Update: Republican state Sen. Alberta Darling, co-chair of the Joint Finance committee, said Wednesday the panel will not meet this week.
She says lawmakers are still wrestling over which road projects would be affected by an $800 million cut in transportation funding.
Darling says she hopes the panel will resume budget deliberations next week.
Republicans in Madison are still trying to agree on a new budget for Wisconsin. There’s talk that the Joint Finance committee may return to the table on Thursday or Friday.
The panel clipped along during the month of May, but then fell silent.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald told Channel 12 that he’s trying to iron out agreements on two major remaining issues. One is a plan to pay for roads and transportation projects. Gov. Walker says he won’t raise taxes, so he’s proposed borrowing more than $1.3 billion over the next two years. Fitzgerald says the plan is not popular.
“I think it would be difficult to get that through this very conservative Republican caucus that I’m in charge of, so it probably leaves us with very few options other than delay a few projects and certainly a little bit of bonding,” Fitzgerald says.
Fitzgerald says another major stumbling block is a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team. Gov. Walker has proposed borrowing $250 million, and paying it back with money NBA players pay the state in income taxes. Earlier this month, GOP leaders announced a plan to scale back the amount to $55 million.
“It’s still a heavy lift. Out-state legislators have to make the case back home that what we’re doing for the city of Milwaukee is good for the state,” Fitzgerald says. He says he will not rule out the possibility that leaders will pull the arena item out of the budget and take it up as separate legislation.
“I hope to be able to support the Bucks," says Democratic state Sen. Lena Taylor of Milwaukee, a member of Joint Finance. “But you can’t expect somebody to run and carry the banner to support something when you’ve never invited them to the table to have a conversation."
Taylor says she’d like to see details before deciding whether to support the plan.
“What I’d like to see first is a document and I’d like to see that from the Fiscal Bureau so I can know what does this mean for Milwaukee, what does this mean for county residents, what does this mean for the state of Wisconsin,” Taylor says.
Taylor accuses the GOP of shutting Democrats out of the process. She says she’s also upset that Gov. Walker hasn’t taken a more active role in breaking the budget stalemate in the Joint Finance Committee.
He’s been traveling the country, apparently preparing to announce a run for President. Walker has said he won’t announce until he signs the budget. Wispolitics.com's JR Ross says the impasse could delay the governor’s plans.
“If this delay drags on into next week, then you’re starting to see the budget not get done until the second week in July. The longer it goes past July 1, it starts to bleed into Gov. Walker’s time frame for announcing his bid for the presidency,” Ross says.
Gov. Walker’s camp has hinted at an announcement possibly coming on July 13. As for Wisconsin’s budget, if it’s not finished by June 30th, the end of the fiscal year, state government continues operating at current funding levels.
