Summary of September 13th Meeting

Alliance for Regulatory Coordination

Summary of Member Meeting

Meeting Date: September 13, 2010

Location: Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin

The meeting was convened at 9:30 a.m. by Bob DuPont, of Regulatory Guidance and Design, LLC. Attendees introduced themselves and identified the organization they were representing.

This meeting was arranged so that Alliance member representatives could discuss the possible reorganization of the Wisconsin Department of Commerce. DuPont communicated that the 2009-2010 Wisconsin Blue Book indicates that Wisconsin government has 18 administrative departments and 11 independent executive agencies. For example, the Departments of Commerce and Tourism are administrative departments, while the Public Service Commission and University of Wisconsin System are independent executive agencies.

The group discussed the concepts of affinity-based departments and portfolio-style departments. In an affinity-based department, subject matter, tasks and expertise are consolidated to form an agency where most programs have commonalities with one another. Customer groups of the various regulatory programs generally work together in their related industries and therefore appreciate the coordinated regulatory approach provided by one agency. In a well run portfolio-style department, the main commonality is the management philosophy of the agency, where the main tie between the programs is that they are well managed, in terms of having reasonable regulations and high quality, timely service delivery.

Several specific ideas were discussed as to where the regulatory portions of Commerce should be placed if the economic development portion of Commerce were to be pulled out of that Department. There was consensus among the attendees that their respective organizations would most likely support keeping the Safety and Buildings and Environmental and Regulatory Services Divisions together either as the remainder of the Department of Commerce, or together in the form of a new administrative department.

The next meeting of the Alliance for Regulatory Coordination was set for October 12, 2010, from 9:30 to 11:30 AM at the state headquarters of ABC - Wisconsin; located at 5330 Wall Street, Madison.

During the next meeting, the Alliance membership representatives will continue their dialogue about the possible reorganization of the regulatory portions of the Department of Commerce.

The meeting was adjourned at Noon.

This summary was prepared by Bob DuPont, Regulatory Guidance and Design, LLC.

It was issued on September 20, 2010.