Walker signs $76B budget
Bill includes money for schools, fees on hybrids
NEENAH - Gov. Scott Walker on Thursday signed the two-year, $76 billion budget, providing $600 million more for K-12 schools, cutting property taxes, keeping a freeze on in-state University of Wisconsin System tuition and doubling fees on hybrid drivers.
“This is a solid budget,” Walker said at a bill-signing ceremony at Tullar Elementary School in Neenah. “It’s going to put more money into schools than ever before and still help keep property taxes down.”
Assembly Republicans are unhappy with some of the 98 partial vetoes Walker made to the budget, but they appear certain to stand.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said there was “zero chance” his house would take up any veto overrides if the Assembly were to pursue that route. Veto overrides in Wisconsin are rare, with the last one occurring in 1985.
With the budget now complete, Walker can now announce his likely bid in 2018 for a third term and Republicans who control the Legislature can turn to other bills.
Fitzgerald said lawmakers will consider whether to loosen mining regulations; write new rules for the handling of tissue from abortions; and allow people to carry concealed guns without getting training or state permits.
Among the vetoes, Walker deleted additional funding for state school districts that spend the least on their students, a provision that could eventually affect the school where the governor signed the budget.
Mary Pfeiffer, superintendent of the Neenah Joint School District, introduced Walker at the event and thanked him for putting more money into schools. She also made clear she disagreed with his veto affecting lowspending schools.
“We ask that you consider — maybe next budget — our (spending) floor,” she told Walker.
State law allows all schools to get at least $9,100 per student. Under a budget provision passed by lawmakers and deleted by Walker, that minimum level would have risen to $9,300 per student and then $100 more every year after that until it hit $9,800 per student.
The Neenah district spends about $9,550 per student right now, so the school board wouldn’t have been eligible to use the provision for three or four years, district spokesman Jim Strick said
“A few years down the road, we would have been able to take advantage of it,” Strick said.
Rep. John Nygren (RMarinette), co-chairman of the Legislature’s budget committee, said he was “severely disappointed” by that veto and didn’t ruled out an attempt to override it.
“I don’t see how anyone can say we respect the governor’s right to veto without expecting him to respect our right to override. They go together,” Nygren said.
The budget was supposed to be done by July 1, but Republicans who run the Legislature missed that deadline because of disagreements over transportation and taxes. State funding had been continuing at levels set in the last budget until Walker signed the new spending plan Thursday.
The budget will spend $75.7 billion and provide for 70,395 state employees — in both cases a modest decrease over what Walker proposed in February.
As a cushion over the next two years, the budget is expected to leave enough extra money in the state’s main account to run the government for just over four days.
At the start of the next 2019-’21 budget, the bill will leave a more than $900 million gap between the level of taxes and the level of spending that are written into state law. Though substantial, the projected shortfall is smaller than the typical amount over the past two decades, according to the Legislature’s nonpartisan budget office.
The budget includes $639 million for K-12 education. Schools will see an additional $200 per student this school year; $204 on top of that the following year; and up to $125 for each ninth-grader to pay for laptops or other electronics.
The budget also expands taxpayer-funded vouchers for religious and other private schools to allow roughly 800 more students into those programs.
Rep. Amanda Stuck (DAppleton) said Walker’s budget should have included more funding for schools because of past cuts to education.
“Our schools are struggling. They’ve been cut and cut and cut,” she said. “(The additional funding from Walker) is still not enough to make up for all the cuts that have been done.”
Under the budget, property taxes on the median value home worth $160,600 would remain flat this year at roughly $2,851 and then would drop $22 next year, according to the Legislature’s nonpartisan budget office.
The budget will also reduce property taxes on business machinery by $74 million and eliminate the state’s $8.5 million alternative minimum tax, which is mostly paid by upper-income taxpayers.
The budget raises annual fees on hybrid cars from $75 to $150 and on electric cars from $75 to $175. It borrows $402 million for transportation infrastructure, far less than included in recent budgets. The plan delays work on Highway 15 in Outagamie County and the north leg of the Zoo Interchange in Milwaukee County and puts off the reconstruction of I-94 between the Zoo and Marquette interchanges.
The measure also includes a $4 million earmark for a tiny Wisconsin Rapids airport that has seen a boost in private jets since a Republican donor’s golf course opened nearby.
NETWORK-WISCONSIN