Dear WH&LA Lodging and CVB/Chamber Members:
The last day of session for the State Assembly for 2020 is tomorrow, February 20, and their agenda is packed with bills to address. Any bill that has not passed the Assembly when they adjourn tomorrow automatically has failed and would need to be re-introduced again starting January of 2021 to be considered again. This puts incredible pressure on state Assembly Representatives with how they are going to vote tomorrow. In general, a Representative’s key staff monitors all the communications they receive from those in their district and goes through each bill with their “boss”, who then decides how they will vote – usually with sometimes strong influence from their party included.
In other words, today is the last day for lodging properties and the tourism industry to communicate with their Assembly Representatives on what bills to support or oppose so that it counts in their final consideration.
If you are not sure who your state Assembly Representative is, you can enter your home address partway down on the following screen under “Who Are My Legislators” and it will tell you:
http://legis.wisconsin.gov
/
.
The following are a few bills scheduled for the final Assembly session that you may want to contact your legislator about. When you do, be sure to:
- Note the bill number
- Clarify if you are asking them to support or oppose it
- Include a very simple point or two why you are asking them to do so
- IMPORTANT: Include your name and address (and/or your property name & address). Without this telling them you are in their district, your message will be ignored
This bill has been changed since last week’s
Capitol Insider,
and the Assembly Ways & Means Committee just yesterday unanimously approved Substitute Amendment 2, which is the version that will be considered tomorrow. Here are some key provisions:
- Clarifies that a Marketplace Provider must collect & remit room tax for sales that go through the MP, meaning that the individual lodging property does not do so on the sales through the MP. The other term “Lodging Marketplace” is eliminated moving forward.
- The Marketplace Provider must begin to report information on their total sales subject to room tax in each municipality, the total room nights sold, the room tax rate applied, and the total tax remitted, however they may do so in aggregate by municipality.
- A new penalty is established that can be imposed by municipalities for Marketplace Providers that do not remit the room tax: a penalty of 25% of the tax due or $5,000 (whichever is less).
- In municipalities already enabled to retain more than 30% of room tax revenue by the “grandfather clause” - who now face a dollar cap in how much they can retain for their own purposes, they would be required to post the dollar amounts they retained in each of the years 2010 – 2014. This is important, as it makes it public on the DOR website what dollar caps they must comply with, to more strongly generate compliance.
- By July 31 this year, the DOR must post the name and address of each municipality with a room tax, along with the room tax rate, to make it easier for Marketplace Providers to accommodate their new requirement on room tax
- The language previously requiring more information for lodging properties to report when remitting room tax was removed in Amendment 2.
- Previous concerns that municipalities could begin to conduct room tax audits without “probable cause” required were removed by keeping probable cause in the statute
- A municipality may conduct a joint audit with another municipality, which could be important in tourism zones.
- Confidentiality requirements of municipalities were expanded to also cover audits and penalty payments, with exceptions for court-ordered documents.
- A previous proposal authorizing the DOR to collect room tax for municipalities for a fee was eliminated.
The WH&LA supports AB 683 and its Substitute Amendment 2, and encourages members to ask their Assembly Representatives to support it tomorrow!
This bill appears to continue to evolve and while some controversial components were removed – such as covering Event Permits for wedding barns, etc., and expanded hours for wineries and breweries – one of the remaining key components following
adoption of Amendment 1
is to address the closing hours for alcohol beverage retailers during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) event based in Milwaukee this coming July. Here are the key components for this part:
- This specifically covers 4 nights (July 13-17, 2020) during the week of the DNC
- A closing hour exception for these nights would allow for closing at 4:00 am, provided this is first authorized by the municipality.
- This is a statewide exception
It is important that the DNC expanded closing hours be addressed before session ends, so while the other components may still change, the WH&LA is supporting the DNC Open Hours Expansion components, and we ask you to encourage your state Assembly Representative to do so as well.
This bill, supported by the WRA, Tavern League, and WH&LA, requires the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) to create rules allowing an employer to require tipped employees to use an electronic signature or other electronic means that uniquely identifies the employee when acknowledging the counting of tips toward fulfillment of the employer’s obligation to pay the minimum wage.
While this may seem to already be common practice, recent litigation has claimed that this practice was beyond the scope of the DWD, so this bill ensures the interpretation that the necessary authorization is in the statutes to avoid any expansion of potential lawsuits.
Please ask your Assembly representative to support AB 840!
This bill will be addressed by the Assembly tomorrow in the Senate Bill version, and while dormant for most of this session, apparently has been gaining support. This bill modifies current statutes requiring the Department of Workforce Development to maintain career clusters to specifically list the clusters. What is good for tourism is the specific listing of “Hospitality and Tourism” as a required career cluster, so we do not get lost in workforce opportunities.
Please ask your Assembly Representative to support SB 72!
Special thanks go to WH&LA Contract Lobbyist Kathi Kilgore for her vigilance in monitoring and lobbying on the lodging industry’s behalf. And as always, the WH&LA thanks you for your attention and support!
Best,
Trisha
