The Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted to give 110-thousand dollars to a suicide prevention group — but not without partisan commentary. Senator Jon Erpenbach noted the money was included in the budget approved this summer and said, “I get the due diligence, but this in my eyes is not due diligence. This is jut holding things up for a couple months.” Committee Republicans held off while awaiting recommendations of a suicide prevention task force. J-F-C co-chair Representative John Nygren responded, “we might have been even doing some other changes here today if four minority members of that task force hadn’t decided to leak their initial report to the media because it wasn’t going the way they wanted it to.” The money will help operate Hopeline, a text-based counseling service.
