Evers, GOP at odds over ventilators
10K ordered after Legislature says he has authority
MADISON - Gov. Tony Evers’ administration is purchasing 10,000 ventilators and 1 million protective masks after clashing with Republican lawmakers over whether the governor had the power to make the purchases.
Evers gave legislative leaders a bill a week ago that called for spending more than $700 million to help care for thousands of sick and jobless people, and on
Friday his administration warned that delaying the legislation could have “catastrophic consequences” for Wisconsin as coronavirus spreads.
But top Republicans said Saturday that Evers was the one holding back the state’s response and that he should have already used authority he has to buy the lifesaving equipment. They said they were working on their own proposal.
Much of the money under Evers’ plan would give state agencies the power to buy ventilators, masks and other equipment, and to hire more staff to process an unprecedented number of unemployment claims and trace the contacts made by infected patients, the administration said.
“We cannot possibly overstate the severity of this situation, the importance of flexibility to respond appropriately and expeditiously to COVID-19, and that any delay in action due to an inability to be nimble could have catastrophic consequences for the people of our state,” Deputy Administration Secretary Chris Patton wrote in a Friday email to lawmakers urging them to act quickly.
Patton also said the administration needed two pieces of legislation to be able to move forward with the state’s response, such as purchasing the new equipment.
But the GOP leaders in a letter Saturday — and in interviews with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel — said Evers already had the authority to make the purchases.
The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau agreed.
“Again, we implore you. Please do not wait any longer to buy ventilators and
masks. Do it now,” Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos wrote in the letter.
Maggie Gau, Evers’ chief of staff, responded by saying the administration has been making purchases and would move forward with the large procurement of ventilators and masks.
“Nevertheless, while ideally the Wisconsin Legislature would act to provide the necessary resources, the Department is using its broad statutory (power) to expedite our purchasing efforts and ensure Wisconsin has the necessary resources to respond the COVID-19 pandemic,” she wrote.
Evers spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff said the administration had determined legislative approval would be needed because of the size of the purchase, but decided to act on its own after the fiscal bureau reached a different conclusion.
“If they’re not going to do it, we’re not going to not get these things,” Baldauff said of Republicans declining to take up the legislation. “We’re not going to have our hospitals not have what they need to respond.”
Scores of policy changes
The dispute comes at a time when the number of people in Wisconsin contracting the virus that can cause serious respiratory illness has topped 1,000 and caused 17 to die as of 8 p.m. Saturday.
Health care workers say they don’t have enough equipment to stay healthy and to care for the expected surge of patients needing life-saving machines.
Wisconsin is getting more than $2 billion from the federal government it can use to fight the coronavirus pandemic that has killed 26,654 and sickened at least 575,000 worldwide.
Evers’ proposal would spend at least $700 million but many measures have an unknown price tag, the administration said.
“We don’t know how many people are going to get sick. We don’t know how many hospitals we’re going to need,” Baldauff said. “We know we’re asking for broad authority but that is because there’s no possible way to know every single thing that we are going to need.”
The Democratic governor’s plan includes scores of policy changes, including broadening a number of public benefits programs using $100 million in federal aid and $25 million in state funds.
Evers wants to expand Wisconsin Shares, a program that pays for child care costs. Additional help is needed to provide child care for health-care workers and first responders, especially now that schools have been closed, the administration argues.
In addition, Evers wants to provide hazard pay to child care providers that stay open during the health emergency to ensure care centers don’t lose workers.
“If we need to incentivize that pay we will because we can’t have a situation where our nurses and paramedics don’t have a place to send their kids,” Baldauff said.
In a related move, Evers wants to help pay for the child-care costs for health care workers and others whose services are consider essential during the emergency.
Evers also wants to enhance a lending program for those seeking work. Under it, individuals could get loans of up to $1,600 each if they were facing a financial crisis related to the pandemic.
Evers is seeking to expand the welfare-to-work program known as Wisconsin Works or W-2 because many people won’t be working because the pandemic has shuttered businesses. It would provide $653 to individuals who are facing immediate financial crises.
The state would provide up to $1,200 for anyone who loses work because of the outbreak by broadening an existing program that helps those facing homelessness.
The plan also includes elements Republicans strongly oppose, such as barring insurers from canceling the policies of people who don’t pay their premiums and suspending the photo ID requirement for voting.
Evers’ administration said temporarily eliminating the voter ID law was important because people may have difficulty renewing their driver’s licenses or acquiring other identity records during the emergency.
Evers also wants to give people more time to use online voter registration to limit the number of people registering at the polls or at clerks’ offices, where they could be exposed to people with coronavirus. Under his plan online voter registration would end five days before an election instead of 20 days before an election.
Evers wants clerks to accept absentee ballots that arrive after an election as long as they’re postmarked by election day. Now, absentee ballots are counted only if they arrive by the time polls close. Evers also wants to suspend the requirement that witnesses sign a certificate for those who vote absentee. The changes are necessary to ease voting when many will have a difficult time getting out of their homes, according to administration.
‘I hope they are up to it’
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Saturday the GOP lawmakers were instead working on a new “roadmap.”
“I think they are doing the best they can but no one has convinced me that everything has been addressed at this point. I hope they are up to it,” Fitzgerald said.
“There is a failure going on behind the scenes here and there’s political cover being developed so they are not exposed that there’s a failure to procure the equipment,” he said.
Fitzgerald and Vos have repeatedly clashed with Evers but days ago offered a much more deferential perspective because of the health crisis. But his comments Saturday showed the two remain at odds.
But Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, a Democrat from Oshkosh, said officials need to set partisanship aside and show they are “capable of governing.” He said the Legislature should act with urgency and shouldn’t try to micromanage the administration.
“No one has any interest or appetite for politics in this atmosphere and they shouldn’t — and we should all recognize that,” Hintz said.
The massive piece of legislation, which Evers gave lawmakers on March 21, would provide $500 million to state agencies to buy the equipment and hire more workers.
“We do not have the luxury of weeks or months to respond to this crisis,” Patton told lawmakers. “We must learn from other states and countries and work to prepare as quickly as we can to address this in Wisconsin, and we have days to do it.”
It could take up to 30 days to receive the $2.3 billion in funding for Wisconsin, Baldauff said.
About $1.9 billion of that will go to the state, with rest going to its largest jurisdictions — Milwaukee, Milwaukee County and Dane County.
But the Legislative Fiscal Bureau has determined the state can start buying equipment now and doesn’t need to wait for the federal cash to show up in its coffers. It can use federal money it already has for its routine operations and pay back those accounts when the new money arrives, according to the fiscal bureau.
Legislative approval is not needed because a long-standing statute gives governors wide latitude on how to spend federal money, according to the fiscal bureau.
Vos said in an interview he wouldn’t be pushing the governor to make big spending decisions without lawmakers’ input if it wasn’t legal.
“Here’s what’s really ironic — I believe that every dollar that’s spent should have legislative oversight … no one branch should unilaterally be able to spend the money,” Vos said. “If I didn’t think that was the law (to make the purchases without legislative approval), I certainly would not be saying (Evers) has the ability to spend it.”
Contact Molly Beck molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her Twitter at @MollyBeck.