Legislative Alert: Please write your State legislators on Assembly Bill 831 which increases birth certificate fees. The authors of the bill are Representatives Kestell & Seidel and Senators Olson and Miller. This link will take you to the page that will give you the names and e-mail addresses for your representatives http://165.189.139.210/WAML// You can read the bill at http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2005/data/AB-831.pdf Get others involved too. The bill increases the fee for a certified or uncertified birth certificate from $12 to $15 and from $3 to $4 for additional copies issued at the same time. At the present time $7 of the $12 is sent to the state to be used by Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board for the expenses of the Early Childhood Education Center grant program, and grants to organizations for services related to child abuse and neglect. The bill increases the amount going to the state from $7 to $9 and then increases it to $10 after July 1, 2010. Our objection to this bill is that this is a user fee program but genealogists who order the uncertified birth certificates of their parents or grandparents have no relationship to the fee charged. It can be argued that by having a child, parents might be responsible for child abuse or neglect of that child. It is hard to argue convincingly that child abuse will occur to people who are no longer children. The Assembly will be back in session December 6 through 15 on Tuesday through Thursdays for this year. You can go to the WSGS website < http://www.wsgs.org > for updates. I suggest we write our legislators first along with the authors of the bill. This is the e-mail link for the Assembly http://www.legis.state.wi.us/leginfo/asmmail.asp This is the Senate e-mail link http://www.legis.state.wi.us/leginfo/senmail.asp The bill has a fiscal note so it will need to go to the Joint Committee on Finance before it can be voted on. The bill is definitely on a fast track because it was introduced on Nov. 14th and the committee hearing was Nov. 17th. Pam Anderson WSGS Advocacy Chair