Opinion ID: 1674322
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Public Welfare)

Text: NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN That pursuant to sections 46.03(8), 49.04(2) and 227.014(2), Wis. Stats., the Department of Health and Social Services will hold a public hearing at the State Capitol Building, Room 321 NE in the city of Madison, Wisconsin, on the 11th day of April, 1978 at 9:30 a.m. to consider the adoption of rules requiring counties and municipalities to establish certain procedures and standards in order to obtain reimbursement for temporary assistance (general relief) granted to state dependents under s. 49.04(1), Wis. Stats. A copy of the rules to be considered may be obtained upon request from the Office of the Secretary, Room 663, One West Wilson Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53702, after April 1, 1978. A public hearing on the proposed rule was held on April 11, 1978. Following the hearing, certain changes were made, and the final rule was published in the Wisconsin Administrative Register in July, 1978. Due to the insufficiency of the record in this case, the original version of the proposed rule is not before us. However, for purposes of this review, we will assume that the material included in the statement of facts in the County's brief is accurate, and we reproduce the County's characterization of the rule with the original language and subsequent changes from page 8 of its brief: PW-PA 20.15(6) (a) No reimbursement for relief granted to state dependents as defined in § 49.04(1). Wis. Stats. shall be provided to counties unless the County administering said relief program claiming reimbursement for such relief has adopted written standards which apply to all parts of the county relative to the eligibility for and amount of relief granted. PW-PA 20.15(6) (b) No reimbursement for relief granted to state dependents under § 49.04(1) Wis. Stats., shall be provided to counties unless the county administoring said relief program claiming reimbursement for such relief makes provision for the following procedural safeguards which apply to all parts of the county for all persons for whom reimbursement is sought whose applications are denied in whole or in part. The County argues that before these changes were made the rule arguably did not apply to counties operating on the unit system, while after the changes the rule clearly applied to all counties and that because the changes took place after the public hearing, the County was denied notice and an opportunity to be heard. In HM Distributors of Milwaukee v. Dept. of Agriculture, 55 Wis.2d 261, 268-69, 198 N.W.2d 598 (1972), we stated: The purpose of a public hearing is to give interested parties not only a chance to be heard, but to have an influence in the final form of the regulations involved. That purpose would not be served if the adopted rules were required to be identical in form to those proposed before the hearing. A question of the need for an additional hearing might well arise where the rules as adopted bore little resemblance to the rules as proposed. Here, where the rules as proposed vary from the rules as adopted only in details of wording and where the scheme prohibited was identical in both, we see no basis for complaint, much less for successful challenge. The question becomes whether the changes in PW-PA 20.15(6) reflect the Department's legitimate implementation of the input of the first hearing, or whether the final version so far differs from the proposed version that the first hearing could not be said to have offered an opportunity for interested parties to influence the final outcome. [13] We do not believe the changes required another hearing. The first notice in the March, 1978, Wisconsin Administrative Register indicated that the hearing would pertain to rules requiring counties and municipalities to establish certain procedures and standards for state dependent reimbursement. The scope of the notice was broad enough to alert the County that its interests might be affected. The proposed rule was a part of PW-PA sec. 20.15, Reimbursement for state dependents, every other part of which appears to apply to all counties, not just those on the county system for the administration of general assistance. Moreover, the proposed rule, in referring to the county administering said relief program, did not mean, in our view, only those counties which were administering the entire general relief program under sec. 49.02(2) or sec. 49.03, Stats. Rather, we are satisfied that the rule as proposed encompassed the entire state dependent program and that the words administering said program referred to the county involvement necessary under sec. 49.01(1) and (2). The change merely clarified the intended scope of the rule and avoided the ambiguity which the County here advances. Because we conclude the change in the wording of the rule did not so alter the original scope of the proposed rule as to require a second public hearing, we cannot invalidate the rule on procedural grounds. By the Court.  The decision of the court of appeals is affirmed.