Freshman Dem Rep. Chris Danou jokes he's got three pages worth of changes he'd like made to the state budget the Joint Finance Committee kicked out early Friday morning.

While he knows lawmakers normally have to take some bad with the good on any budget they vote for, Dem leaders are now faced with the task of persuading lawmakers like Danou that the bad isn't that bad. Or they have to find enough good to add to the document to win their support as they try to find the 50 votes they need to get the budget through the Assembly.

"When you look at documents like this, you know you're going to have to take the good with the bad. It's not a fun budget. There's no way around it," said Danou, D-Trempealeau.

"There's no way to say that this is going to be an easy thing to have to sign off on."

Rural Dems like Danou have already expressed their concerns about several provisions, and JFC knocked out a livestock slaughter fee that 10 of them had opposed in a letter to the co-chairs.

But other provisions remain problematic for some Dems, particularly the oil franchise fee that Gov. Jim Doyle proposed. Dem Co-chair Mark Pocan of Madison expressed some reservations about provisions in the proposal designed to prevent oil companies from passing on the costs to consumers, and Dem JFC members Jen Shilling and Gary Sherman voted with four Republicans to remove the tax from the budget.

Danou was one of more than half a dozen Dems to sign on to letters to the co-chairs requesting the provision come out of the budget, and Danou expressed concerns today on how it would impact co-ops, which are popular in his rural district.

See the letters here.

He also has some reservations about the prevailing wage provisions and joint and several liability.

"The Joint Finance Committee, even though they've got their stamp on it, it's not a done deal all the way," Danou said.

A Dem source downplayed any fears that the Assembly would have a difficult time finding the 50 votes needed to pass the budget or that regional interests would undermine the document JFC crafted.

The source said Dem Assembly leaders teamed up caucus members with those on JFC to ensure lawmakers were in the loop throughout the process and their concerns received attention. That process already helped members get their concerns addressed about some changes Doyle had proposed that would have affected county-run nursing homes. Those changes were eventually taken out.

Still, members like freshman Rep. Mark Radcliffe, D-Black River Falls, were still trying to digest the document today. He was one of the lawmakers that signed a letter on the oil franchise fee.

But some of his other concerns are much more local.

Radcliffe is unhappy with a proposal to close the local DMV stations in Black River Falls and Tomah, which would require his constituents to make the trip into Eau Claire or La Crosse for those services.

He also is trying to save a state trooper station in Tomah that's slated to close. The state is also looking to build a new DNR ranger station in Tomah, and he's trying to persuade the DNR and DOT to put the ranger station and DMV office in the trooper building, believing it would save money and keep all three open.

"They're not closing them in urban areas, so I don't like being picked on from a rural district," said Radcliffe, who added he needs more time to analyze the overall budget.

Freshman Rep. Nick Milroy, D-Superior, said he's already heard from those who don't like some of the tax and fee provisions in the budget as well as those who are unhappy with the various program cuts woven into the document.

He said he plans to take the next week to digest what the JFC put into the budget and hasn't made up his mind yet on whether he will ultimately vote for the budget. In the end, he said his goal is to see the best budget possible that will help get the economy back on track.

"When the state is literally out of money, there's difficult choices that have to be made," Milroy said. "This is a budget that no one is happy with, and I do think they're going to have trouble getting 50 votes in the Assembly."

-- By JR Ross