Latest news with #LaTonyaJohnson
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Budget committee Republicans again cut increases in licensing agency staff
State Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) argues Thursday in the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee for including the full budget request from the state Department of Safety and Professional Services in the 2025-27 Wisconsin state budget. (Screenshot/WisEye) Republicans on the Legislature's budget committee rejected a proposal Thursday to add permanent staff to the state agency responsible for ensuring that a range of professionals have licenses they need to do their jobs. Instead, the Joint Finance Committee voted along party lines to extend five contract positions for three more years as well as add a handful of other positions. The 2025-27 state budget marks the fourth one in which Gov. Tony Evers has been rebuffed after urging lawmakers to increase staffing at the Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) to speed up the agency's license and permit administration. There was no debate during the 45-minute meeting Thursday. All four Democrats on the committee spoke up, either to advocate for their proposal for the agency or to criticize the GOP proposal as inadequate. None of the Republicans, however, made arguments for their plan for DSPS or against the Democrats' alternative. In addition to issuing professional licenses in health care, personal services, professions such as accounting or architecture and for skilled tradespeople such as plumbers and electricians, DSPS also oversees a variety of building and other public safety licenses and permits. Starting more than three years ago, Republican lawmakers raised criticism of the agency amid heavy backlogs in the licensing process for a wide range of professionals. Democratic lawmakers — as well as some outside groups representing licensed professionals — have charged the backlog was a result of the Legislature's failure to authorize more positions at the department. The department is almost entirely self-funded through the fees it collects from license applications, but the size of its staff requires the approval of the Legislature. In the 2023-25 draft state budget, Evers requested 74 new positions at DSPS, but the final spending plan drafted largely by the Republican majority on the finance committee added 17.75 positions. Evers redirected pandemic relief funds to DSPS to hire more contract workers to help manage the licensing process. In the last couple of years, the backlog has been reduced so that on average a license is issued in two weeks, according to state Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay), a finance committee member. In his 2025-27 budget draft, Evers requested 30 new positions at the agency. On Thursday, Democrats on the finance committee proposed adding 31 positions, including 14 to staff the department's call center serving license applicants and nine additional employees to process license applications. Authorizing fewer people than DSPS has requested 'has a tremendous risk of causing significant delays or or even just making it a little bit harder for people to be able to get their license,' said Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha). 'We want people to be able to get the licenses that they need so they can go to work. We want people to get the renewals that they need so they can continue working.' State law requires about 10% of the fee revenue from professional licenses in health and business professions to be transferred to the state budget's general fund. 'We have been pulling funds out of an agency that's almost basically self-sufficient and dumping the money into the general fund, all while the demand for licenses is exploding,' said Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee). Johnson warned the committee that if the licensing process gets bogged down again, shortages in fields such as health care in particular are likely to worsen. Falling short of funding the department's full request 'impacts every single person in the state, whether you're a licensee or not,' said Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison). 'What we are doing is starving that system and making it harder for every single one of us to access needed professional services.' The Democratic proposal failed on a 4-12 vote, with all the Republicans on the 16-member committee voting against it. The Republican measure passed 12-4, with only Republicans' support. It extends five contract call center positions that expire Sept. 30 for another three years. The GOP motion omits three lawyers and three paralegals the department had requested for professional regulation compliance and for the state's Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. The motion also transfers $5 million from DSPS revenues to the state budget's general fund, in addition to the annual 10% from license fees. The Republican measure authorizes a consultant for pharmacy inspections that was part of the original budget draft. It also includes funding to continue a youth firefighter training grant that was in the original request and the Democratic proposal. The committee's co-chairs, Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam), released a joint statement later Thursday declaring that 'Joint Finance Republicans voted to invest in important government services while holding the line on spending.' The statement cited funding for DSPS call center staff 'to help credential holders and the public navigate licensure platforms' and said the funding 'ensures the department can operate effectively and provide these critical services to professionals.' Immediately after the final vote, however, Andraca told her colleagues that the outcome was a missed opportunity. 'We could be sitting here claiming a bipartisan success story, because today the median time to get a license is only 15 days,' Andraca said. 'We should be continuing the success story and taking a victory lap, and instead we're chipping away the progress that we've made — and that's very disappointing.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Yahoo
Milwaukee's practice of charging accidental shootings as felonies raises questions among lawmakers
Milwaukee County's practice of charging accidental shootings as felonies may be unjustly punishing already-suffering parents and further hurting the children the law is designed to protect, some state lawmakers say. The approach, however, is not likely to change, based on comments from Milwaukee County's new top prosecutor. While Milwaukee almost always charges the caregivers involved in these shootings with felonies, other counties in Wisconsin typically charge similar incidents as misdemeanors, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found. An analysis of cases revealed that defendants are usually related to the victims, most often the parents. The majority have no criminal record and in the end receive probation or a short jail term, the Journal Sentinel found. But just getting charged with a felony can lead to a lost job, an eviction and a fight for child custody. State Sen. LaTonya Johnson said accidental shootings involving children should be taken very seriously, but she was troubled that parents in Milwaukee County are facing felonies for something that more often results in misdemeanors in other counties. "I am the last person to say that gun violence should be treated leniently, but I am also one who says that there needs to be equity in the system," the Milwaukee Democrat said. "The punishments should not be harsher simply because of where you live." Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern, who took office last month, said he appreciates the public scrutiny of his prosecutors' decisions and he thinks felony charges are warranted given the seriousness of the issue. Almost half of the roughly 200 accidental shootings that hurt or killed children over the past eight years occurred in Milwaukee County, the Journal Sentinel found. "We have seen too many deaths of children and teenagers by gunfire within the homes in which they live," Lovern told the Journal Sentinel. "The misuse of firearms ought to be prosecuted vigorously where appropriate." Wisconsin has a decades-old law that says when children are hurt or killed accidentally in a shooting, the the caregiver who was supposed to keep the gun out of reach should be charged with a misdemeanor. But Milwaukee prosecutors handling accidental shootings typically don't use that 1991 law, instead utilizing the state's felony child neglect statute. They can do that because of "prosecutorial discretion," which allows district attorneys to use different statutes depending on the facts of a case. State Rep. Lisa Subeck, D-Madison, a former social worker, said she has questions about how the neglect law is being applied in accidental shooting cases. She also wondered if Milwaukee's approach is helping or hurting children in the long run, noting a child neglect conviction generally bars people from working in health care. Subeck has authored several bills to strengthen the 1991 law. She said she would consider the Journal Sentinel's findings as she crafts her latest version. "Prosecutorial discretion can be used to really get things right, and unfortunately, can also be used to really get things wrong, and create these disparities," Subeck said. "You can end up with very different philosophical views with DAs in different parts of the state." There is a range of circumstances in accidental shootings. On one end is the drug-dealing felon who leaves a loaded gun on a low table. On the other is the parent with no convictions who keeps a gun for home defense hidden in a dresser drawer. Both types of cases are getting charged with felonies in Milwaukee County, though prosecutors don't always issue charges in such cases, depending on factors like how much effort was made to hide the gun, the Journal Sentinel found. The investigation highlighted several cases, including that of Fiesha Parker, whose son Elijah was accidentally shot in March 2023 with a gun belonging to Parker's longtime boyfriend. Elijah, 13, survived after life-saving surgery at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. Parker's boyfriend, Durand Townsend, who was a felon, was charged with two felonies. Parker, who had no criminal record, was charged with felony child neglect. She lost her job, was told to leave her apartment by her landlord and became homeless for a time. Last month, Parker, 33, completed a deferred prosecution agreement. The case was dismissed. In an interview with the Journal Sentinel, Parker said she knew Townsend had been hiding the gun above a ceiling panel in their bedroom closet and asked him to get rid of it because their boys knew it was there. She said Townsend assured her it was gone, but she didn't check to make sure that was true. Lovern said Parker was charged, in part, because she told officers she knew about the gun and that Townsend could not legally have one. Parker told officers she asked Townsend to move the gun to a different location several times, but he was "stubborn," according to the police report. Another reason Parker was charged, Lovern said, is because prosecutors may have needed her testimony to convict Townsend. It is common for plea bargains to include an agreement to testify against someone else. Ultimately, Parker's testimony was not needed. Townsend pleaded guilty and got 10 months in jail. The case, and others like it, are troubling, said state Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee. "It's just stunning," he said. "There doesn't seem to be an opportunity to be human." Johnson, who represents part of Milwaukee's north side, said she has a gun for self-defense and keeps it locked, which is important for all gun owners. The state senator questioned the wisdom of charging people like Parker and the effects it would have in years to come. "You are putting these families in even further jeopardy of being financially unstable for the rest of their lives," she said. "There has to be a better way." Since her story was published last week, Parker has received well-wishes and donations to a GoFundMe, which she set up two years ago. Mary Burke, the former Wisconsin Secretary of Commerce who ran for governor in 2014, said she was moved by Parker's story and made a donation. "We all make mistakes and have things that we would like to take back," Burke said in an interview. "I thought her resilience and persistence getting her nursing license and continuing through these tough times was just inspiring." Parker said she has been heartened by the kind comments and the donations. She said she continues to work to get her life back on track. Now that the case is over, she can take her state nursing board exam to become a registered nurse. And she is slowing paying off bills that built up over the months she couldn't work while her case was pending. Parker said people have asked if her goal was to change state law. "I'm not sure about all that," Parker said. "It's about women who went through what I went through. It's been a lot." John Diedrich is an investigative reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at jdiedrich@ This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Lawmakers question Milwaukee's tough approach to accidental shootings
