Evers Signs Budget Bill

(But Vetoes Personal Property Tax Repeal)

The 2021 budget process officially came to an end on July 8, when Governor Evers signed the budget bill into law as Act 58.  However, he did use his line-item veto powers to make several changes, which he listed in his veto message.

Some of the more significant vetoes include:

• Removing a requirement that the Department of Revenue update its withholding tables to reflect changes in the tax laws, including the rate reduction included in this budget.  In other words, Governor Evers wants you wait until tax time to get the benefit of your tax cut, rather than have it show up on your paychecks.
  
• Eliminating a larger ongoing transfer from the General Fund to the Transportation Fund, which would have meant an extra $50 million each year for Wisconsin roads going forward.
• Deleting a requirement that the Department of Workforce Development immediately establish a drug testing program for unemployment insurance claimants with certain jobs.  This program has actually been on the books for several years, but Governor Evers and his DWD have been reluctant to implement it despite the opportunities it provides for treatment.

Despite the above line-item vetoes (among others), I am pleased the Governor didn't listen to extremists who had hoped he would veto the bipartisan budget in its entirety.  Had he done so, that would have jeopardized not only billions of dollars in federal education funding, but also a historic tax cut for millions of Wisconsin residents.  However, I do take issue with the Governor's attempt in his veto message to share credit for the tax cut, given that if he'd had his way and the Legislature had rubber-stamped his original proposal, taxes would have gone up over $1 billion.

The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau will now prepare a final budget summary that compares Act 58 with the Governor's original version of Assembly Bill 68 and Assembly Bill 68 as approved by the Joint Finance Committee and the Legislature.

Also on July 8, Governor Evers vetoed Assembly Bill 191, which would have repealed the personal property tax.  He explains his reasoning in his veto message, but there have been calls to repeal the tax for over a hundred years – the Wisconsin Tax Commission urged repeal back in 1916 – and it is incredibly inefficient.  Affected businesses, not to mention local governments, often spend more on related administrative costs than the tax itself generates, so repealing the tax would be a win-win.  It’s my understanding that all of Wisconsin’s border states abolished the personal property tax years ago, and AB 191 would finally have rid Wisconsin of this obsolete holdover from territorial days.