Press Release: Gov. Evers Takes Action on 15 Bills

MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers today took action on 15 bills, including: 

Senate Bill 312, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 192:  

• Requires local governments to make a good faith effort to appoint a physician assistant and/or advance practice registered nurse to the local board of health if the local government is unable to find a willing physician and/or nurse to appoint to the local board of health.

Senate Bill 335, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 193: 

• Authorizes the Department of Natural Resources, upon request, to transfer up to 15 sturgeon carcasses to Sturgeon for Tomorrow Inc., so that the organization may raffle them off as part of a fundraiser and use the proceeds to promote sturgeon management, conduct sturgeon habitat management, promote sturgeon reintroduction, or further sturgeon research.

Senate Bill 341, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 194: 

• Creates a five-year statute of limitations (formally a statute of repose) for actions against licensed real estate appraisers.

Senate Bill 344, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 195:  

• Modifies the requirements to obtain an optional interior designer registration;
• Makes various changes to the scope of practice of interior design;
• Modifies requirements for interior design firms; and
• Generally transfers oversight of interior designers from the Department of Safety and Professional Services to the amended Board of Architects, Landscape Architects, Professional Engineers, Designers, Professional Land Surveyors, and Registered Interior Designers.

Senate Bill 533, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 196:  

• Authorizes a housing authority created by a first-class city to undertake certain mixed developments and increases the bidding threshold for those housing authority projects.

Senate Bill 812, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 197: 

• Defines battery-powered, alarmed electric security fences; and
• Prohibits local units of government from regulating such fences, if the fence is not on residential property.

Senate Bill 835, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 198:  

• Modifies certain restrictions on local land use, including limiting annexations and boundary agreements for newly incorporated cities and villages, allowing annexation of territory across county lines, limiting municipal extraterritorial land division and zoning powers, prohibiting condemnation on certain blighted properties, and modifying requirements relating to interim ordinances to freeze extraterritorial zoning.

Senate Bill 865, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 199:  

• Establishes basic requirements for homeowners' associations so that the owners, or prospective owners, of property within these associations can obtain information on an association's covenants and actions.

Senate Bill 867, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 200: 

• Makes changes to county shoreland zoning ordinances and vegetative buffer zone requirements.

Senate Bill 893, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 201: 

• Creates a procedure for any interest in a farm implement to be transferred without probate to a designated beneficiary on the death of the sole owner or the last to die of multiple owners of that farm implement.  

Senate Bill 969, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 202: 

• Allows the Oneida Nation to erect signs in the highway right-of-way that the Oneida Reservation is a Purple Heart Reservation.

Assembly Bill 653, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 203: 

• Allows pawnbrokers to use electronic communications with customers who consent to receive email or text communications. 

Assembly Bill 722, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 204: 

• Allows parties in family actions to agree to certain items prior to obtaining a judgement. 

Assembly Bill 723, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 205: 

• Creates a procedure for de novo review of court commissioner decisions in family actions.

Assembly Bill 775, now 2021 Wisconsin Act 206: 

• Provides funds to conduct planning and design services and prepare a design report for the construction of a new engineering building at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.