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State Bar weighs in on proposed unemployment benefits ban

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//September 29, 2015//

State Bar weighs in on proposed unemployment benefits ban

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//September 29, 2015//

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The state’s mandatory professional organization for lawyers is opposing a bill that would ban people who defraud the state’s unemployment insurance program for seven years.

More specifically, the Wisconsin State Bar’s Public Interest Law Section opposes the bill.

“Our board is against passage of AB 212 because it is unnecessarily punitive to working class folks,” said Madison attorney Colin Good, one of the section’s board members.

The board’s main objection to the bill, he said, is that it could include people who make honest mistakes in filing unemployment benefit claims.

Under current law, people who conceal material facts relating to their ability to get benefits or to wages they have earned can be forced to pay back any money they received, plus an administrative penalty equal to 15 percent of the ill-gotten gains. State lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker recently decided to bump that penalty amount to 40 percent starting next year.

Concealment also comes with criminal charges. A person found guilty can be made to pay a fine of between $100 and $500 and to spend as many as 90 days in prison for each offense.

The bill would ban people from claiming unemployment insurance benefits for seven years after two subsequent instances of concealment or impersonation.

The problem, Good said, is that the state Department of Workforce Development has recently become more aggressive in prosecuting concealment cases, appealing many of the Labor and Industry Review Commission’s decisions in favor of claimants who made honest mistakes.

LIRC, the independent body that reviews determinations by DWD’s administrative law judges, has held that the DWD must prove the concealment was intended. The courts have upheld LIRC in seven concealment cases so far.

Good said that since January, the DWD has appealed more LIRC decisions to circuit court than they have in the last 20 years.

“If DWD continues with this path,” he said, “then we are going to see a lot more people being banned from accessing benefits.”

The state Assembly’s Committee on Public Benefit Reform voted 8-3 on Sept. 15, on party lines, to pass the bill, which was amended to give the state Department of Workforce Development additional time to put the proposed new rules into effect.

A spokeswoman from Kerkman’s office said she did not know when or if the bill would go to the Assembly floor in October for a vote. A senate committee is still considering its version of the bill, SB 141.

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