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Movement on the State Budget
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | July 1, 2015
From WisPolitics.com …
Legislative leaders announced today an overview of their agreement on transportation funding for the state budget and plans to take up in the state Assembly next week changes to the prevailing wage alongside the spending plan.
But Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said he still does not have enough votes to pass the full budget in his caucus. He also said he was still working with his members on prevailing wage and a public financing package for the Milwaukee Bucks, which the Senate will take up first.
The Joint Finance Committee will come in tomorrow to take the final votes on the budget with the Assembly expected to take up the bill Tuesday or Wednesday along with the prevailing wage bill. Fitzgerald said he hoped to be in next week as well on the budget if it clears the Assembly, but also made clear he was still working his caucus.
“No, I don’t have the votes right now as I stand here, but I don’t expect to have the votes,” Fitzgerald said.
Under the agreement leadership reached, the Assembly will bring to the floor next week a bill introduced in that chamber to fully repeal the prevailing wage. Assembly Republicans will then offer an amendment to the bill that reflects a package Sen. Frank Lasee, R-De Pere, has put together. It would repeal the prevailing wage statutes for local governments and federalize it for state work. State thresholds currently on the books would remain in effect.
The Assembly would then pass both the budget and the prevailing wage bill and send them to the Senate.
Leadership did not offer many details of the final packages the Joint Finance Committee will take up tomorrow at a hearing noticed to start at 10 a.m. But they said the budget will not include the prevailing wage proposal or the Bucks arena.
The transportation package includes $500 million in bonding with another $350 million the committee can issue as the Department of Transportation submits requests for work. That would still be a significant reduction from the $1.3 billion in borrowing Gov. Scott Walker proposed.
Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said the reduction would be felt fairly evenly between out-state projects and the Zoo Interchange. Still, work on the core of the Zoo would not be impacted. Rather work on the north leg would be delayed.
Vos also said the package will include a study looking at other revenue sources for transportation, including the possibility of tolling.
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