Jason Stein

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - With federal funds about to run out, the Wisconsin Elections Commission asked lawmakers Tuesday to stave off what would be a 28% staffing cut in just over two years.

A federal grant is running out for the agency, which relies on that stream of money to fund 22 of its 32 positions. GOP Gov. Scott Walker has set aside $2.5 million in new state tax dollars in his two-year budget to retain 16 of those positions.

But six positions would still disappear, amounting to a 28% staffing cut in an agency that has already seen job losses since 2015.

"We are concerned that such a significant staffing reduction will mean that the agency will not be able to adequately carry out the duties and responsibilities assigned to it under federal and state laws," said Jodi Jensen, a Republican who sits on the commission.

Jensen asked lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee Tuesday to help make up the difference as the panel held its first day of hearings with executive agencies on Walker's budget bill.

The commission has already been through substantial changes in the last year. In the summer of 2016, GOP lawmakers and Walker split the state's former Government Accountability Board into an Elections Commission and an Ethics Commission.

Aides to Walker have said that those half dozen positions at risk are already vacant. But Elections Commission officials have said that they've faced delays in filling those jobs because of the transition from the Government Accountability Board.

In this budget, the state is losing millions of federal dollars that have been available through the 2002 Help America Vote Act, prompting state officials to scramble to make up the difference.

Also Tuesday, state Corrections Secretary Jon Litscher told lawmakers his agency had made progress in addressing the scandal surrounding the state's youth prison 30 miles north of Wausau.

The combined campus of Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls has been the subject of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel watchdog stories and has been under criminal investigation for more than two years, currently by the FBI.

More: Crisis at Lincoln Hills youth prison years in the making

Litscher said that the agency has refocused its training of guards at the prison -- known as youth counselors -- and revamped how staff use and document the use of physical force, pepper spray and solitary confinement.

"We have changed the whole concept of how we handle the use of force," Litscher said.

The corrections secretary said that staffing levels at most but not all living units at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake are being brought up to the staffing levels required by the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

Two lawsuits have been filed over the institution — one by a former inmate who suffered severe brain damage after a suicide attempt and one by the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin and Juvenile Law Center.

Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield) also questioned Litscher about the possibility of using a private company to help the state handle its growing prison population. Wisconsin’s prisons held 22,959 adults, according to the state's most recent count, and the state expects to have 23,233 by 2019.

Litscher said he thought the state should consider that possibility but pointed out the state had difficulties with a private company in the past and called for caution in working with private firms in corrections.