The legislature has sent three unemployment bills to the governor.
As I wrote previously in a letter to the legislature, AB168 and AB169 deserve an immediate veto. Indeed, Gov. Evers previously vetoed versions of these bills during the last legislative session.
AB146, on the other hand, addresses a real problem in Wisconsin: ongoing and worsening delays in mail delivery. As I already noted to the legislature, however, formally extending the deadline for responding to Department inquiries could run afoul of federal requirements for the Department to timely process unemployment claims. See also DWD’s written testimony. The better solution is:
So, an obvious and effective solution especially in light of the delays with postal mail and the lack of portal access and use is for the Department to include notice about requesting an extension with its queries. Such a solution keeps the Department from running afoul of Java while also offering needed flexibility to small employers.
So, Governor Evers should also veto AB146. But, Governor Evers should additionally have the Department include a notice to employers that they can request additional time to respond to Department inquiries.
Such a simple change would go a long way to making unemployment a little easier to manage and navigate. This change also acknowledges the very real obstacles that small employers are having with on-line access to their unemployment accounts (that is, nearly all small employers do not have their own access to their unemployment accounts, and so on-line responses simply are not available to small employers in general) and is still another reason why the Advisory Council agreed bill is fatally flawed.