Here & Now

Joe Parisi Opposes Drug Testing Plan In Governor's Budget

Joe Parisi:

“Yeah, I think it’s an incredibly ineffective use of scarce tax dollars. You know, at a time of shrinking resources and increased need, it’s important that we focus all of our efforts and all of our dollars and resources toward what we refer to as evidence-based programming. That’s things that we know get the biggest bang for the buck, and that are proven by their track record. And, in the instance of drug testing in order for people to receive benefits, what we’ve seen across the nation is, first of all, the Courts have found that it’s not allowable so it usually gets turned over. But even more importantly, if you look at a state like Tennessee, where they drug-tested– they have over 16,000 aid recipients. They went through drug-testing, and they identified 37 people out of those 16,000 as testing positive for drugs. Now in Dane County, we take this very seriously. We already drug test people with felony drug convictions. We have a Fraud Unit that roots out fraud. But when we look at estimating out the cost of this, and it’s still a little challenging because they’ve been a little blurry about how exactly they’re going to do this, but we did a rough estimate that this could cost upwards of $20 million over the Biennium. Dollars that would have to go for drug testing administration, etc. So, take that $20 million that we estimate it would cost Wisconsin, and take the 37 positive tests that they had in Tennessee, and we’re looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of half a million dollars per positive drug test. Now we think that there are a lot better places for those dollars to go. Be it in alcohol and drug treatment. Issues, you know, helping us with issues with mental health. You know, we just don’t think it’s being a good steward of the tax dollars to take this approach.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, the State budget does propose that should there be a positive result on a drug test, then these people would be given drug treatment.

Joe Parisi:

Mm-hmm.

Frederica Freyberg:

So, is it your sense that the County would pick that up because I understood that then the State would pick that up?

Joe Parisi:

Well, right now, it’s kind of fuzzy, you know. Even if the State picks that up, that’s fine. I mean, we’re all about treatment. We do a lot of drug treatment, a lot of AODA treatment through County plans but we’re saying, “Let’s use those dollars for people we know, already, are prone to use drugs. People we’ve identified. You know, there are a lot of people who need help right now.”

And if we’re looking at this– we question, you know, the motivation behind this, too. It makes a great talking point if you’re in a Presidential Primary if you’re going to the Iowa caucuses. But when you dig deeper and look at our responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, it’s not backed up by any evidence. And a second piece of this that I find concerning is it really singles out a group of folks, you know, as being– we assume they’re criminals until proven otherwise. Particularly, if we look at what happened to our state during the Great Recession over the last few years. Folks who worked at American TV, folks from the Janesville GM plant who got laid off. So in the middle of all of those challenges in their lives, through no fault of their own, losing their job, now we would ask them to go through the humiliation of having to take a drug test before we could give them help.

Frederica Freyberg:

Have you been able to discuss this at all with the Walker Administration?

Joe Parisi:

No, what we’ve been doing most recently is talking with the Federal Government

because there are a couple of areas we can go. We can take the court route once the legislation gets passed, and we see exactly what it looks like, but we hope that it won’t get that far. So, last week, Congressman Pocan and I sent letters to Federal officials asking them to preemptively come out with a decision regarding whether or not the Walker Administration can put this into place because we don’t believe it’s going to be allowed. We want to put a stop to it now, so we don’t have to waste the time and effort of eventually having to take them to Court if they pass this.

Frederica Freyberg:

Has there been any reaction to that letter?

Joe Parisi:

Not yet. We just sent it about a week ago. We asked them, if at all possible, if they could expedite it, so we know before the State Budget is passed so that we have certainty. Again, we believe that it won’t fly, that they won’t get a waiver. We’re hoping that they’ll kind of adjust and take this out of the budget proposal.