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3/19/2009
Ellis: Telephone tax wasn't supposed to pay for libraries

Hidden away in Governor Doyle’s budget is a proposal that would tax all telephone customers in Wisconsin to pay for public libraries, state Sen. Michael Ellis said today. The provision amounts to a 40 percent increase in a fee that was originally meant to improve access to telecommunications technology to all Wisconsin residents, including providing internet access to schools and libraries.

“This is a hidden tax amounting to $12.6 million,” Ellis said. “It is not a fee and to call it such is dishonest. How does having a telephone equate to supporting public libraries?”

The Universal Service Fee was created under a 1993 law that substantially deregulated the telecommunications industry in Wisconsin. The fee was intended to assure that all Wisconsin residents receive essential telecommunications services and have access to advanced services such as the internet. In 1997, use of the fee was expanded to provide funding for schools and libraries to subsidize their access to telecommunications data lines and videolinks. Uses of the fee were also expanded to include funding for BadgerNet and Badger Link, statewide telecommunications networks used by public libraries, schools and residents across Wisconsin. The fee is assessed on gross revenues from intrastate telecommunications providers.

“At the time, those were reasonable uses for the fee. There was a direct link to telecommunications technology and telephone users who paid the fee were the beneficiaries of the services funded by the fee,” Ellis said. “But in 2003, all that went off the rails and we opened the door to the travesty being perpetrated in this budget.”

In the 2003-05 state budget, use of the Universal Service Fee was again expanded, this time to provide a portion of funding for public library aids and the link between the telecommunications fee and the telecommunications services it funded was broken.

“The legislature never should have allowed the Universal Service Fee to stray so far from its original intent,” Ellis said. “It was one of many fund raids and accounting tricks that were used to take the easy way out of a difficult budget, and it was one of many many reasons to vote against that budget.

“Once again, the governor has shown that if you give him an inch, he’ll take a mile,” Ellis said. “He’s not only opening the door he and the legislature cracked in 2003, he’s tearing it completely off its hinges. This is not a fee. It is a $12.6 million tax hike.”

Mike Ellis is a Republican and represents the residents of the 19th Senate District.

COMMENTS

Mike Ellis is off-base, politically opportunistic, and just plain wrong.

Six weeks ago, when a bunch of library supporters met with him in his office, he assured us of his support for libraries, along with other educational institutions, as a funding priority. Reminded of the historical use of the USF for library funding, he did not express any strong concern. He said that he understood the pressures of our increased use. We discussed the conundrum of maintaining services while dealing with the deficit. Now he's attacking us for doing it.

It is incorrect to state that funding for libraries was added to the USF in 1997. The original act that established the USF, 1993 Wisconsin Act 496, states that the fund shall give priority to: "local units of government,
educational institutions and libraries". To that end, Governor Thompson appointed me -- as a public library representative -- to the Universal Service Fund Council, advising the PSC on fund disbursement. I served two terms, beginning in 1994. Academic and school representatives, along with State library staff, took part.

In recent years, library systems have become increasingly focused on and build around telecommunications-based services to local communities; technology has evolved systems into networks. Thus increasing the percentage of state support coming from the USF, as opposed to income tax, makes good sense. At our library alone, users logged 12,899 hours on public computers in the first two months of 2009, a 60% increase from the previous year! These computers access the Internet over connections provided through our library system. Systems are required to provide open access and communications services -- effectively promoting collaboration to level the playing field.

Sen. Ellis is also premature to point to this as "a $12.6 million tax hike." Some library system funding was already under the USF, the PSC is curtailing some other uses, and the budget is not adopted, thus the PSC has not yet determined possible additional telecommunications surcharges.

Mike Ellis is talking our of both sides of his mouth if he wants to support libraries but objects to using money for the purposes specified by statutes to do so.

Terry Dawson (Fri Mar 20 12:12:56 2009)

Dawson needs to open his/her eyes... this FEE has been increased and the taxer on the state throne is calling for it to be increased again. Dawson is out of the loop and talking about past experience. Doyle is out to tax the length of our turds... and we are expected to just sit on our "thrones" and not get upset?
Here is the real fact: the technology that this fee pays for has gotten substantially cheaper but libraries do not exercise responsible spending, instead they look at the budget given and set a goal to spend every cent.

I am an IT professional, I have set up and installed the very systems we are talking about in numerous libraries and see the waste every day, I don't dare use my own name because it would cost me my job... the administrators are more than willing to pay two and three times what they should for the hardware but god forbid they pay what the labor to set it up and maintain is worth.
I'm tired of the Democrats demonizing the Republicans Like this.... Dawson needs to stop badmouthing people who speak the truth

Over Taxed and Underpaid (Tue Apr 07 01:58:03 2009)

I'm not afraid to use my name and I'll stand behind what I say.

Over Taxed and Underpaid say "libraries do not exercise responsible spending, instead they look at the budget given and set a goal to spend every cent."

This is surprising and inconsistent with my experience. I invite Over Taxed and Underpaid, and anyone else, to attend meetings of the Library Board, budget meetings of the Library Board Finance Committee, or budget deliberations of the City Council. We do intend to spend the funds budgeted and allocated, because we have a job to do. But we know that we need more than is budgeted and are dependent on volunteers and donations to keep things going.

I disagree that "administrators are more than willing to pay two and three times what they should for the hardware". We work hard to find lowest prices because we know that we have less hardware (and less budget) than we need. We can't afford to waste scarce dollars on overpriced hardware; we need to be better stewards of the tax dollar than that. On many items of hardware and software, we get pricing cheaper than that available to consumers and business, because we are a nonprofit educational organization. Our bill registers are public record and discussed at open public meetings.

Over Taxed and Underpaid also says: "Dawson needs to stop badmouthing people who speak the truth". I will not stop pointing out inconsistent statements by elected officials. It happens that I agree with Sen. Ellis that the USF is not the best practice for funding library systems (and it funds systems, not libraries). But I stand by my statement that libraries were named in the original purpose of the fund, and that library systems telecommunications costs make this use of USF justifiable.

If Sen. Ellis wishes to propose using general purpose revenue for library systems instead, I'll stand behind him and applaud. But GPR or USF, I will continue to advocate for meeting library service needs of our citizens and communities.

Terry Dawson (Fri Apr 10 11:51:59 2009)

To use the existing telephone "tax" to pay for personnel definitely exhibits the current governor's manipulating the budget to increase government's role in everyday life. How nice that each phone user can now say that we are paying not for updated internet technology for the libraries and "schools", but for more bureaucrats.

Is this the governor's way to pay back the public teacher forum that helped get him elected? The "tax" is already in existance, but to increase it at a time when the ordinary taxpaying citizen is cutting back due to decreases in their personal incomes is just one more way that Government is putting the screws to the average tax payer. Why should the govt. increase expenditures when the tax payer is cutting back on PERSONAL spending? Government does not earn money...it TAKES money.

C. O'Brien (Wed Apr 29 18:09:15 2009)

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