Lawmakers to decide fate of commission that reviews ALJ decisions

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A powerful panel of lawmakers will decide Thursday whether to eliminate an independent body that reviews decisions in jobless-benefits, equal-rights and workers’ compensation cases.

In his proposed 2017-19 budget, Gov. Scott Walker calls for the elimination of the Labor and Industry Review Commission, whose three commissioners each serve staggered six-year terms. The commission, known as LIRC, reviews decisions handed down by administrative-law judges in the Department of Workforce Development’s equal-rights and unemployment-insurance divisions. Workers’ compensation cases come to it from the state’s Department of Administration’s Division of Hearings and Appeals.

Lawmakers on the state’s powerful budget-writing committee are scheduled to make a recommendation on LIRC’s fate at a meeting scheduled to start at 11 a.m. Thursday in Room 412 East of the state Capitol.

The governor, in putting forward his elimination proposal, called LIRC “an unnecessary layer of government.”

Under Walker’s proposed budget, reviews of administrative-law judges’ decisions would be delegated to administrators in the state’s equal-rights, unemployment-insurance and hearings-and-appeals divisions. The state’s Department of Workforce Development would be required to maintain a searchable, electronic database of significant decisions that administrators and administrative-law judges make concerning unemployment insurance. The proposal would also give the DWD the ability to include LIRC decisions in its database.

Walker’s administration predicts that his proposal would save the state $3.2 million over the course of two years. DWD Secretary Ray Allen has told lawmakers that eliminating LIRC would also result in quicker decisions.

Opponents of Walker’s proposal have contended that LIRC plays a crucial role in ensuring that reviews of benefit and workers’ comp cases are conducted in an impartial manner. Lawyers who represent claimants in unemployment-benefits cases, for instance, fear that eliminating LIRC could result in more people being charged with concealment, or benefits-fraud, even though they have done nothing wrong.

The DWD and LIRC have butted heads over who should have the burden of showing that claimants who had withheld information or submitted false information had done so intentionally.

Workers’ compensation lawyers have meanwhile expressed concerns over whether a single divisions administrator could handle the roughly 200 appeals that are filed every year with LIRC.

Opponents also question what would happen to the precedents established by LIRC decisions going back to 1977. So far, there has been no indication that administrators would be able to still rely on those decisions for guidance.

Other opponents, including Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Wisconsin Defense Counsel, are urging lawmakers to replace LIRC with a commission that would only hear workers’ compensation appeals.

The proposed Workers’ Compensation Review Commission would have three members. Two of them would be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, and the third would be the administrator of the workers’ compensation division. Follow @erikastrebel