Senator Shilling and I will be holding another budget listening session on Monday, April 17^th at the Holmen Village Hall Community Room from 4:30 – 6pm. This meeting, like our earlier one in West Salem, is a chance for us to hear what our constituents have to say about the 2017-19 Biennial Budget. We hope you will be able to attend and share your thoughts with us. If you aren’t able to attend but would still like to present your opinions, you can send us an email at rep.doyle@legis.wisconsin.gov.

No RSVP necessary. If you have questions, just give my office a call at (608) 266-0631.

It was a big week for the budget. After marathon public listening sessions across the state, the Co-Chairs of the Joint Finance Committee (JFC) laid out their plans for the budget. They did three important things:

1. Agreed to use the Governor’s proposed budget as the starting point for their deliberations on everything EXCEPT transportation.
2. Removed 83 policy items from the budget that weren’t related to state finances.
3. Decided to work off the ‘base budget’ for transportation.

Okay, let’s break this down:

1. Agreed to use the Governor’s proposed budget as a starting point.

When the JFC begins their deliberations on the budget, they always have a choice:

    a. start with what the Governor proposed or

    b.start with the current funding levels or ‘base.’

In recent times and especially when the Governor and both houses of the Legislature are controlled by the same party, using the Governor’s proposed budget is very common.

This means that most of the big ticket items are still on the table: K-12 education funding, tuition freezes for higher education, and self-insurance for state workers are still on the table.

When the JFC Executive Sessions start next month, they will decide whether to cut, add to, or fully fund each of these programs.

Again, things are still in flux but this gives everyone a good idea of where to focus.

        2. Removed 83 policy items

Because the budget is the biggest piece of legislation we take up in a session, a lot of little pet projects that don’t have anything to do with state finances often get snuck in without much notice. And a lot of them would probably have been difficult to pass on their own. These are called “non-fiscal items” or “policy items,” and they are almost always the source of some debate as to whether or not they should be in the budget at all.

The Governor’s proposed budget contained the most non-fiscal items since 2001. So the JFC removed every single one of them from the budget. Here is a quick breakdown of the most controversial items that have been scrapped:

• Education:
  • Eliminating the required hours of instruction for public, charter and voucher schools.
  • Creating mandates on school board meeting dates and times.
• Environment:
  • Transferring the regulatory authority of CAFOs from the DNR to DATCP.

• Regulation and Licensing:
  • Eliminating certain administrative boards and councils
• Higher Education:
  • Permitting students to choose not to pay allocable segregated fees.

My constituents have raised serious concerns about each of these issues and I am pleased to see them removed from the budget. But a word of caution: while these proposals won’t be on the table for this budget, there is always a chance they will be introduced as standalone legislation later in the session.

This might be the most significant of the three: the members of the JFC have outright rejected the Governor’s proposal and instead will start with what the last budget provided for the Department of Transportation.

Transportation funding is one issue that no one in the legislature seems to agree on. However, almost everyone agrees that something needs to be done – the disagreement is on how.

The Governor supports bonding, borrowing for road repairs and prioritizing some projects over others. The Speaker of the Assembly supports raising the gas tax, something that the Governor has vowed to veto. The leaders of the Senate and Assembly are split between the desire to work off the Governor’s proposal and start from scratch. Working off the base budget appears to be a compromise.

While there appears to be no agreement between the two houses, it is encouraging that they are both committed to finding a long-term solution to transportation funding. We aren’t out of the woods yet but it is clear that borrowing isn’t the answer.