Legislators have voted to remove more than 500 provisions that were included in the state budget proposal sent to the Legislature by Governor Tony Evers.
Included among the 545 proposals deleted from the Governor’s budget is his plan to create a paid family and medical leave program, which is strongly opposed by members of NFIB. The Governor’s paid leave proposal included an appropriation of $243 million, and hiring 198 state employees to launch, administer, enforce, and pay the initial benefits.
The Governor’s proposed small business retirement plan was also removed from the budget along with his initiative to increase the state minimum wage to $15 per hour, restore the state’s prevailing wage law, and repeal Wisconsin’s Right to Work law.
Representative Mark Born (Beaver Dam), Co-Chair of the Joint Finance Committee, said removing these policies from the budget was a vote to reject “the massive expansion of government and reckless spending” in the Governor’s $103.8 billion proposal.
During 2021 budget deliberations, Joint Finance Committee members removed over 380 issues, and in 2019, removed more than 130 policy provisions from the budget sent to the Legislature by the Governor.
The list of issues removed from the budget includes 145 items described by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau as non-fiscal policy, according to Senator Howard Marklein (Spring Green), Co-Chair of the Joint Finance Committee. Some issues deleted from the Governor’s budget have not had public hearings or gone through the normal legislative process. Senator Marklein said approximately 215 issues were repeated from the Governor’s 2021-23 budget and at least 57 items were removed for the third time. Many of the policies removed from the budget, strongly favored Governor Evers, will be reintroduced as stand-alone legislation.
Senator Marklein says the vote to remove the non-fiscal items and policies from the budget means the “train has left the station.” Members of the Committee are able to continue the process toward adoption of the 2023-25 state budget working from a bipartisan base budget signed into law by Governor Tony Evers two years ago.
