The Legislature's Joint Finance Committee (JFC) has almost completed its work on Assembly Bill (AB) 40, the 2013-2015 state budget bill.  JFC met on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.  Among other things, JFC approved further reforms to unemployment insurance.  On the education front, JFC eliminated funding for a single statewide student information system and directed the Department of Public Instruction to develop a multi-vendor system that will allow each school district to select the vendor of its choice.  Although the 2011 Legislature approved the creation of a single-vendor system, legislators from both parties expressed concerns about the administration's subsequent decision to award that contract to a Minnesota company when a Wisconsin company, Skyward, already serves many Wisconsin districts.  JFC's action essentially returns Wisconsin to the pre-2011 status quo, preserving Skyward employees' jobs and saving school districts the expense of adapting to a new system.

JFC also voted to halt implementation of Common Core Standards for science and social science until the Legislature can take a closer look at the positives and negatives of the Common Core program, which has recently become the subject of controversy.  The Assembly and Senate education committees held a joint hearing on Common Core last week, and JFC members determined further analysis was necessary before Wisconsin further commits itself.  JFC's action will not directly affect the Common Core standards for math and language arts, which Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers adopted on Wisconsin's behalf a few years ago, but the special legislative committee that will investigate the program may make recommendations about those subjects, too.

JFC did not take up the issue of school funding and school vouchers this week.  JFC members and Assembly and Senate leadership are still hashing out these issues, and JFC may meet again next week.  Once JFC has completed all its executive sessions, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau will incorporate all the JFC-approved changes into an Assembly substitute amendment to AB 40, which will supersede Governor Walker's original bill.  It is this substitute amendment that the Assembly will vote on in mid or late June.

You can continue to monitor JFC's activities via WisconsinEye and WisPolitics' Budget Blog.  You may also contact JFC directly via BudgetComments@legis.wi.gov.  Of course, you are always welcome to share your questions, comments, and concerns with my office.  Again, please remember that when everything else is said and done, I must either vote yes or no for the budget as a whole; I don't get to pick and choose.  If I conclude the good in the budget outweighs the bad, I'll vote for it; if the bad outweighs the good, I'll vote against it.