Madison - Today State Senator Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) responded to the official finding that Governor Scott Walker’s budget proposal to eliminate local governments’ residency requirements is “non-fiscal” policy. The determination by Bob Lang, head of the legislature’s non-partisan Fiscal Bureau, was reported this morning.

 

“The budget is supposed to be confined to fiscal matters. I have called on the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee to promptly remove this non-fiscal policy from the budget, and to respect the Fiscal Bureau’s finding that eliminating local residency requirements are ‘not closely related to the state's fiscal programs for the next biennium,’” said Carpenter.

 

“Eliminating local residency requirements is not only ‘non-fiscal’ policy; it is ‘bad’ policy. This is a matter of local control, and changing state law to override such local control is inappropriate for the state government to do,” said Carpenter.

 

“If such policy is to be considered by the legislature, let its supporters prepare a stand-alone bill and defend it through the normal legislative process,” said Carpenter.