WAUSAU CRIME LAB AMONG OPTIONS FOR BUDGET CUTBACKS

Attorney General Wants Owi Laws' Impact Examined

APPLETON - Atty. Gen. Peg Lautenschlager said Wednesday that impending cuts
to the state budget - and to her own spending at Wisconsin's Department of
Justice - "are going to be phenomenally significant."

Lautenschlager was in Appleton on Wednesday to speak at the Wisconsin
District Attorneys Association Conference at the Radisson Paper Valley
Hotel. She also met with The Post-Crescent editorial board.

Lautenschlager said among the cuts she is contemplating is closing the
State Crime Laboratory office in Wausau, which is one of three in the
state. The other two are in Milwaukee and Madison.

"It would greatly impact at least the police departments in northern
Wisconsin and their travel expenses," she said.

Lautenschlager said she also will propose the merger of the Division of
Narcotics Enforcement and the Division of Criminal Investigation, which she
expects will save $350,000 to $400,000 a year.

"It will save us in supervisory salaries, and frankly I think (DNE) is an
agency which has served the state well. But now we are at a time where
there is so much overlap among the categories of crime I think we can
provide better services to local departments in terms of our own department
in a merger," she said.

Gov. Jim Doyle, who served 12 years as Wisconsin's attorney general before
his election in November, has said the state is facing a $4.3 billion
deficit. In Madison on Wednesday, he said education - an area he previously
had pledged to spare - could face spending cuts.

Lautenschlager said the Justice Department already has been operating on a
"bare-bones budget" because it was an easy target for previous Republican
administrations at odds with Doyle, a Democrat. Lautenschlager, another
Democrat, defeated former Outagamie County Dist. Atty. Vince Biskupic, a
Republican, last fall.

On another matter related to state spending, she said the state's tough
drunken driving laws, which have increased jail populations in Outagamie
County and throughout the state, should be re-examined to see if they are
working.

She said enough time had passed under the tougher laws to make a study
possible.

Outagamie County is considering using satellite monitoring of drunken
drivers as an alternative to jail. The move is opposed by Dist. Atty.
Carrie Schneider.

Drunken driving offenders make up about two-thirds of the county's
work-release jail population.

"Now we need to have an assessment of the effectiveness of the various
programs and sanctions we have put in place and measure them," she said.
"Clearly the (work-release) costs of drunk drivers is huge.

"We should do it in a measured way so it doesn't appear we are being soft
on crime. And (we need to) do a cost-benefit analysis as to the
effectiveness of the sanctions. We have to talk about what this is costing us."