Budget Update

The Legislature's Joint Finance Committee held its third executive session on the 2021-2023 state budget on May 20.  The committee passed motions relating to the Department of Administration, the Elections and Ethics commissions, and the Department of Tourism.

The committee originally planned to take up broadband funding at this meeting, but it has postponed action on this issue, as well as on the Public Service Commission in general, to a later date.  Earlier this week, Governor Evers announced that the Public Service Commission would open a new round of broadband expansion grants - using $100 million of federal COVID funding - starting June 1.  As the budget process moves forward, the Finance Committee is likely to discuss additional funding for broadband expansion.  (In anticipation of a committee discussion about broadband this week, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau prepared a budget paper on the subject.  The other budget papers the LFB has prepared for executive sessions thus far are also available.)

The Finance Committee has already announced the agenda for its May 27 meeting, at which the theme will be education:  the Department of Public Instruction, the Wisconsin Technical College System, the Higher Education Aids Board, and the UW System.  The LFB budget papers on these agencies also are already available.

(Budget motions and budget papers make frequent page and item references to the LFB's summary of the Governor's budget recommendations.)

In budget-adjacent news, Governor Evers has called a special session of the Legislature to address a number of issues, many of which he included in his original budget proposal but were subsequently among the hundreds of policy provisions the Joint Finance Committee removed at its May 6 budget meeting.  Given that fact, legislative leadership have indicated that the Governor's special session bills are unlikely to proceed, and the Joint Finance Committee will continue its work on the budget bill.