Billions of dollars separate
Republican state budget provisions
from the two-year spending plan
Governor Tony Evers first
introduced.
Last night, the Joint Finance
Committee voted to increase K-12
school funding by $336
million.
That's $3 billion less
than Evers called for.
On special education funding,
Republican budget riders targeted
$228 million.
Putting the percentage of state
funding going to schools for
those services at 37.5%
in the second year, far
short of the 60% Evers
and Advocates wanted.
On income tax cuts, Republicans
expanded the second lowest
bracket taxed at 4.4%
to single filers making up
to about $50,000.
That's up from those making
30,000 They also
included $700 million in
tax cuts for retirees,
with an income tax exclusion for
the first $24,000
of income for filers
67 years or older.
For more on all of this, we go to
senior political reporter Zach
Schultz at the Capitol in Highsack.
So that's quite a gulf in K-12
spending between Republican budget
riders and Evers.
Yeah, that is a big gulf.
And the question that remains to be
seen is how Governor Evers will take
this when this budget eventually
gets to his desk.
We had known all along that there
was going to be a big golf between
what he wanted and what Republicans
would agree to.
But this is even bigger than what we
had thought at first, simply because
they're not funding any of the
per-pupil aids that Governor
Evers created in his partial veto
of the last budget, remember the
400-year veto that increase
per pupil funding by $325
a kid per year for 400 years.
The Supreme Court held that up as
legal, but Republicans did
not put any state money behind that.
So it will be up to individual
school districts.
Their levy will be increased.
But you have to then decide if they
want to raise property taxes to
gather all that revenue for
operations.
On special education funding, the
majority raised the percentage of
funding coming from the state from
33% to 37.5%
in the second year.
But that, again, is far short
of what Evers and advocates
wanted.
Yeah, and we've been covering this
on here and now for quite a few
years about that shortfall in
special education funding coming
from both the state and the federal
government. Neither have held up
their end of the bargain for what
they promised dating back to the 70s
and it's school districts that are
left picking up the pieces and
they're the ones who have to figure
out how do we provide the services
to these special needs kids and
often they end up taking it out of
general ed dollars that would serve
the rest in all of the student body.
Often that's the driver for a lot
of these districts going to
referendum over the last decade.
Is they simply need more money to
fund everything because if they
don't give the money that's
guaranteed to these special
education students they can be sued
and quite often they have been as
more and more parents and advocates
say go fight for the rights
of your child it's the school
districts that have to find the
money to make up for it.
Now this is an increase and
Republicans are saying this is well
above where it's been in recent
years and decades and even dating
back to when Governor Evers was the
Secretary of education at DPI.
This is above what he was
requesting, but it's still far short
of what Democrats would like to see
now.
On tax cuts, it's $1.3
billion to expand the second
lowest tax bracket and
for retirement income tax cuts.
Now, this wouldn't seem to be
something that the governor would
oppose with his veto pen,
right?
No, these tax cuts definitely feel
more in line with what Governor
Evers has proposed over his first
four budgets, versus what
Republicans have passed in their
first three budgets, which were
targeted toward higher-end earners,
and Governor Ebers vetoed all
of those. This time around, if you
remember, back in December, Assembly
Speaker Robin Vos said he wanted
to know for sure what Governor Evers
would sign into law for tax cuts
rather than see a veto come out
when Republicans proposed their
budget. He wanted to pass a separate
bill. That didn't happen.
But they did enter into negotiations
that went on for apparently nearly
a month between the upper leadership
of Republicans and Evers and his
staff. And it has the feeling
of the result that comes into this
budget feels sounds like what
Governor Evers may have agreed to.
I spoke to some staffers for
Democrats and they weren't privy to
all the negotiations, but they got
the sense that this is in line with
what Governor Evers had said.
So if that's the case, Republicans
went into negotiations, found out
what Evers could support in terms
of tax cuts on his end, put it
in the budget, and now they're not
giving Evers what he wanted in terms
education, basically daring
him to say, veto this budget if
you will, but it does have a little
more money for education and it's
got tax that in theory fit more with
who you want to see tax cuts go for,
typically lower-income
people.
So next week the Joint Finance
Committee is taking up corrections
and the UW system.
How big ticket are those?
Well, those could be very big
ticket. UW has not received nearly
as much in recent budgets
as they have asked for.
They continue to ask for hundreds of
millions of dollars and Republicans
have not been giving it to them.
Could they see more?
This time, we don't know.
Corrections, obviously Governor
Evers has asked for a lot of money
to completely rearrange the
corrections system so they can close
down the Green Bay facility
eventually. We don't what that will
look like. And there's one more.
Department of Children and Families,
which could include any child care
subsidies that could go out there
for child care providers and
parents, that was one of the things
that Evers and his team were
negotiating. So we don't know where
that will fall as left.
So some big ticket items that
could include some money or might
include nothing.
We don't really know, but we are
keeping on track for having this
budget get done near the end of
June.
Will the Republican budget
writers have made this document veto
proof, do you suppose?
Well, nothing's veto proof because
Governor Evers can still lower
dollar amounts and make these tax
cuts smaller or eliminate entire
sections, as he likely will for some
of the provisions that are put in
there, but they're going to make
it much more difficult for him to
create new language as he did with
that 400-year veto we were talking
about in education from the last
budget.
All right, Zach Schultz, thank you
so much for joining us.
That was a thing of beauty.
Thank you. We got it.
Thank you
Thanks everybody for helping on the
IFP.
And for the record,
this is the shot.