A package of DUI reforms is still on track to be passed by the end of the fall legislative session despite the bill being pulled from the Joint Finance Committee, Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker's spokeswoman says.

The Senate is on the floor Thursday and will take up the bill then. It will then have to move through the Assembly, which is also on the floor Thursday, before it can go to the governor.

Carrie Lynch, spokeswoman for Decker, D-Weston, said the changes the Senate is making shouldn't stall the bill.

"I don't know why there wouldn't be an agreement," Lynch said. "We're essentially passing their bill with very minor modifications, but the difference is we're paying for it.

"We're passing their bill with a funding source. If they can find a major policy difference, I'd like to hear what it is."

The Assembly passed a bill last month that enhanced drunken driving penalties and funded the new standards by transferring money from existing funds. When the proposal left the Assembly, it was expected to cost about $20 million per year.

After a new fiscal estimate was released that showed the cost of the bill to be about $70 million per year, a Senate committee passed a proposal that funded the reforms in part with a 50-cent per liter increase in the liquor tax. A compromise was expected to be hashed out in the JFC.

Rep. Mark Pocan, the co-chair of the JFC, reacted with surprise today that the bill was removed from the budgeting committee and pulled back to the Senate Committee on Organization.

"There's no reason why working together we couldn't have this on the governor's desk by the end of the week," Pocan said. "By circumventing the process by which we were going to reconcile the bills, it tells me there's going to be two different bills without reconciliation.”

Lynch said if Pocan was concerned about the bill not going through the JFC process, he should have directed it there before it was passed in the Assembly.

"His new found interest in the Joint Finance Committe is great. We have never wanted to circumvent the Joint Finance process," Lynch said.

Lynch said the Assembly put the Senate in a bind by not first taking the bill through the JFC, leaving questions about the fiscal viability of the measure as the end of the session drew near.

"(Pocan) had an opportunity to send it to Joint Finance. He chose to completely abdicate their responsibility and pass a bill with a structural deficit problem," Lynch said.

Statutes require a spending bill go through the JFC before passage in both houses, a rule Pocan said the Assembly honored more closely than the Senate, which will "dip" the bill in the committee without a vote.

But he said the important thing is the bill gets passed by the end of the floor session.

"Instead of trying to fight about this, let's find a way to get it to the governor by Thursday," Pocan said. "The Assembly is committed to finding a way to do that and we hope the Senate will join us."

Assembly Democrats have said the tax increase would have been a non-starter in that house, while Senate Dems countered it would be fiscally irresponsible to pass a bill without fully funding it and chided the Assembly for not putting the bill through the JFC, where most spending bills are sent.

But yesterday Wauwatosa Dem Sen. Jim Sullivan, the Senate author of the bill, said Senate Dems were moving off their insistence on a liquor tax hike in favor of an increase in criminal assessments as well as the fees paid by those whose licenses are revoked or suspended. The fiscal estimate for the bill is said to have been reduced with new data showing that the enforcement and treatment measures could decrease recidivism sharply.

-- By Greg Bump

State Sen. Jim Sullivan is putting the finishing touches on changes to proposed drunken driving legislation that would pay for the reforms through increased assessments on criminals and higher fees for those who have their licenses suspended or revoked rather than a hike in the liquor tax.

Sullivan, D-Wauwatosa, said changes in the bill have helped cut the expected cost to the $15 million to $30 million range annually, compared to a prior estimate that it could cost as much as $70 million a year.

Sullivan said he has not discussed the alternative with Assembly sponsors. But he believes this version will be more palatable politically than the proposed liquor tax increase.

Assembly sposors of the legislation have said the proposed tax increase was a non-starter in that house. Sullivan and Senate Dems originally proposed the liquor tax increase after costs estimates for the reforms skyrocketed. Sullivan said lawmakers have to find a way to pay for the reforms.

"Liquor distributors and manufacturers are not responsible for the drunk driving problem," Sullivan said. "The citizens of Wisconsin, each and every one of us are responsible for this problem. We did not want to single out a singe entity. But it is important if we're going to pass meaningful legislation that we have to fund that."

Sullivan's office said the exact language of the compromise bill was still being hammered out. It was expected the assessment on all criminals would be increased from $20 to $164, while there was likely to be an increase for the fee on suspended and revoked licenses in the neighborhood of $60.

Rep. Mark Pocan, the co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, said lawmakers are still waiting for new information from the Department of Corrections and the Legislative Fiscal Bureau about the costs of the proposal. But he said a lower fiscal estimate is expected due to some tweaks made to the reforms.

"We think there's a lower fiscal estimate and through some various surcharges we can cover the cost," Pocan, D-Madison, said.

Pocan said the removal of a liquor tax increase from consideration is "in the right direction" and he's hopeful the bill can pass the JFC Tuesday and get through the Legislature Thursday, the last floor day of the fall session.

-- By JR Ross and Greg Bump

The authors of drunken driving reform bills in the Assembly and Senate are trying to work out a compromise to get legislation passed before the legislative floor session ends next week.

If negotiations bear fruit, the legislation could be up for a vote Tuesday before the Joint Finance Committee.

The Assembly passed a bill last month that enhanced drunken driving penalties and funded the new standards by transferring money from existing funds. When the proposal left the Assembly, it was expected to cost about $20 million per year.

After a new fiscal estimate was released that showed the cost of the bill to be about $70 million per year, a Senate committee passed a proposal that funded the reforms in part with a 50-cent per liter increase in the liquor tax. Assembly Democrats have balked at the tax increase, while Senate Democrats say it would be fiscally irresponsible to pass a bill without fully funding it.

The Senate bill was scheduled to come before the JFC today, but was pulled as the companion bill's authors, Rep. Tony Staskunas and Sen. Jim Sullivan, both Democrats from Wauwatosa, work to find a resolution.

Carrie Lynch, spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, D-Weston, said the Senate Dems are not dug in on the liquor tax.

"Everything's still on the table," she said.

"We're still working on some stuff to make sure we can get this passed through both houses quickly," Lynch said.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, said the two sides are not far apart on the issue. But questions remain about what exactly the bill will cost. He also said the Assembly bill offers more treatment options than the Senate bill, and there may be ways to tap into Medicaid or private insurance for treatment costs to bring down the price tag of the bill overall.

Pocan, the co-chair of the JFC, said if a resolution can't be found before the session ends next week, he's confident reforms will pass before the end of the legislative session in late May. There could also be a conference committee formed to find a compromise if the authors and JFC fail to come up with a solution.

"I don't know anyone who's trying to kill the bill," Pocan said.

But Pocan added, "I think if we don't get it done by the end of the session, there's a (political) price to pay.

-- A bill to publicly fund state Supreme Court campaigns, called the Impartial Justice Bill, is set for a vote Tuesday by the JFC.

Pocan said details are still being worked out on how to fund the proposal. He said he prefers an "opt out" box in tax return forms that taxpayers would have to check to not contribute to a Supreme Court campaign fund.

-- The JFC today passed a handful of bills without much discussion, including regulations for dog breeders and creating a license requirement for X-ray machine operators and radiographers.

But companion bills to change some procedures for the revocation or suspension of a driver's license drew some fire from Republicans, who said they were too easy on drunken drivers.

Rep. Robin Vos, one of four Republicans to vote against the legislation, said the changes would be "bad for employers and weak on drunk drivers."

Rep. Tamara Grigsby, D-Milwaukee, one of the authors of the legislation, said the changes were requested by the Department of Transportation to help to streamline their processes.

Currently, a judge is required to confiscate a person's license upon an order of suspension or revocation and forward it to the DOT. The bills would end that requirement, though a judge would still be allowed to take the license. In addition, the bills would require the DOT to waive additional fees when the license is reissued.

The bills also end the requirement that police seize a driver's license upon arrest for driving under the influence.

-- By Greg Bump

The Joint Finance Committee will meet Tuesday to take up bills to reforms Wisconsin Shares and to fund state Supreme Court campaigns.

The Tuesday meeting could also include a bill to crack down on drunken driving, but it is not yet on the calendar.

The Wisconsin Shares and drunken driving reforms were originally on today's JFC calendar, but have been pulled as legislators work to come to agreement on the bills.

The JFC will meet today at 12:30 p.m. to vote on a handful of bills including one regulating dog breeders, which passed the Assembly yesterday.

See the calendar for Tuesday's meeting here.

-- By Greg Bump

The Joint Finance Committee will meet tomorrow at 12:30 p.m.

See the agenda here.

UPDATE: The drunken driving legislation is being removed from tomorrow's calendar, according to Rep. Mark Pocan, the co-chair of the JFC. Pocan said Assembly Dems still have a goal to get the reforms through the Legislature by the end of the fall floor session next week, though final passage may not come until the spring.

-- By Greg Bump

General purpose revenue tax collections are down 7.9 percent, or about $200 million, through September of the 2010 fiscal year as compared to the same period of the 2009 fiscal year, according to a report released by the Department of Revenue.

Individual income tax collections are down 8.1 percent, while sales tax collections are down 8.7 percent.

Corporate tax collections are up 9.2 percent.

-- By Greg Bump

The Department of Administration is reporting that the 2009 fiscal year ended with a positive balance of $89.6 million.

A letter attached to the report and signed by DOA Secretary Mike Morgan and State Controller Stephen Censky says in the report that the balance is $19.2 million higher than expected due to spending falling below estimates.

Also, GPR taxes fell 7.1 percent from $13.04 billion in FY2008 to $12.11 billion in FY2009.

"This decrease reflects spending cuts to GPR appropriations and federal fiscal relief
for education and Medicaid programs under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009," the letter says.

Also according to the letter:

*Local assistance accounted for 56.7 percent of total GPR spending.

*Aid payments to individuals and organizations represented 17.3 percent of total GPR expenditures.

*The University of Wisconsin accounted for 8.8 percent of total GPR spending and state operations spending for all other state agencies accounted for 17.2 percent of the total.

The full report can be viewed here.

-- By Greg Bump

Wisconsin's economy may be clawing its way back to health, but the state won't regain the 130,000-plus jobs lost in the past two years until 2012.

"It will be a long road back and job growth will lag the recovery because this recession was broad and deep," said John Koskinen, chief economist with the Department of Revenue. He spoke Tuesday at an Assembly Committee on Jobs, the Economy and Small Business.

See more from WisBusiness.

State government has spent $679.9 million of $701.3 million in federal stimulus money received so far, resulting in the direct retention or creation of 8,284 jobs, according to a preliminary report today from the state recovery office.

Of the $7.7 billion that is expected to flow into the state, $1.92 billion will be filtered directly through state government over the lifetime of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to Chris Patton, director of Wisconsin's Office of Recovery and Reinvestment. Another $2 billion will come in the form of tax credits or breaks, while the remaining $3.8 billion will go directly from the federal government to local governments, businesses and non-profits, Patton said.

The report claims more than 6,100 police officer, firefighter and teaching jobs have been saved through the use of fiscal stabilization funds. Patton said the federal reporting requirements don't require states to differentiate between jobs retained or created, or between public and private sector jobs.

"The Recovery Act really did not make a distinction between a private sector and public sector job," Patton said. "There were dollars specifically put into the program to help states and local governments meet the budget challenges they were facing in an attempt not to further create mass layoffs and unemployment."

Senate Minority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, complained Gov. Jim Doyle was touting the creation of more government jobs at a time when the state's private sector continues to hemorrhage positions and said the report underscored what a poor use of taxpayer money the federal stimulus package was.

"This stimulus funding isn't proving to be the jump-start to our economy that the Democrats at the state and national level claimed that it would be," Fitzgerald said.

More press release reaction:

JFC co-chairs Sen. Miller and Rep. Pocan

Rep. Sheridan

Rep. Nelson

RPW chairman Priebus

-- By Greg Bump

The Joint Finance Committee today approved a five-year election administration plan despite objections from Republicans that it doesn't include a provision to study implementation of a photo ID requirement for voters.

The plan, which calls for the Government Accountability Board to study possible policy and law changes to early voting, changing the date of the partisan primary and other alterations, is required to make Wisconsin eligible for nearly $4 million federal Help America Vote Act funds.

Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, introduced a motion to include a study on requiring voters to present photo ID at the polling place and provide a copy of the photo ID if voting by absentee ballot. Darling said a photo ID requirement is a "basic fundamental" of elections across the country.

"It's not to disenfranchise anybody. It's to enfranchise everybody," she said.

But Rep. Pedro Colon, D-Milwaukee, said there has been no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud.

"What (the motion) is going after is really the ability to vote," he said.

After the motion failed along party lines, Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, said it was "hypocritical" of Democrats not to allow a study that merely looks at the issue of whether the requirement would restrict voting.

"That's not the Wisconsin way of doing business," Olsen said.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, the chairman of the JFC, said most of the plan will require additional legislative input over the next five years, and legislators can introduce bills to direct the GAB on how to follow the plan.

But Pocan said no issue has been debated more in recent years than photo ID, and the GAB saw fit not to put a study of that issue in the five-year plan. Pocan accused Republicans of grandstanding on the issue.

"Some people are trying to make an issue out of nothing," he said.

The plan was approved with the caveat that the approval does not constitute a commitment of additional state funding to advance it.

Sen. Julie Lassa, D-Stevens Point, was the only vote against final passage of the GAB's five-year plan, saying she had concerns about cost.

"I am concerned about the feasibility and potential cost of some of the items that are contained on the list for study," she said in a statement released after the hearing. "My 'no' vote at the Joint Finance Committee hearing today underscores these concerns as well as my desire that the Board work with both rural and urban municipal clerks and other concerned individuals in creating future policy recommendations."

-- By Greg Bump