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Message from Charlie and Corey

Hope you are enjoying the weather and some of the many events Wisconsin offers to celebrate summer, including Concerts on the Square right across the street.  

For those of you with student loan debt, we wanted to alert you to a soon-expiring opportunity under federal law for public employees to reconsolidate that debt and potentially reduce their monthly payments or have their loans forgiven. More information can be found here. The Department of Financial Institutions may be offering further informational materials, but since the current expiration to apply is October 31, we wanted to let you know right away. Thanks to Laura McFarlane and Ann Peacock for reaching out on this topic.

For attorneys, we are planning an attorney retreat for October 20 and 21 at the Monona Terrace, which will feature interactive training and outside speakers including Professor Timothy Terrell, who will be presenting his writing seminar over two days. This will be similar to the lawyer’s day we presented several years ago and will provide an opportunity to interact with AAGs in units other than your own. Please reserve the day of October 20 and the morning of October 21 for that event.

In this month’s “Getting to Know,” Amy introduces DOJ’s Division of Management Services administrator, Kristina Trastek. The DMS administrator is one of those super critical roles that work magic behind the scenes. Since joining us this spring, Kristina has hit the ground running and already made life in DLS nicer in many ways, including helping with our very active recruitment efforts. Please say hi to Kristina if you see her here at Risser!

Congratulations

Rebecca Paulson and Jeff Simcox have both been promoted to deputy unit directors in the civil litigation unit. Rebecca joined DOJ in in 2013 after working in private practice; she graduated magna cum laude from the University of Wisconsin Law School. Jeff came to DOJ in 2019 from Utah, where he worked first for the University of Utah’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action and then the Disability Law Center, Utah’s protection and advocacy agency for persons with disabilities. He graduated from the Seattle University School of Law.

We are also excited to let you know that Cass Cousins has been appointed the Portage County District Attorney. Cass has worked at DOJ as a drug prosecutor since 2018; he graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with him as he embarks on his next chapter.

Getting to Know

Kristina Trastek Administrator, Division of Management System

Kristina was appointed as the Division of Management Services (DMS) Administrator in February 2022. There are three bureaus in DMS—the Bureau of Budget and Finance, the Bureau of Computing Services, and the Bureau of Human Resources. Additionally, DMS is responsible for Equity, Inclusion, and Wellness at DOJ. Kristina’s role as DMS Administrator is to ensure that all of the teams have the support they need to be successful. Although the work DMS does is to support operational and strategic efforts of the department, each area of DMS is very different. Whether it is discussing paint colors, data ownership, outstanding invoices, compensation planning, or equity and inclusion training—every day is different for Kristina!

Partnership, Collaboration, Advancement | Those are the three words Kristina uses to describe what DMS promotes when asked. She wants people to know that DMS is dedicated to being a trusted partner throughout the department. Although DMS is a service delivery division, they know that DOJ will be most successful when they partner across divisions and offices in a strategic and collaborative manner.

Since beginning earlier this year, Kristina has seen how mission-driven DOJ employees are. This resonates with her, as it is her belief that public servants are most successful when they believe in the mission that they are working towards. In the next five years at DOJ, Kristina’s goal is to embrace DOJs culture of continuous improvement and find ways to ensure DMS has the most effective and efficient programs, policies, and processes. But more importantly to make that happen DMS must be dedicated to continually improving the culture at DOJ to ensure all employees have a sense of belonging.

About Kristina

Kristina’s passion for public service began with her first job out of college as a county child welfare social worker in rural Wisconsin. From there her interest to make an impact on a more macro level grew. She has worked at the state and national levels in various roles, all of which focused on supporting children and families. Prior to joining DOJ, Kristina was at the Department of Children and Families (DCF). In her role as the Director of Performance Management she oversaw many programs including child welfare monitoring, continuous improvement, contract administration, the business project management office, childcare research and evaluation, and the performance management program. All the efforts that her team was responsible for helped ensure that DCF was using the resources they had effectively, efficiently, and decisions were being made based on data.

Tech Tips

Ongoing Issues with TimeMatters

We understand that there have been some ongoing issues with Time Matters and the add-ins. We are working with Time Matters to find a resolution for the following problems. Please complete the below steps to help you, when saving an email and when saving a pdf to TM.

Saving emails to Time Matters.  Is the “connect as document” button not responding? 

• Close both Outlook and Time Matters. 
• Open Time Matters and allow the program to completely open before opening any other program. 
• After it is open, open Outlook. 
• You may have to do this process numerous times!!

Other Errors. The following steps generally help get you back on track:

• Close Time Matter and the application (word/adobe/excel/etc)
• Go to Task Manager
• Look for any tasks that start with “tm…”
• End these tasks
• Open Time Matters and allow the application to load completely
• Once again, you may have to perform this process numerous times!!

– DLS Litigation Technology Support Team

Check It Out

2022 Updates to Wisconsin Criminal Jury Instructions

The Wisconsin Judicial Conference’s Criminal Jury Instructions Committee has approved a new supplement to the Wisconsin Criminal Jury Instructions. This release includes new, updated, and withdrawn instructions for the set approved through June 2022.

– Amy Thornton