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Budget Bill Awaits Gov. Walker's Signature

Wisconsin's State Capitol
Flickr.com/pinchof
Wisconsin Assembly passed a $72.7 billion budget sending it to Gov. Walker's desk

A two-year $72.7 billion dollar state budget is now awaiting the signature of Gov. Scott Walker. After a two hour delay because of a bomb threat, and about 12 hours of debate, Assembly lawmakers passed the spending plan just before 1 a.m. 

Eleven Republican broke rank and voted along with Democrats against the package, but it wasn’t enough to derail what many Democrats have referred to as a “crap” budget.

For months, they’ve expressed concern over the impact they believe this budget will have on public education.

Originally, Gov. Walker proposed a $127 million dollar cut to K-12 education over the first year. While Republican lawmakers did away with the cut leaving spending flat, Democrats are upset that no new funding was added during the first year. An additional $70 million will be spent on K-12 education during year two.

When it comes to Milwaukee Public Schools, lawmakers did include a measure that would allow those deemed the worst performing to be converted into independent charter or private voucher schools. People who oppose that provision see it as a way to dismantle or take over MPS.

Democratic Representative Chris Taylor says children are left fighting for scraps in this budget.

“You’re not doing right by our kids in this budget. I seems that unless our children have a Super PAC or a big crew of lobbyists you’re not going to listen to them. And make no mistake, when you come after public education, you come after our children. And the parents of this state, myself included are sick and tired of it,” Taylor says.

Under this budget, the voucher system will also be expanded. Right now, the state wide program is capped at 1,000 students. The new provision will allow up to 1 percent of students in a district to participate using public money. The budget also creates a special needs voucher program.

When it comes to higher education, the UW System will indeed see a $250 million cut, tuition will be frozen for another two years and the provision that would allow tenured faculty to more easily be fired remains.

Another hot button issue in recent months has been the prevailing wage. It sets a minimum wage for government construction projects. Some Republicans wanted to repeal the law while Democrats thought it should remain in place. If Walker signs this budget as is, the wage will be repealed for local municipalities while the state will continue to abide by current guidelines.

Despite complaints from Democrats, most Republicans say this is a solid budget. Robin Vos is the Assembly Speaker. He says that thus far, Republicans have gotten it right.

“We were once a state that was over spending, bleeding jobs and over taxing our citizens. We were a state that Democrats put in a financial tailspin. Thankfully, with reforms like Act 10 and nearly $2 billion in tax cuts, Wisconsin is now back on track. Our unemployment rate as the gentleman pointed out nationally 5.5 percent, in Wisconsin, we’re at 4.6 percent. Tens of thousands of new jobs have been created and the number of new businesses continue to increase each and every month,” Vos says.

Vos says this budget will continue to move the state in the right direction.

Now that the budget is done and ready for Walker to sign before he’s expected to announce his presidential run on Monday, lawmakers can focus on other things. The Assembly is expected to take up the ban on abortions after 20 weeks as soon as later Thursday.

And then there’s the fight over public financing for a new Bucks arena in Milwaukee. Supporters are hoping lawmakers can reach a deal soon. The NBA has said that if the team does not have a new facility by the fall of 2017 it will relocate the team to another city.

LaToya was a reporter with WUWM from 2006 to 2021.
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