By Hoven Consulting – WiAHC’s lobbying firm

• WiAHC Advocacy on State Budget Bill

One of WiAHC’s top legislative priorities for the 2023-24 legislative session is to strengthen Wisconsin’s home health care workforce. More specifically, WiAHC will be working to secure additional state funding to support efforts to increase the supply of nurse educators in Wisconsin.

Fortunately, Gov. Tony Evers has included a provision in his state budget bill proposal to allocate an additional $5,000,000 annually for the state’s nurse educators program. The program provides the following to boost the state’s nursing workforce:

While WiAHC will be implementing numerous advocacy tactics to support the proposal and win legislative approval – including direct lobbying and member grassroots advocacy engagement – one of the first steps we can take is to “enlist” members to testify on the initiative before the Joint Finance Committee’s public hearings on the budget bill.

In fact, the Co-Chairs of the GOP-controlled Joint Finance Committee – the Legislature’s powerful budget-writing committee – recently announced they will hold the following four public hearings across the state to give Wisconsin residents the opportunity to testify on issues related to the Fiscal Year 2023-2025 State Budget bill, which lays out the state’s spending plan for the next two years:

If you are interested in attending one of the public hearings and testifying in favor of the nurse educators funding proposal on behalf of WiAHC, please contact WiAHC Advocacy Director Michael Welsh for coordination purposes.  You may reach Mike at mwelsh@weda.org. 

Please keep in mind the public hearings on the budget bill are very well attended and generally take all day. Individuals who testify typically have two minutes to speak and could wait several hours for their brief appearance before the committee. With that said, there is still significant value in testifying before the committee and signaling to lawmakers that the nurse educators funding proposal is important to home health care and the overall health care workforce in Wisconsin.

• State Legislative Committee Suspends Certain DHS Immunization Requirements for Children

Earlier this year, the state Department of Health Services (DHS) announced updates to the required immunizations for children attending school, as well as those placed in child-care facilities. The changes to chapter DHS 144 of state administrative rules include requiring:  (1) children to receive the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis) vaccine at the start of the seventh grade (instead of the sixth grade), (2) students starting seventh grade to receive a meningococcal vaccine (MenACWY-containing vaccine), (3) high school seniors to also receive a booster of the meningococcal vaccine, (4), parents/guardians to obtain proof from a medical clinician that their child in child care or school has had chickenpox if they want their child to be exempted from the chickenpox vaccine, and (5) updating the definitions of “substantial outbreak” for both child care centers and schools so that they are aligned with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) definitions and to add chickenpox and meningococcal disease to the definitions.

As originally released, these requirements took effect at child-care centers on February 1, 2023, and were to take effect for school-age children at the start of the 2023-2024 school year. 

On Tuesday, March 7, the Legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR) held a public hearing in Madison to consider suspending these updated state administrative rules.  Two days later, JCRAR voted 6-4 to suspend portions of chapter DHS 144 of state administrative rules addressing student immunizations.  The following items were suspended: 

As a result of this March 9 vote in JCRAR, this will likely suspend implementation/enforcement of the three portions of chapter DHS 144 referenced immediately above until at least spring 2024. 

• WiAHC Supports Occupational Licensing Legislation

At its March meeting, the WiAHC Legislative Committee agreed to support the following legislation:

• Governor Evers Appoints New Secretary of State

Effective on Friday, March 17, longtime Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette resigned his position.  He had held that position for more than 40 years and was re-elected to a four-year term in November 2022.  Also, on Friday, March 17, Governor Evers appointed former State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski as the new Secretary of State.  Godlewski will serve out the remainder of La Follette’s term, which will end in January 2027.