under the new rules, EVs could account for up to 56% of new passenger vehicles sold for model years 2030 through 2032.

The rules cover light- and medium-duty vehicles — cars, SUVs, vans and pickup trucks, but not 18-wheelers — from model years 2027 to 2032. The EPA rules are not written as an EV mandate or a ban on the sale of gas cars. Instead, the EPA sets standards that apply across an entire fleet — meaning an automaker still can make vehicles with higher emissions, as long as they also make enough very low or zero-emission vehicles that it averages out.

The oil industry, meanwhile, has been an even more vocal critic of these rules and other policies promoting EVs. Rising adoption of electric vehicles is expected to reduce oil demand over time, although it will take decades for the global fleet of vehicles to turn over.

But the oil industry’s opposition goes even further. The attorney general of Texas has previously filed a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s authority to set rules designed to promote electric vehicles. Multiple oil trade groups backed Texas in the case.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it is maintaining the federal funds rate in a range of 5.25% to 5.5%. Still, most members of the Federal Open Market Committee are still projecting three rate cuts later in 2024, matching the bank’s earlier forecast for the number of rate reductions this year, according to the Fed’s Summary of Economic Conditions.

At a Wednesday press conference, Chair Jerome Powell pointed to stubbornly persistent inflation in January and February’s to explain the decision to hold rates steady, adding that the central bank doesn’t want to cut prematurely and risk a flare-up of inflation.

“We said it was going to be bumpy ride, and now we’re seeing that,” Powell said. “The question is whether they are more than bumps, and we don’t know that.”

Inflation in February rose 3.2% on an annual basis, faster than January’s 3.1% increase. Despite that recent increase, Powell added he is confident inflation will eventually recede to the bank’s 2% goal. But he reiterated that the Fed is prepared to hold the line on rates until policymakers see more evidence that inflation is fading.

“We believe our policy rate is likely at its peak for this tightening cycle,” he said. The Fed “will likely begin dialing back policy restraint some point this year.”

Home prices in Wisconsin have grown faster than incomes in recent years, creating challenges for prospective first-time homebuyers. That’s according to a new report released Wednesday by the Wisconsin Policy Forum. The report examined the change in incomes, home and rent prices from 2017 to 2022.

The rise in home costs is tied to declines in housing construction following the 2008 Great Recession, the report said.

Since 2010, according to the study, the number of households in the state has increased by more than 211,000, but less than 145,000 housing units have been permitted, creating a 67,000 deficit.

From 2017 to 2022, the median home sale price in Wisconsin increased by more than 50 percent, while median household incomes in the state increased by only 19.7 percent, the report states.

Six of Wisconsin’s 72 counties had median home prices that were at least 4.5 times higher than their median household incomes in 2022, the report said. They were Dane, Door, Vilas, Sawyer and Burnett counties.

Another seven counties had median home prices that were four times higher than median household incomes as of 2022. They included Barron, Florence, Iron, Oneida, Washburn, Ozaukee and Walworth counties.

While the cost of owner occupied housing has been dramatic, the report indicates changes in the state’s rental market were less pronounced.

It found median gross monthly rents increased by 21.1 percent from 2017 to 2022, while median household incomes among renters rose by 22 percent.

A federal appeals court paused financial rules issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that will force private companies to publicly disclose their carbon emissions and risks climate change poses to their business.

In a short ruling issued Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit paused the SEC’s climate disclosure rule, but declined to offer any explanation for the decision. The ruling, though, came in response to petitions for review filed by energy companies Liberty Energy and Nomad Proppant Services, the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, and business groups Chamber of Commerce, Texas Alliance of Energy Producers and Domestic Energy Producers Alliance.

“For two years now, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has raised significant concerns about the scope, breadth, and legality of the SEC’s climate disclosure efforts,” Tom Quaadman, the executive vice president of the Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, said in response to the SEC’s disclosure rules.

“The Chamber will continue to use all the tools at our disposal, including litigation if necessary, to prevent government overreach and preserve a competitive capital market system,” he continued.

Under the leadership of Chairman Gary Gensler, whom President Biden appointed to the role, the SEC approved the climate disclosure rules on March 6 in a 3-2 vote after nearly two years of heated deliberations.

The SEC said in a statement that the rules reflect “investors’ demand for more consistent, comparable, and reliable information about the financial effects of climate-related risks.” And Gensler said they will further guarantee companies “produce more useful information than what investors see today.”

Last Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted its annual assessment of whether advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion across the U.S. In addition to deployment, the Report considers broadband affordability, adoption, availability, and equitable access, when determining whether broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion to “all Americans.”

The Commission’s Report, issued pursuant to section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, raises the Commission’s benchmark for high-speed fixed broadband to download speeds of 100 megabits per second and upload speeds of 20 megabits per second – a four-fold increase from the 25/3 Mbps benchmark set by the Commission in 2015.

The increase in the Commission’s fixed speed benchmark for advanced telecommunications capability is based on the standards now used in multiple federal and state programs (such as NTIA’s BEAD Program and multiple USF programs), consumer usage patterns, and what is actually available from and marketed by internet service providers.

The Report concludes that advanced telecommunications capability is not being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion based on the total number of Americans, Americans in rural areas, and people living on Tribal lands who lack access to such capability, and the fact that these gaps
in deployment are not closing rapidly enough.

The Report also sets a 1 Gbps/500 Mbps long-term goal for broadband speeds to give stakeholders a collective goal towards which to strive – a better, faster, more robust system of communication for American consumers.

A split state Supreme Court ruled the Catholic Charities Bureau Inc. is not exempt from having to pay unemployment tax to cover their employees because the work they do providing services to those with disabilities isn’t primarily for religious reasons.

The court found in its 4-3 decision Thursday that it’s undisputed the group meets one of the requirements to be exempt from the system because it is supervised by the Superior Diocese.

The court found the four sub-entities of Catholic Charities Bureau Inc. involved in today’s decision don’t attempt to share the Catholic faith with participants, nor supply them with any religious materials. It also found the group hadn’t shown how paying unemployment taxes would prevent it from fulfilling a religious function or engaging in any religious activities. The court also rejected the argument that an analysis of the group’s activities crossed a threshold barring the courts from unnecessary entanglement in church matters.

Each Roman Catholic Diocese in Wisconsin has a social ministry arm. The case the court decided today involved the Superior Diocese’s Catholic Charities Bureau and four sub-entities. None of the four is funded by the diocese, instead receiving money primarily through government contracts, and one had no religious affiliation before it asked to be overseen by the diocese.

They provide services for people with developmental or mental health disabilities, including job coaching and placement, food services and other aid.

According to court records, the state ruled in 1972 that the CCB had to pay unemployment taxes on its employees after it self-reported the nature of its work as “charitable,” “educational,” and “rehabilitative,” not “religious.” After a Douglas County Court in 2015 ruled one of the sub-entities of the CCB was operated primarily for religious purposes, the organization asked to have the four subsidiaries involved in today’s decision removed from the state unemployment system.

The 4-3 ruling affirmed an appeals court decision that upheld a ruling by the Labor and Industry Review Commission that the four must continue paying unemployment taxes on their employees.