Doyle, leggies talk about deal
After months of disagreement on a state spending plan, Gov. Jim Doyle and legislative leaders came together late Friday to announce that a deal for the 2007-09 budget.
Doyle said both sides had to make "very difficult compromises."
"But the Legislature is elected to get things done, and at times to put aside partisan differences, at times to make some very hard compromises, and to come together and to do what's right for our state," Doyle said.
Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, said he was satisfied that the budget agreement keeps state spending at a level taxpayers are able to afford while meeting "the needs of those individuals who are going to get funding for the programs we put in here."
The package includes a $1 per pack increase in the cigarette tax and a $200 million transfer from the Patients Compensation Fund to balance the books and pay for new programs like the expansion of BadgerCare.
But it does not include some other revenue uppers that Doyle had originally proposed, including a tax on hospitals designed to generate more federal money for medical assistance or the tax on oil companies to pay for transportation projects.
Though leaders have signed onto the plan, there remains some question if the package will be approved by the Republican-controlled Assembly, where 25 members have signed some form of "no tax" pledges, or the Dem-controlled Senate, which gave up its universal health care plan Healthy Wisconsin and other priorities.
The budget conference committee will convene to vote on the budget Monday. If it receives three votes from each house, the bill will then go to the Assembly and Senate for a vote on Tuesday.
Huebsch would not say whether the proposal will receive a majority of the votes in his caucus.
"We're going to continue to talk to our caucus and figure out where we're at," Huebsch said. "Each one of my members, as I've said many times, contrary to what many people think, the speaker does not tell members of his caucus what they're going to do."
Senate Majority Leader Judy Robson, D-Beloit, said she believes the bill will pass the Senate.
"Most of the spending that is in this package is the same as the bill that we passed in special session," Robson said.
Huebsch said minus the oil tax, funding for transportation will reflect the funding levels the Assembly approved in its budget back in July.
"Virtually all of the same fees that were included in the governor's budget that also then passed the Assembly are included in this transportation budget," Huebsch said. "The real difference is the franchise fee and the fact that will not be included."
Huebsch said there will be an increase in bonding to pay for transportation needs as well. "I wouldn't call it a major increase in bonding," he said.
Doyle and the leaders did not comment when asked about the threatened lawsuit by physicians over the PCF transfer. Robson said it is a "one-time" transfer, and there is language in the bill to protect it from "raids."
The bill allows for a 2 percent increase per year in local government levies, the position the Assembly staked out in its budget.
To explain the school funding formula, Doyle called his state Budget Director Dave Schmiedicke to the podium. He said under the proposal a $79 million dollar increase in school equalization aid will be paid out through the school levy credit.
"It still will have the same effect on the property tax bill statewide. So instead of being paid out through school equalization it will go out directly on to the property tax bill through the school levy credit this year," he said.
The credit, with the additional $79 million, will rise to $672 million, Schmiedicke said, and the proposal, if adopted, will add another $150 million in the second year to the levy credit.
Doyle said the bill includes more than $400 million in spending cuts compared to the budget he originally introduced.
"A lot of that is things I care a lot about," Doyle said.
Doyle said he doesn't expect the cuts to cause any layoffs to state workers, but it will require "some very, very difficult and hard management of state agencies."
"The level of the cuts that are being imposed on state agencies are significant, and I believe we are going to be able to manage this," Doyle said. "Our cabinet secretaries have a really difficult job ahead of them, and it means they're probably going to have to impose some pretty strict hiring freezes and other restrictions as well as handling the retirement of baby boomers over the next couple years in a very careful manner."
The budget does not include a proposed $13 increase in the rental car fee for Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee counties for fund a commuter rail project for southeast Wisconsin. It was a proposal that Assembly Minority Leader Jim Kreuser, D-Kenosha, and Robson were regretful was not included in the final package.
Asked to identify the biggest sacrifice each of them had to make to reach an agreement, Kreuser named the KRM funding and the allowance for academic staff at UW campuses to organize.
Robson said the biggest sacrifice for Senate Dems was giving up Healthy Wisconsin.
Huebsch said for Assembly Republicans, it was accepting a tax increase.
"Even though it was the cigarette tax increase, that was the biggest challenge - accepting an increase that is reflected in the cigarette tax," he said.
Doyle said he concurred with Kreuser and Robson's regrets, but also identified his plan to mandate health insurance coverage for children with autism.
"I just don't see any good reason that isn’t the case, but I'm far from giving up on that fight," he said, adding that he hoped a Senate bill that addresses the issue will move forward.
Doyle said he doubts there will be "if any, very few vetoes."
"That's not to say there might not be a couple of vetoes here or there," Doyle said. "But we are in a very different position than we have been in either of the other budgets that I've had where the budget essentially was passed by an all Republican Legislature without any input from us and then put on my desk. Under that process I really go to work."
Listen to opening remarks at the press conference here.
Listen to the Q&A with reporters here.
