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6/26/2009
Details. Messy budget comes out of Conference
Call and email your Assembly representative. Now. Before tonight at 8:30. This budget is still a very bad bill.
A budget crafted in an unabated mess-of-a-process 100% behind closed doors. And the 149-page report of the Conference Committee is no exception, released before the Conference Committee met. No. Excuse me. The Conference Committee met for 3 hours Wednesday night; Senator Decker read through the week-old 109-page report detailing differences between the Assembly and Senate versions of the budget bill. Sen. Scott Fitzgerald called the proceedings “a mockery” and “an insult to the minority.”
“Conference Committee Report” in hand (available to Republicans at about 8:30 last night), the Conference Committee met and approved the Report, 4-2, both Republicans of course voting No.
The Conference Committee Report requires an up or down vote of both houses (cannot be amended). With Senate Democrats caucusing until past midnight to reportedly get the votes needed to pass the Report, a Senate session finally got underway at 12:15 this morning. The budget passed the Senate at 12:30 this morning, 17-15, with Sen. Sullivan (D-Wauwatosa) once again voting no.
Assembly rules require they have a bill for 24 hours before they can vote on it. Imagine that. That 24-hour countdown started about 8:30 Thursday night, when the above-mentioned 149-page Conference Committee report was made available, having been crafted completely behind closed doors by Senate and Assembly Dems.
That Conference Committee Report was crafted to resolve 159 differences between the Senate and Assembly versions of the budget, again, detailed in the June 18, 109-page report also mentioned above.
From my review, aided extensively by WisPolitics and Steve Eggleston, here are a few of the critical elements of the final budget that passed the Conference Committee, the Senate and is headed for the Assembly.
- KRM, Chippewa Valley and Chequamegon Bay RTAs “live on, but the Fox Valley RTA is dead.” Wow.
- NO “oil company profits tax”
- Oil tax revenue partially replaced with reduction in capital gains exclusion to 30%
- $140 million was kept in the Transportation Fund, not transferred to the General Fund
- $37 million was transferred from the PECFA fund to the Transportation Fund (fewer dollars available to fund cleanups for municipalities)
- Funding cuts restored to DOJ, per Assembly budget
- UW-Madison Nursing School building project delayed until 2011
- QEO repealed, to take place the effective date of the bill (not 1 year from now)
- Mandatory increase to auto insurance levels remains in the bill
- Funding for GAB ethics investigations remains in the bill (was stripped by Senate)
- Use-value changes are out
- Driver’s Card for illegal immigrants is out
- In-state tuition for illegal immigrants is in
- 911 phone fee of 75 cents will begin earlier, Sept. 1, but won’t apply to texting services
From Mary Lazich (h/t Eggleston – thanks Steve and Kevin Fischer)
- Total spending increases $4 billion, or 6.8%
- Increase in taxes and fees is $2.1 billion
- Property taxes on a “median valued home” will increase on average $220 in the two years of the biennium or $1.5 billion.
- Eggleston points out that’s total tax increases of $3.6 million.
- The budget borrows an additional $2.9 billion. The budget creates a structural deficit of $2.3 billion
It seems the Confrence Committee may have added a Card-Check provision when giving the right to organize to UW research assistants.
Provide that bargaining units would be formed if and when a majority of research assistants at each campus affirm the decision to participate in collective bargaining by signing an authorization card stating this intent. Require the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) to establish a procedure whereby research assistants may determine whether to form themselves into collective bargaining units by authorization cards in lieu of secret ballot. [Emphasis is mine.]
I’ll check on that “in lieu of secret ballot” stuff.
It’s a mess of a budget. And I’m running out of time to review it further!
Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net
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