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Madison - State Sen. Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) noticed something a little odd when he logged onto the state's new Web site for campaign finance information.

Prominently displayed at http://cfis.wi.gov is a picture of the Capitol in Madison next to a beautiful skyline - of Minneapolis.

"I'm looking at that thinking, what the heck?" Plale said Monday. "I don't think a lot of Minnesota legislators care about our Government Accountability Board, but who knows?"

The board, which runs the Web site, confirmed the only way to see the skyline from Wisconsin is with a telescope in Hudson.

The board is paying Connecticut-based PCC Technology Group about $1 million to develop the site. The board quietly unveiled it this year as it rolls out its system for tracking campaign fund raising and spending.

Some candidates used the system this fall as part of a pilot program. In January, all candidates will have to start using the system, greatly increasing the traffic on the site by candidates and those who monitor their spending.

Candidates have complained about glitches with the site that have caused delays, but board officials say they are ironing out problems, and the site allows more detailed searches than the previous computer system.

Joe Singh, a PCC executive vice president, said the company is using the image of the Minneapolis skyline as a placeholder while it searches for a copyright-free image of Madison's skyline. He said he expected it to be updated in early January.

Jonathan Becker, director of the board's Ethics Division, joked that the skyline was a "fanciful picture of what Madison may look like someday."

He said he had assumed the skyline was of Wisconsin's biggest city. He's not from Milwaukee, so he said he hadn't noticed the skyline lacked landmarks such as the Milwaukee Art Museum, the newly renovated City Hall and the U.S. Bank Center.

He said he would ask the vendor to find promptly a skyline from Wisconsin. "It's nice, though, isn't it?" he said. "It looks like a nice place to live. It's the Emerald City."

Steve Filmanowicz - an aide to former Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist who now works with Norquist at the Congress for the New Urbanism in Chicago - was surprised to see a Minnesota skyline on a Wisconsin Web page. "The state doesn't need to outsource their skyline," he said.